Broccoli soup

Yesterday I wanted to make some soup from a stewing hen, so I started with my broth recipe.

1 gal. water
1 tbs vinegar
1 stewing hen
3 large onions, quartered
5 cloves garlic, smashed
4-6 tbs coconut oil
2-4 tbs celtic sea salt
1 tbs dried ginger flakes
1 16 oz. pkg. frozen broccoli cuts (or fresh)

Put water and vinegar in large stock pot, let sit 10 minutes. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 1.5 hours. Remove chicken from pot, remove meat from bones, return bones to pot. Simmer up to 24 hours. Close to eating time steam the broccoli; remove all the bones from the pot. Put several ladles full of broth into the blender (food processor probably would work also) along with one ladle of broccoli. Blend until almost smooth. Place in another large pot. Repeat this until the broccoli is gone. There will be broth leftover to refrigerate for another use. Cut up the chicken meat and put in the soup. Simmer until chicken is hot. I didn't do this because I just now thought about it, but you could add fresh ground pepper to it also or any other spice you'd like to add.

There you have it. I would guess it to make about 6-8 servings. It's a good dairy free alternative, because the blending makes it seem like a creamy soup. It's also got the calcium in it because of the bone broth.

The added vinegar helps take calcium and probably other minerals from the bones. One other thing that's recommended for making broth is to add a bunch of parsley to the stock pot for 10-30 minutes. I read it helps to remineralize it. Actually, the exact quote from Nourishing Traditions is, "This will impart additional mineral ions to the broth."