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Here are some of my key design principles for this simple beetroot vegetable in pork broth:

• A more neutral to slightly cooling soup. I’m avoiding ingredients that circulate blood and warm the body too much for the first day. This is so that it will allow the wound to close first. And with it being a mouth wound, these are harder wounds to callous over. The doc said to avoid spitting, straw sucking, and allowing the blood clot to form and seal the giant wounds in her gums. This means mushrooms, honey dates in place of red dates, goji berries, and other neutral ingredients you could consider such as: Chinese yams, apricot kernals, dried scallops, dried shrimp.

• Soft ingredients second. This means any ingredients that she can gently chew with her front teeth or swallow. The first that comes to mind are potatoes or sweet potatoes. 

• Flavours she loves. It’s hard when your face is swollen to the size of a balloon and your mouth is bruised and bleeding to eat. She likes the flavour of red beets, so that was the star ingredient, although she couldn’t really eat them.

• More proteins in the soup, so I went with the cooler, softer protein in pork versus chicken, where she could nibble the softer meats connected to the bones and added extra peanuts.

Ingredients

• 1 pound of fresh pork bones (any will do)
• 3 fresh red beets, peeled and largely cubed
• 1 fresh corn, quartered
• 2 fresh tomatoes, quartered
• 3 pieces of celery, deveined, cut large
• 3 dried honey dates
• 1 tablespoon of raw peeled peanuts
• 1 teaspoon of dried wolfberries
• 1 teaspoon of dried scallops
• 5 dried shiitake mushrooms
• 3 L of water

Cooking Instructions

1. Start with cold water in a pot large enough to fit all your bones. Salt liberally and set it on high heat on the stove. Add in your pork bones at this time (while the water is cold).
2. Start boiling water soup water in your thermal pot (or any pot). I will use 3-4 L worth to make extra.
3. Prepare your vegetables by washing them in cool water, peeling them, and cutting into large sizes (I use about the size of a golf ball for size so the potatoes don’t disintegrate).
4. Once your blanching water boils, turn that off the heat. You can pour out the water and rinse the pork bones in cool water a few times until it runs clean.
5. Once your soup water boils, add in the blanched pork bones, all your cut ingredients, and dry herbs.
6. Cover and boil on high heat for 30 minutes. At this point, you can drop the thermal pot into the insulated outer pot, close and come back 2-3 hours later.
7. Reboil on high heat for 10 minutes. Serve and enjoy! 

• The ultimate Parent’s Guide to Making Chinese soups for children – learn TCM concepts, which informs soup design, and base recipes, along with an ingredient tracker.