Alice’s Soul Food Soup

A smoky, warming and hearty soup, a perfect winter warmer

This is a guest post from Alice who blogs at Living with a Jude. I cooked and photographed the soup, and it was absolutely delicious!

Hello, my name is Alice and I write a blog about life with our severely disabled son, Jude. I have always been very much into healthy eating and follow a vegan lifestyle, encouraging as much natural, unprocessed food into our diet as possible. My children are incredibly healthy and strong and I’m proud to say they are rarely ill or suffer from the typical colds that many do. I’ve always believed that the diet you choose will influence your life in other ways and you can be as strong as you want to be. Why eat artificial foods when there are so many wonderful real foods available from a vitamin filled plant-based source?!

I’m a bit obsessed with nutrients and am embarrassed to say that often I’ll say to the children something like, “make sure you eat the banana in that pudding, it’s full of potassium.” Thankfully, I think they’re used to my “ways” now.

Because of Jude’s learning disabilities I am particularly fussy with his diet, avoiding anything sugar-laden, processed or dairy based at all. I want his body to function as well as it possibly can and for me, feeding him nourishing and healthy foods can only influence him in a positive way. I’m lucky in that Jude loves fruit, salad (but no salad leaves!) and raw vegetables. He has been known to steal a whole packet of green beans and eaten them on the sly in his bedroom! I could hardly tell him off, could I?!

Anyway, one thing he has loved since he was a toddler is soup. Especially tomato soup. I won’t buy him tinned or packet tomato soups because the sugar and salt levels are often terrifying so I invented this recipe which we often eat at weekends for lunch with a big chunk of crusty bread. I don’t often write about specific meals that we make but Pip asked me if she could try this recipe out so now I’m paranoid that lots of people who can actually cook really well are going to scrutinise the randomness of the instructions (please fluff them up a bit Pip!)

I do intend to write more about food because it really does feature highly in our lives I have also recently taken to posting images of Jude’s packed lunch contents on Instagram (click here) because I’m always asked what he eats and thought this would be the best way to display it. I try and make him varied an interesting meals, full of colour and nutrients.