It's time! We haven’t done a good cooking competition for so long, and with winter setting in for the northern hemispheric folks i think its a great time to start one! Not only that but i think that today there are two trends that are a bit concerning. One is the price and availability of fresh produce and food in the supermarkets. The other is the ease and popularity of really bad quality and unhealthy delivery meals. The ecoTrain always wants to launch great competitions that not only have great prizes but also can be a real source of inspiration and learning for us all. In the past, the recipes we have had have been amazing. There are so many incredible cooks, and also many of you with great knowledge about medicinal foods and how to prepare them.

To really motivate you all I am offering some great prizes in the form of Gifts in Hive Dollars on your posts. The ecoTrain account is looking very healthy with some great delegations and also some strong trails that back up our up-votes. Therefore, over the next month I will be giving out a total of $1,000 Hive Dollars to many of you who post some great and inspiring recipes! Im powering the account down now to liberate some Hive for the upcoming months gifting ;) All awards will be made on the recipe post that you submit using the gift feature so that you can get this immediately and do with it what you wish.

This competition will be split into four weeks. Each week the ecoTrain will curate and gift what we think are the best recipes. Please note that whilst we love great pictures and a good write up of how to make the dish, what is most important is the taste and medicinal benefits, and indeed the simplicity and cost. I really encourage simple and cheap ingredients, and especially those that you can easily grow at home in a food garden.

Week 1: Medicinal Soups

For this first week we are focusing on good old soup! There are so many kinds of soup that its hard to even know them all. Each culture in the world loves soup in their own way, and one of my personal favourites is the Japanese Ramen Soup. Incredible! I would say its very medicinal even though it has many components that are not exactly nutritionally perfect. Noodles for example aren’t the best, but it is well balanced due to the broth and many other vegetables, colours and flavours.

Your recipe can include a meat component, when used medicinally. This means usually using bones to make medicinal broths, or using flesh to bring flavour and nutritional benefits such as in chicken soup. We don’t want to see a bowl of meat with a nice sauce on it! ;)

This is a great opportunity to dig out your best recipes, or get one from family and friends! We have such a diverse community posting in the ecoTrain community that i know we are going to see a very diverse range of recipes from you all! I cant wait to see!!

Your post should include some photos from the process of making the dish, as well as a photo of the final dish ready to serve. We also would like to see the recipe including all the ingredients you use.

If you would like to video your recipe then please do, and then share the link to your video in the post along with all the information in the post. Please try to keep your videos shorter than 5 or 10 minutes so they are easy to watch.

We leave it up to you to decide the rest!

POSTING GUIDELINES

Your dish should include medicinal ingredients and be a nourishing meal.
Please try out the recipes yourself and include ingredients, how you made it and photos of your soup dish.
You must Subscribe to post to the ecoTrain community.
It's important to use the tags medicinalcookingsoup and ecotrain so that it is easy to find your post and group all the posts in Week 1.
Your thumbnail should be a photo of your dish with a written note by the dish saying "ecotrain medicinal soup competition" and your Hive username.
You must leave a link to your recipe post in the comments below this post to be eligible for prizes!
The deadline for week one submissions is Thursday 28th October