Here’s a soup I threw together on a whim while out shopping with my gal this morning. As we went down the isles I picked up a variety of things that seemed like they might go together, and by golly, they do. Even though a feature ingredient of this soup is okra, I don’t consider it a gumbo of any sort. It does have some Cajun tang going on though.

My overriding concern, besides that it taste good, was low carbs, and if you check out the ingredients used, you’ll find that this is about as low carb a soup as you’ll find. Okra, 20 grams (net) for the whole package, peppers, 8 carbs for their package. Chicken and sausage…forgetaboutit.

I could have used andouille sausage, but decided against it and used a smoked turkey sausage instead. No particular reason, though I admit I didn’t see andouille there.

Chicken, Sausage, and Okra Soup

• 1 lb smoked sausage (turkey)
• 1 lb chicken thighs (boneless, skinless, frozen)
• 1 lb cut okra (frozen)
• 14 oz mixed peppers (red, yellow, green, frozen)
• Most of a large onion, chopped (I can’t quite remember what happened to the rest of it)
• 4 large cloves garlic, minced
• 3 celery ribs, chopped coarsely
• 2 qts chicken stock (as usual this means 1 tbs Better than Bullion Low Sodium Chicken base and water)
• 2 tbs Zatarain’s seasoning
• 1 cup turnip greens (frozen, chopped)
• 1 large tomato (skinned, diced)

I cut the sausage in half lengthwise, then cut it across to make half moons between 1/4 and 1/3 inch thick. I nuked the chicken until it was mostly thawed and cubed that into equivalent sized chunks. Both got sauteed together until a little browning showed up on the sausage. The pan was a bit crowded, so I wound up straining off the liquid a few times to keep the sizzle from turning into steam. After the meat was done I took it out of the pot and sauteed up the onions and garlic for about ten minutes until the onion was getting soft, then added the chopped celery and stirred it all around for another five minutes at which time I added the meat and stock and brought the whole thing to a simmer.

I’d been defrosting the two bags of frozen vegetables in the microwave, hitting the 30 second add button until they were nuked to perfection. Then I added the okra directly into the soup, but decided I wanted to saute the peppers up a little to get rid of their raw taste. I used my strainer to get rid of their excess liquid and added a tsp of oil to a pan over medium heat for about 5 minutes, then slid them into the soup.

I’d been considering adding a can of diced tomatoes, but liked the way things were going so much I chickened out. I felt bad about that, so I decided to sacrifice a token tomato to the soup anyway. Here’s a little trick that’s handy, btw. To get the skin off the tomoato I held it in the simmering soup by it’s green stem for about a minute, then ran cold water over it. The skin comes right off after that. Well, mostly right off.

At this point, the whole thing looked great with lots of color and the bright green wheels of okra floating around.

I added the Zatarain’s and set it to simmer for half an hour, at which time I decided it needed another two cups of water to get it a little soupier. I considered adding cayenne and still might, though it has a slight kick already. If I’d used a good andouille, it would have already been “kicked up a notch.”

And that’s all there was to it. I didn’t need to add salt, and didn’t feel the need to get creative about spices beyond what was already in there. The okra is a natural thickener, but not the way flour is. Did I mention this is not only ultra-low carb, but gluten free too?

And it’s really good, which is the whole idea to begin with.