The sky is gray and threatening rain. A chill wind is blowing and the air is cold and damp. It is soup season in Northern California. While I love, love, love all of the fruits and veggies available during the summer months, my favorite dishes and my favorite cooking techniques are those we turn to during the colder months. Hearty dishes, stick-to-the-ribs dishes, like braised meats served with polenta, stews filled with vegetables and potatoes, beans with sausage and sauerkraut, lasagna, chili, chicken and dumplings, and of course soup. Vegetable soup with fresh dill and a dab of sour cream on top; navy bean soup with ham hocks, split pea, cream of potato, seafood chowder, beef barley with mushrooms, lentil, chicken with wild rice, turkey noodle, and clean-out-the-vegetable-bin soup; the list could go on and on. Many people figure there is no need to make homemade soup today because of the availability and wide variety of commercially prepared soups, but homemade soup is another animal all together. There is just no comparison.
No store bought soup will fill your home for hours with the appetizing scents homemade soup generates. When a family member walks through the door from the cold outdoors they are met with tantalizing, warming aromas that say "welcome home." Homemade soup warms you inside and out because it says someone cared enough to take the time to make something special. Most soups are also amazingly economical to make and incredibly healthy for you as well. Even the richer cream soups can be made less fattening by substituting fat free half and half or fat free evaporated milk when cream or whole milk is called for. Making soup does not have to be complicated either. You can make a large batch of several different types of stock in one weekend to freeze for later or simply use one of the commercial stocks now so readily available. While there is a bit of prep work involved in making homemade stock it mostly involves allowing the ingredients to simmer for several hours, then straining and perhaps de-greasing.
One of my favorite things to do is make a hodgepodge soup. This is comprised of whatever suitable ingredients I have on hand. I usually have a low salt commercial chicken base available to use in place of homemade stock and canned tomatoes, of course. Onions and garlic always, carrots and celery most of the time, potatoes maybe, perhaps some cabbage or spinach, maybe a can or two of some kind of beans. If I have frozen peas or green beans they might go in. Seasoning generally includes a bay leaf or two. If I feel like "Italian," flavors a bit of rosemary and oregano might go in. Otherwise I might follow my Grandpa Ritter's direction and add some dill, along with a generous dose of black pepper. If I have a couple of pieces of leftover chicken in the frig I may shred them and throw in or a bit of ham or sausage. Just be careful of the quantity of ingredients because a pot of soup has a way of just getting bigger and bigger.
I begin the actual cooking process by chopping onions and garlic then sweat them a bit in a small amount of olive oil (sometimes I add the celery and carrots to this mix as well, but not always), then liquid ingredients are added, the other vegetables that require long cooking, and let it all simmer on the back burner until everything seems to be done, adjust the seasoning if needed, then throw in pasta or rice or anything that doesn't really need to cook for very long to finish things off.
I like to accompany this type of soup with thick slices of fresh sourdough bread or one of the artisan breads our local supermarkets now carry. We might also have some type of cheese. a Additionally, this is the perfect type of simple meal that allows for a splurge at the end - any thing that suits your fancy that compliments the type of soup you are serving - old fashioned baked apples, gingerbread with a dollop of whipped cream, chocolate pudding, pineapple upside down cake, cherry crisp.
I am hungry now and hear my soup pot calling. I hope you will give soup making a try.
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