Chinese Vegetable Egg Drop Soup

It's easy to make your own chicken stock. Whenever I make chicken for dinner I make everyone save the bones for me and the next day I combine the bones, cooking juices, and any leftover meat in a medium pot with enough water to cover them and let it simmer. If it cooks down I'll add water so I usually get around 6 cups of stock from one chicken's worth of bones. Lately I've been needing it in 2 cup amounts so I freeze it in 2-cup containers and it's ready to use when I need it, straight from the freezer.

The Weston A. Price Foundation has a lot to say about the health/healing value of good chicken stock, and it applies especially to autism. See Broth is Beautiful for more info.

This is a really good soup!

Ingredients:
1 tbsp butter or cooking oil
1 small onion, diced
1 stalk of celery, diced
1 frying pepper, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 zucchini, cut into quarters then sliced thinly
1 carrot, peeled and shredded or diced
handful of snow peas, ends removed and diced
generous pinch of dried Chinese Vegetables (from asian stores)
2 cups of chicken stock
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
1 tsp gluten-free tahini (San-J makes it, I got it in the heath food section)
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp ginger
a few dashes of toasted sesame oil

Melt the butter in a medium-sized pot.
Add the onion and pepper and let them start to brown.
When they've just begun to brown, add the garlic and celery and cook about 1 min. longer until the celery begins to soften.
Add the rest of the vegetables and chicken stock and enough water to cover the vegetables, if needed, and bring to a boil.
Boil for 5 min. then slowly pour in the egg while stirring the soup.
Stir in the remaining ingredients.

You can leave out any of the vegetables, and you can add in around 1 cup of shredded cabbage (green or napa). It's also good with mushrooms or meat added. You can also substitute fresh ginger for the powdered. Chopped cilantro makes a good garnish.

Serves 2-3

Food log for yesterday:
Breakfast: smoothie of yogurt, banana, raspberries, and orange juice
Lunch: Chinese Vegetable Soup (again)
Snack: 1 dried fig, apple slices with melted cheddar
Dinner: pot roast and steamed asparagus from the garden
Snack: almonds