Simply Soup

I used to say that soup was one of my favorite things to cook because you can put almost anything in it and it still tastes good. However, experience has shown that this is not exactly true.

I tend to ruin soup. My problem is overkill.

Hmmm, I think . . . this would taste good in a soup. And this, and that, and a little more of the other thing.

I can't decide what spices to put in, so I put in a little of everything. The result usually ends up tasting--and looking--rather muddy.

Earlier this week I decided to make chicken noodle soup. The girls and I really enjoyed the soup we ate during our girls' night out last week. They were excited when I told them I was going to make some of the same kind.

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The soup started off well, with some chicken. Browning it in a saucepan with garlic and onions, I added a can of organic chicken broth and started it simmering while I chopped some carrots and celery to add. So far so good.

Then the trouble started.

Wait a minute, I thought . . . I have all these great vegetables in the refrigerator. Why not make it more interesting? I know my family likes chicken noodle soup, so maybe I can sneak in some vegetables they might not normally eat. I will make this a super-nutritional-value soup! Way better than store-bought soup.

I added some turnip and parsnip. Some chopped beet greens. Part of a leek. Some leftover quinoa, and some barley groats. It still tasted okay, but something wasn't quite right. That should have been my signal to stop. Instead, I added some cauliflower and yams. We didn't have any corn, so I added a can of hominy.

I looked at the spices. Would thyme, oregano, basil, rosemary, sage, or savory be good in this soup? I wasn't sure. So I added some of each. Just for good measure, I shook in some dried parsely too.

It needed some salt, but I decided to use dulse (salty dried seaweed) instead. Now I was really getting some nutritional value into that soup.

The clincher was when I decided to add the spirulina powder.

I thought, If I put a little of this in it will make the broth richer, and nobody will even notice. It would be a huge boost in vitamins and minerals. I put too much in. Way too much.

The soup was green--both in color and in taste. No longer did it taste good. It was barely edible.

I tried to save it by adding more things--carrot juice, water, red pepper, a splash of wine. I briefly considered adding a diced apple, but decided not to. Nothing helped.

I had promised the girls chicken noodle soup, so I added some corn noodles and served it. I apologized to my family as we all ate nondescript green soup. Nobody liked it. The girls were not at all convinced it was chicken noodle soup. It bore no resemblance to the delicious soup we'd had in the deli last week.

Well, it was very nutritionally dense, so a little went a long way. The banana muffins were much better.

The rest of the soup is sitting in the refrigerator, untouched. I really should just toss it, but the thought of wasting all those good ingredients (and the money it cost to buy them) makes me hesitate. I usually end up letting things like that sit in the refrigerator until they spoil. Then I can throw them away without guilt, since of course they're no longer safe to eat.

As DH often points out, it would probably make more sense to just toss it now, rather than wasting the refrigerator space for another week.

The next day, the kids asked me when we were going to have chicken noodle soup. So I opened a can of broth, a can of vegetables (carrots, celery, potatoes), and a can of chicken. Dumping them all into a pan, I heated the mixture, added some noodles, and and shook in a bit of pepper and thyme. That was it. 5 minutes, and we were eating chicken noodle soup.

The kids loved it.

My new rule for making soup is this: Keep it simple. Simple soups can be superb.

Last night, I made the best pot of soup ever. It started with chicken bones simmering softly in water for 24 hours with a small amount of onion and garlic. I removed the bones from the broth and added some leftover chicken marsala from the night before. Slicing a carrot and a stalk of celery, I put them in and then diced half a parsnip.

This time I seasoned the soup with dill, salt and pepper, a bit of thyme and a dash of rosemary. When it needed more liquid, I added a little carrot juice and some of the leftover marsala gravy. A small handful of amaranth for texture and a generous portion of tiny noodles, and it was done.

The kids loved it so much that AJ chose it over popcorn as a bedtime snack, and they begged for it at lunch again today.

It would have been good, I'm sure, with even fewer ingredients. Remember the story "Stone Soup"? All you really need for soup is a few vegetables and some water, meat if you like it, and maybe some salt and pepper.

Simply delicious.

I'd love to hear some of your favorite soup recipes. If you'd like to share one, post the recipe or a link to it in the comments, or even just e-mail it to me. Now that my family has decided they like soup, I'm eager to try lots of good recipes.

Maybe with a recipe, I won't ruin it with overkill.