Fresh Ginger Garlic Thai Soup by Colleen Guenther

My husband and I wax and wane on Asian food. He either loves it and I'm through with it, or, I am in love with it and he grumbles at the idea of it for any meal. Well, needless to say, we are in the latter situation. This is a solution to the problem!! It's not too Asiany but super fresh and uber, duber healthy. Beware though, thai chilis are hot as is the chili garlic sauce.... that's the way I prefer it though.

As I'm sure you've heard, ginger and garlic are some of the super healing foods: garlic is a natural antibiotic and ginger cures everything;)... So, during this flu season, let's heal our bodies with quasi-Asian food;) Seriously though, let's eat more GOOD food so that we need less medicine. It's that simple.

What you Need:

For the Stock:
8 cups of water
1/4 cup sliced and de-peeled ginger
2 carrots chopped
3 celery stock chopped
De-peeled and squashed (to release the goodness) garlic cloves from a full bulb
1 handful of cilantro stems
2 cups of mushrooms (shitake preferred) chopped or sliced in half
1 sliced full white onion
2 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. black peppercorns
1 lemon grass stock cut into one inch slices and smashed with a knife to release it's goodness
1-4 thai chilies chopped depending on the heat you want

For the Soup:
2 carrots de-peeled and sliced (thin)
5 scallions chopped
1/2 head of napa cabbage or regular cabbage finely sliced
1/2 Tbs. Chili Garlic Sauce (See below for picture)

Toppings:
Thin Rice Noodles
Fresh bean sprouts
Chopped cilantro
Fresh squeezed lime juice
Scallions
Golden Mountain Seasoning (See below for picture)
Extra Chili Garlic Sauce

Directions:

Place all of your stock ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, bring it back down to a mid-low and simmer, covered, for 1.5 hours. Once done, drain stock into a separate bowl or pot and discard the rest of the ingredients. You can either make your complete soup right after this step or save/freeze your stock for another time. I put mine in the fridge to let it marinate and completed my soup the following day. Whenever you decide to make the complete soup, put it in a pot, add your carrots, cabbage and scallions. Feel free to add more if you'd like as this is definitely a tasting soup. Taste it throughout the whole process to decide if you'd like to add/subtract any ingredients. Actually all cooking should be done this way...LOL. Again, bring to a boil. Once boiling, bring back down to a simmer, cover and cook for about 25 minutes or until the carrots are semi-soft. In the meantime, cook your rice noodles to the package's directions. When ready to serve, dish up your soup, add any or all of the listed toppings, including the rice noodles. I recommend all of them. 

On a product related note....The Golden Mountain Seasoning adds more of an Asian flair (I always use it over soy sauce) so hold back if your hubby is not in the mood... The chili garlic sauce is amazing in almost everything so don't feel bad about purchasing both of these amazing products. You can add them to ANYTHING or EVERYTHING! Seriously. Enjoy!