GAPS Diet & Nutrition,  The GAPS Diet

GAPS With A Family: Part 2-Keepin’ the Soup On!

(Stock and soup have been staples around here…please excuse my stove mess!!)

With the chilly days here it has been a wonderful comfort to enjoy soups! I can see how starting GAPS Intro during the cooler months would be a blessing (we started in July! lol!) With our recent move, I was getting totally behind on doing some of the basics-fermenting, creating stock and soups, etc. So one evening I just decided that I would start some soup (it also had hidden motives in trying to keep one VERY EARLY RISING 8 year old boy pacified longer in the morning before this mama wanted to get up!!)

I already had some bones in a pot of water simmering on the back stove, so I filled a smaller (pretty blue!) pot about half full of chicken stock. I threw in some leftover veggies that were about to be spent, some frozen odds and ends of carrots and celery and also (just to give it some flavor) took out a red onion and quickly caramelized it in a separate saute pan, then browned some ground beef in the same pan.

It was a little more work (making meat, etc) than I would usually go to in the evening after dinner, but I really wanted my 8 year old to smell all the flavors that I was putting into the soup for when he woke up…so mama could sleep a bit longer! =)

The next morning he woke up and enjoyed three bowls before all of us got up and started the eggs for breakfast.

As we mainly started GAPS to help heal him and the way his brain works, I was amazed to see how much he craved the soup through out the day as it was just warm on the stove available whenever he wanted it!

For dinner I started us all off with a small bowl and we told the kids they had to finish it before the got the rest of dinner…this didn’t go over as well with a couple of the kids who are not soup fans, but soon enough all of us had some good bone broth in our tummies.

Most of the evenings for the past week to two weeks I have been making soups. They are often very different, and sometimes a bit plain, but I do think it is really helping our son. Not only to have food ready to go in the morning (it seems to be keeping him out of mischief!), and also to help regulate his body with all that good fat and bone broth.

So, that is the set up in my kitchen right now…big pot of stock going all day on a simmer and smaller pot of soup on low all day for anyone to enjoy-and we finish it off at dinner!

What soups have you been enjoying lately?

5 Comments

  • Jenni

    I have a question about cooking on the stove over night. Do you leave the stove on all night? I’ve always wrestled with the idea of leaving the stove on, due to the danger of something catching on fire in the middle of the night. Is this ever a concern for you? Thanks for your thoughts!!

    • Tarena

      It was at first for me too…it was also hard the first time we had raw milk and stuff like that. It took some getting used to, but I don’t keep things near the stove and it is on low with the burner completely covered by the pots.
      It seems pretty safe to me now that I am used to it, but as with anything that involves heat, there could always be a risk or danger involved.
      I would say to use your discretion in your own home. If you have little kids that might wake up and touch the pot or pull it on themselves, that could be a danger too.
      Be careful and wise! =)
      If it does worry you, you could always just start it right when you get up in the morning and it could be something you use for dinner, or just put in the fridge and finish up the next day!
      I hope this helps!

  • Danielle

    Great post! Along with Jenni’s previous question, just wondering if you ever use a crock-pot for overnight soup and stock-making? If seems safer to me than the stove on all night, so that might be a good option for her.

    • Brenda

      Danielle, I always use my crockpots for cooking broth and soups. I’ve usually got at least 1 (or both) on the counter with broth going. I agree, if you’re worried about the stovetop, using a slow cooker might make you feel a little safer! 🙂

  • Yuliya

    This is an old post but I just signed up to receive Emails from you, im a newbee….so I was wondering what pots you use. I have been researching so much about Teflon, aluminum, etc that I don’t even know what to use anymore. Because of all the metals leaching into food, I ended up on corning ware until I read the things shattered and are very dangerous for stove tops! So now I am lost again. I do not like cast Iron, had one and just hated it, everything tasted like iron. I read stainless steel if something gets stuck and you scratch it or if you do anything to the pot it will start releasing nickel and chromium into food. So I thought maybe enamel covered pots? But most are cast iron and I can’t have iron in my body at all because I have liver issues. I would like to know what you use for soups, fry things in, etc. Thank you

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