The Secret Soup Series – Installment 2 – Vegetable Soup

This is more of a guide than a recipe because you can make a broth based vegetable soup with almost any vegetables.  Like Lima beans, add ‘em, hate carrots, leave ‘em out, like oregano, and go for it.  You will get the picture.  The point is to know how to whip a pot of the best appetite cure there is.  I like to have something like this around to eat before I go to parties.  It is so much easier to pass by the baked brie if I have eaten a cup of soup.

As I have written in the past onions are the key to the flavor a along with carrots, celery, garlic and tomatoes.  Everything else is just what you have on hand or like.

Base

1 large yellow onion – chopped

4 carrots – peeled and chopped

2 stalks of celery – chopped

3 cloves of garlic minced

1 can of diced tomatoes- (I just one with chilies in it)

3 cans of chicken stock – or vegetable stock if you want

1 T. white vinegar

Salt and pepper

Additions

Corn cut off 2 ears of corn

1 can white beans drained

Hand full of fresh thyme- tied with a string

1 bay leaf

Other suggested veggies

Peppers, peas, other types of beans, broccoli, green beans, cauliflower, turnips, parsnips, zucchini, yellow squash, spinach …

As usual I spray a soup pot with Pam.  If you are opposed to Pam just put a little olive oil in the pan and swirl it all around.  Don’t write me to complain about using Pam, just don’t use it and keep that information to yourself.

Put the pot on a medium heat and add the onions and cook for 3 minutes, stirring every once in a while.  Add the carrots and the garlic cook another minute.  Add the celery, tomatoes, stock, bay leaf, thyme salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer, add the corn and the beans, which are already cooked.  Simmer for five minutes add the vinegar and serve if you are hungry right then.

The vegetables should still be a little crunchy.  You don’t need to simmer soup forever.  That just makes mush.  I like to turn the heat off in the pan and put a lid on it and just let it sit there for a few hours with no heat the herbs will give up more flavor.  You can add some chopped chicken to make it a meal, or some rice or a few cooked noodles.  The rule to follow is if you add raw vegetables try and cut them roughly the same size.  Add them to the pot like this;  if they are hard ones that take a long time to cook like parsnips add them with the onions, if they are short cooking like peppers or green beans add them with the stock, if they are frozen peas, or canned beans or anything that is already cooked add them at the last minute. The basic soup is a blank canvas awaiting your additions.