Paleo-licous Chicken & Veggie Soup

Chicken vegetable soup that will fill your belly with nutritious love. Make your own chicken stock for out of this world flavor, or sub 3-4 boxes store bought stock for a pretty darn good eats. Roast your own chicken or buy the cooked rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. Do what feels right depending on how much time you have! Get crazy and customize the vegetables you use, but don't forget the ginger, its the secret ingredient! Shhhhhh...

INGREDIENTS (double batch)

• 2 whole chickens, 4 lbs. each 
• salt, pepper, seasoning optional
• 3-5 inch ginger root, fresh
• 8 cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped
• 1/3 cup olive oil 
• 1 small bag whole carrots
• 2 medium onions, sweet or red
• 1 lbs. green beans, fresh
• 1 bag pre-shredded cabbage
• 2 tbsp kosher salt
• 5 cups homemade chicken stock
• juice of 1/2 lemon

TOOLS

• two roasting pans (or any baking pan with raised sides)
• parchment paper
• foil
• poultry forks and/or tongs
• crockpot (for making stock)
• stock pot
• wire mesh strainer
• cheese grater

PREP and ROAST the CHICKEN

1. Preheat oven to 425 and wrap the roasting pans in foil.
2. Rip two pieces of parchment paper the length of the roasting pan, make sure its slightly longer than the pan so that the sides of the paper are turned up. This will hold in juices and make clean up easier... score. 
3. Rinse chickens and discard the gizzards, pat dry.
4. Position chickens breast side down on the parchment paper (on the counter).
5. Using a sharp knife, start at the tail end and cut along side the spine of each chicken. Flip over and flatten out chicken breast side up, this is called Spatchcock cooking which will cook evenly and quickly with super crispy skin. 
6. Loosen skin rubbing salt and seasoning of choice under skin directly onto the chicken meat for flavor. 
7. Place into roasting pans, make sure the parchment paper makes a sort of bowl shape, raised on the sides. This will minimize clean up by holding all the juices. You can also add these juices to make stock later, but its easier and less fattening to just toss it. 
8. Roast the chickens for 1.5 hours, rotate the chicken on the top rack to the bottom half way through cooking if using one oven. 
9. Cook until internal temp is 180 degrees, then remove from oven.

MAKE the CHICKEN STOCK

1. Using tongs and poultry forks, remove all the good meat from the chickens, set aside to cool and refrigerate. By now you might be hungry, make some easy chicken salad (chicken, walnuts, apple, mayo) for a snack!
2. Place all the leftover chicken pieces (bone, skin, etc) into the crock pot.
3. Add water until all chicken pieces are submerged.
4. Cook on LOW for up to 48 hours, no less than 12 hours ideally. 
5. Once finished, use tongs to remove chicken pieces and discard. Strain the remaining stock through a wire mesh strainer into a large bowl or container.
6. Place bowl of chicken stock in refrigerator overnight to firm up fats and skim off top to remove. If you are in a hurry you can use the stock RIGHT NOW!  Because we cooked the chickens Spatchcock style, most of the fat has already been removed.
7. Store half your chicken stock in freezer bags for another day, you won't need all that for this recipe! 

PREP the VEGGIES

1. Chop all ingredients (onion, carrots, chicken, beans) into 1/2 to 1/4 inch lengths. 
2. Trim ginger skins and use cheese grater to extract the yummy ginger and discard the fibrous ginger. 
3. Smash garlic, remove skins and rough chop.

COOK the SOUP

1. Place a large stock pot over medium high heat, add olive oil. 
2. Saute garlic, ginger for one minute before adding onions, cook until soft. 
3. When ready, 5 cups chicken stock and 6 cups water to the stock pot and bring to a boil.
4. Add salt, carrots and green beans to boiling water and reduce to a simmer for 10-15 minutes.
5. Add cabbage to pot half way through cooking.
6. Add chopped chicken to pot and cook an additional 2-5 minutes.
7. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon into the pot and ENJOY!
8. Put leftovers into tupperware and freeze for awesome lunches or dinner on the fly. I make this a double batch so I can be sure to freeze a bunch for later!

Broccoli Cheese Soup Sans Guilt

Super simple broccoli and cheese soup with NO CREAM, NO BUTTER, NO FLOUR because you simply don't need it!  Delicious.  Somewhat time consuming to make but most of the time you are waiting so you can do other things. You could also sub some cauliflower into this recipe to mellow the broccoli flavor...

INGREDIENTS

• 1 bunch of broccoli (about three stalks)
• 1 medium onion, sweet or red
• 1-4 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
• 1 box or 2 cups chicken or veggie stock
• 1/2 block of sharp cheddar (add to taste)
• 1 tbsp kosher salt
• olive oil to coat and saute

TOOLS

• knife and cutting board
• gallon zip lock bag (optional)
• foil
• baking pan / roll pan
• stock pot
• immersion blender (or regular blender)
• cheese grater

PREP the GOODIES

1. Preheat oven to 400 and rough chop the broccoli into small (1 inch) size pieces
2. Pour some (1 Tbsp) olive oil into a gallon ziplock bag, add broccoli pieces and shake to coat with the oil, you don't need much!
3. Cover a baking pan with foil and place the broccoli pieces on top
4. Cover broccoli with foil and place in the oven for 15 minutes
5. After 15 minutes remove the foil and cook for another 10-15 minutes until broccoli starts to brown
6. Meanwhile, heat stock pot with enough olive oil to coat the bottom adding the onions and sautéing until soft
7. Add garlic and cook for one minute before adding the roasted broccoli and stock
8. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 10-15 minutes until broccoli is fork tender
9. Remove from heat and use immersion blender to puree soup
10. Add shredded cheese to taste, I recommend tasting the soup before adding any cheese so you know where you are starting. One or two handfuls should be plenty, sharp cheddar has a lot of flavor so you don't need much!
11. Serve and enjoy, store leftovers in fridge for up to a week. 
12. Freeze in small tupperware portions if you like, thaw in fridge for two days before reheating.