Today, March 20th, is equinox day and marks the first day of Spring in 2011 for those living in the Northern Hemisphere. This means the sun’s center is directly over the earth’s equator, giving us days and nights that are roughly equal in length.
To welcome the coming of Spring, I wanted to make a delicious light soup that is also really quick and easy to make. This soup only calls for 3 main ingredients. Despite being really simple, this soup gives you a great deal of health benefits. From a traditional Chinese medicine perspective, all of the ingredients in this recipe are neutralin property, which means they won’t throw your internal body off to the yin or yang states. The shiitake mushroom and lotus seeds both benefit the spleen and improve energy circulation. This soup is perfect year-round although I especially enjoy it in the spring and summer time.
- 6 shiitake mushrooms, rinsed and soaked for 1 hour or until soft
- 2 carrots
- 1 tbsp lotus seeds, rinsed and soaked for 30 minutes
- 5 cups of water
- ⅛ tsp of cane sugar (or small amounts of honey) to taste
- Rinse and peel carrots. Cut carrots to 1" thick slices and set aside.
- Slice off and save the stump of the shiitake mushroom.
- Place all ingredients in a soup pot and add 5 cups of cold water. Boil on high heat until the liquid bubbles. Reduce the heat and simmer over low heat for 1.5 hours. Set the timer.
- When the soup is ready, add a dash of cane sugar or honey to enhance the sweetness of the shiitake mushroom and carrots. Serve
[...] If I had time, I would’ve done a vegan shiitake mushroom-carrot-lotus seed soup, like this. But I had fresh chicken stock on hand and didn’t want to rehydrate mushrooms! [...]