My Year In Soup-Week 16

Note to self: Making homemade vegetable stock AND homemade vegetable soup requires A LOT of chopping, especially if done the same afternoon. Also, think twice about making muffins and a pasta salad from scratch the same afternoon.

For this week's soup I decided to go with a modified Spring Tonic Soup. A true tonic soup would be something like this. I made a tonic-type soup but without the nettles-whatever they are. The recipe came from another book I checked out from the public library and ended up buying my own copy. One of the things I like best about the book is that it has suggestions for bread/salad to make a full meal.

I also thought the tonic soup would help me finally get rid of the allergy congestion I'd been suffering with the last nearly 2 weeks from and get back into eating healthy again.

I decided to make a homemade vegetable stock which, in short basically means sauteing a bunch of veggies in olive oil.

Adding a bunch of water (10 c.), a pinch of salt and a bouquet garni (made from herbs in my herb garden-other than the lemon zest-nestled in a rib of celery).

Simmer for a bit-30 minutes.Then strain out the veggies. I used 5 c. for my soup and froze the other 5 cups.

Now for the main event:


Spring Tonic Soup

Source: Soup Makes the Meal: 150 Soul-Satisfying Recipes for Soups, Salads, and Breads
Serves: 4 -5

Ingredients:
1 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped (or a couple of finely chopped leeks-white part only)
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
1 large all-purpose potato, peeled and diced
1 parsnip, peeled and diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
5 cups vegetable stock
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt, to your taste
Handful fresh parsley leaves, chopped
large handful spinach leaves (3-4 ounces), rinsed well and coarsely chopped
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Heat the olive oil in a medium-sized soup pot or large saucepan. Add the vegetables and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, over moderate heat for 5 minutes. Add the stock and salt, then bring the soup to an active simmer.

2. Simmer the soup, partially covered, for 5 minutes. Stir in the parsley and spinach and season with pepper. Simmer the soup, partially covered for 5 more minutes; check to see if it needs more salt or pepper. (Colds tend to dull the taste buds, so sick folk might need a little extra flavor punch to actually taste the soup.) Serve piping hot.

Mmmmmmm...I felt healthier just looking at it!!!

Notes:

• This is a great soup when you want to eat something light or are feeling under the weather.
• I followed the book's suggestion and also made some homemade carrot/raisin muffins and an asparagus pasta salad (both also made yesterday). Everyone oooed and ahhed when I brought my "healthy" meal to lunch today.
• These are parsnips by the way. Kind of like albino carrots.