Small Town Hermit

Today was a chilly, rainy-icy-snowy, gray day — in other words, the perfect day for hearty soup.

I made one of my favorites: Garden-in-a-Pot Soup from The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper.  This time around I stuck a little more closely to the recipe.  Usually I use it as a jumping off point to use up whatever might be in the refrigerator or on the counter which needs using up.

My soup broth/stock is made with Rouxbe’s fabulous vegetable boullion.  Seriously, for vegetarians (or even meat eaters, although I do love the stock I make from the Thanksgiving turkey), this bouillon is the way to go.  You put a bunch of vegetables in the food processor, add what seems like a scary amount of salt (but I promise it is still way less than store bought boullion, especially since you don’t need much to get intense flavor), and keep it in the freezer.  It dissolves immediately in water, and it is 100% real food.  No weird little hard cubes or paste.  I add it to soup, rice, and marinades — pretty much any recipe which calls for stock.

The other step which makes this soup so good is the first one.  Instead of sauteing the aromatics over higher heat, you cook them covered over low heat, trapping the moisture and flavors.  Seasonings are simple — tomato paste, sweet paprika (although I used smoked because that is what I had), basil, and a splash of wine if anything starts to stick — and the vegetables do the rest.  The only fat in the recipe is the olive oil used to coat the pan at the beginning.

I added a can of red beans for the first time.  They add some heartiness and meld smoothly with the other ingredients.

My soups tend to come about a bit thin.  I am not good at reducing for some reason.  But my solution is to just make rice in my Instant Pot, and serving the soup over it.  Keep the rice separate when you put away the leftovers so that it doesn’t soak of all of the broth and turn your soup into a very stiff stew … unless that is what you like.  Then by all means.

Noodles are another option.  Or bake up a potato, cut it in half, mashed it slightly, and pour the soup over it … or a hearty slab of garlic sourdough bread.  Dip in your favorite cracker.  If you want a little garnish, there are the classics of cheese and sour cream.  My new favorite is homemade popcorn lightly seasoned with garlic salt.  Whatever your pleasure, you really can’t go wrong.

The recipe does make a large pot of soup, so you can feed a bunch of people at once, or you can keep it all to yourself and eat all week.  It freezes well, too.

In a word: Yum!