I am looking for ideas for soups for quick lunch. For the last few months I was buying cartons of low carb/low fat soups but I think they are now favourable food. They usually contain unfavourable additions such as cream, starch, butter etc. My favourite ones were "Tomato and Sweet Basil" and "Asparagus".
I am thinking of cooking home made ones. I came up with a pretty good one, variation on a Portugese Caldo Verde made out of green cabbage.

Caldo Verde (green cabbage soup)
1 bag of shredded spring greens or similar cabbage type leaves
1 onion chopped
1-2 garlic cloves
1 small potato
1 tsp of olive oil

Sweat the chopped onion on the olive oil together with chopped garlic in a deep pan. Dice the potato, add to the onion mixture and pour water, as much as you want. Add bay leave or two and some all spice berries. Cook until the potato is cooked. Then take the bay leaves and all spice out and blend the soup with a hand blender. Now put all the cabbage in and cook further 10 minutes or so until cooked through. Then blend again but not too much.
Traditionally they add chorizo sausage to it. I typically add a bit of chorizo and cooked chicken.

I recon it is low on carb, so you can some "croutons" made of low-carb wrap which I burn over open flame and then crush.

What do you think?

Sounds delicious. I think it it would be great with Zone Croutons or Zone Orzo mixed in. Thanks for the recipe!

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sue
Consultant of Zone Labs
Certified Zone Affiliate

Lost 100 lbs 16 yrs ago, off BP meds, thanks to the Zone diet and Zone fish oil. ZoneFast 1-2-3 is the best!

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Bozena,
Home made soups are pretty easy to zone. I generally start out with a broth, add plenty of veggies, bulk it up with some shredded cabbage (as in your recipe), and if I need an extra block of carb, I may add some beans. I usually add meat to equal the right number of blocks, and toss in some olive oil, as well, to meet the fat needs.

I like your idea of creating your own croutons!

Sue, Cranberry -do you mind sharing few of your receipies? I posted this question because I am aware of the fact that cooking vegetables increases their GL. I was wondering how favourable soups actually are as a part of Zone meal. They are easy to make and satisfying especially in the winter months And they can be cooked in advanced and then quickly reheated in 5 minutes which helps when you do not have that much time to prepare lunch!

I like to make Minestrone soup. I usually start with chicken stock and add veggies like onions, zucchini,tomatoes, green beans a little bit of carrots, seasonings and some Zone orzo. Cold Soups are good in the summer months. There's a quick gazpacho recipe in the 1-2-3 recipe section on this site.

here's one of mine:

BEEF BARLEY SOUP

12 oz boneless beef (leanest you can find), 1/2 inch cubes
6 cups water
2 cups sliced celery
2 cups sliced mushroom
1 cup chopped onion
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried rosemary, crushed
1/2 tsp pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1/2 cup barley

Combine all ingredients except tomato paste and barley in Dutch oven and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for an hour or until meat is tender. Stir in tomato paste and barley. Return to boiling, then reduce heat, cover and simmer until barley is done. Makes 4 servings, 3 blocks each.

(hint: I sometimes use tomato puree or tomato sauce instead of tomato paste... reduces the carb content, but then you can adjust by adding more veggies, maybe some shredded cabbbage, or you could add a piece of fruit for dessert.)

Thanks Cranberrycat, I will surely try your receipe.

You can also try her soup with Quinoa.