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[the_reverand]

Have I said how good I've gotten at making vegetable beef soup?

Very good, that's how good. I mean, it's a no-brainer, but tonight's is the best pot to date.

Mmmmm. *passes out bowls*

Comments

[angiepen]

I'm not so much into tomatoes or avocado but the nice thing about making your own is you can put whatever the heck you like into it. :)

I make the broth with a whole chicken (instead of leftover bones) and an onion and a couple stalks of celery and a couple carrots if I have them, maybe a potato or two, a few cloves of garlic, a bay leaf, some white pepper, plus whatever else I feel like tossing in that day. (Can you tell I don't use recipes very often?) When it's done simmering a few hours later, I strain it into another (large) pot and pick through the stuff in the collander. Onions, garlic, carrots and potatoes go back into the broth, plus anything else non-stringy. Celery gets tossed 'cause it's stringy. I pick as much meat off the chicken as I have the patience for and that all gets shredded up and tossed back in too. Then I blend the whole mess (I use a stick blender but you can do it in batches in a regular blender too) until it's pureed -- that makes the soup nice and thick. :) Salted to taste, it's yummy as is, or you can doctor it. I add in some pasta or rice, some cubed chicken (fresh or leftover from another meal -- cooking it a bit longer if the chicken's fresh) and maybe some diced veggies, again whatever I feel like.

This makes a very hearty soup, which is how I and the spousal unit like it. :)

If I'm making a brothier soup then I dump the stuff in the collander, or just pick out the bits I want and eat them separately if I feel like it. Carrots and potatoes mashed together with enough butter and some more salt can be yummy, for example, even if not as good as the same cooked a shorter time specifically for the purpose. Stuff that's been simmered to death for broth just isn't that good, though; it's mushy and has had most of the flavor cooked out of it. It's good for the puree as above, but not so good as chunks in a broth. So I strain the broth (use cheesecloth to line the collander if there are tiny bits you don't want in the broth, or if the whole thing's fallen apart and there are tiny bones) and then put in fresh chunks of whatever as above -- chicken and veggies and rice or pasta.

I've heard that if you're careful to never let the soup actually come to a boil while it's cooking, the resulting broth will be more clear, rather than cloudy. I don't care so I've never bothered with it. :)

Angie

[the_reverand]

Ah, thank you! I actually don't eat onions or celery... though I could probably stand a bit of onion in the broth. Not celery, though, sadly. It's probably the only food I cannot eat unless all of the taste and smell is cooked out of it. I can't even do celery salt or seeds. The smell of celery cooking actually nauseates me. It's weird.

I will definitely give this a try, though, sans celery! Thanks. :D

[angiepen]

Sure, you could substitute for some of the aromatics, no problem. More garlic and leave the onion out if you wanted, kill the celery and use maybe bell pepper instead? The husband and I don't care for bell peppers but it'd work just fine if you like them. You can pretty much wander through the produce section and get whatever you like. :)

Just as data, though, I don't care for celery either and although I don't dislike it as much as you (I can deal with chunks of cooked celery in broth or a casserole, if they're cut very small and overwhelmed by other ingredients), I can't specifically pick out the taste of the celery individually when I make soup. It just sort of blends with everything else and adds to the complete flavor without standing out. I know different people have different sensitivities to different flavors, though.

Angie

[the_reverand]

I can eat celery in my mom's dressing because it's cooked to death and, I dunno, it just works. I can eat it in Publix brand soup, but almost no other. I can taste celery salt in *anything* no matter how little, and I probably won't eat it.

Maybe a tiny little piece of celery won't hurt when I get round to trying your soup. Tanks!