Spinach Soup with Cashew Cream. Soup for the Soul

I love soup!  Don’t you–especially when it is ridiculously cold outside?  When I got my grubby hands on the Winter Soups Community Cookbook, which is a compilation of 52 soup recipes,  all I wanted to do was stand in front of the stove to make soup.   But one soup in the book made me lick my chops–the vegan spinach  with cashew soup from my friend, Karen.  I altered the soup based upon what I had in the house.  So here is my version.

Start salivating!

Spinach Soup Ingredients:

5 cups organic chicken, turkey or vegetable stock.  See my comments below about why I used one over the other.  ( PS Here’s how to make your own.)

1 bag of organic spinach

2 sweet potatoes (I prefer the white sweet potatoes.)

1/2 teaspoon of dried organic tarragon

1/2 teaspoon of dried organic paprika

1 teaspoon of dried organic parsley

1 cup of cashews soaked for 4 hours prior to making the soup.

1 organic onion

2 garlic (my garlic is rather large so you can easily use 4 regular size garlic)

Pepper and salt to taste

Instructions

1.  Soak the cashews for four hours in enough water to cover the nuts.  I soak my nuts to make them more digestible. Don’t omit the cashews in this recipe.  They make the soup so delicious.

2.  Chop the onion and garlic and saute them in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until the onions are translucent. Sometimes, I get impatient and simply cook them for 5 minutes.   (Note, I use my 360 cookware pan which doesn’t need any oil. I truly love these pans.)

3.  Add the five cups of chicken or turkey broth.  You can use vegetable broth too but honestly, the chicken broth gives it a much richer taste.  I have made it both ways.

4.  Peel and cut the sweet potatoes in chunks about 2 inches big.  The smaller the piece, the faster the potatoes will cook.  Add them to the pot.  Bring the broth to a boil and then let the broth simmer until you can pierce the sweet potatoes.

5.  Once the potatoes are soft, add the tarragon, parsley and paprika.  Stir in these ingredients into the soup.

6.  Add the whole bag of spinach.  Keep stirring in the spinach until it wilts.  (Boy does it wilt.)

7.  Chop the soft cashews up, and add them to the soup. I used my mini chopper.

7.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

8.  Puree the soup.  You have two options.   You can let it cool and put it in blender.  I use my Blendtec.  Alternatively, you can use your immersion blender right away.  Realize when using an immersion blender, you might get spattered.

I found that my immersion blender makes the soup chunky.  The blender makes it smooth.

Further note, this soup will be thick.  If you want to make it more soupy like, you can add more broth.

But Don’t Stop with Just this One Soup:

Karen’s version is much different than mine.  However, she is an amazing cook so I am sure her recipe is equally or more yummy than mine.  So, if you love soup as much as I do, don’t miss this offer to buy the Winter Soups Community Cookbook at the discounted price of $3.97 until February 4, 2014.  Thereafter the price increases to $9.97.

Read more HERE about what is offered in the soup cookbook.

Join the Conversation:

• What are your favorite soups.  Link your recipes in the comments.
• Do you only eat soup during the winter or all year round?

Thanks to Karen for allowing me to adapt her soup and print it for this post.

Disclaimer:  There are several affiliate links in this post.   I wouldn’t try and sell you something I wouldn’t use myself.  I make pennies on the sale of items in the links but it helps me to keep pumping out awesome content for the readers I love.  Thanks for your support.

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