How-to: Vegetable soups

The weather is cooling, the leaves are turning, and root vegetable are coming into season. It is soup time!

I have always liked soups, but how to make them was a mystery to me until one late summer, when I got more veggies from my CSA than I was able to eat raw or on stir-fry. After looking up a couple of recipes I realized all of them had more or less the same ingredients and process. Making soup added variety to my menu and extended the life of the produce.

Here are the basic steps. To give you an idea of proportions, I’m indicating how much to use when making soup for two.

Select a sturdy pot big enough for the soup. This is important because you’ll do everything out of this pot.

Chop onion and garlic, and cook in oil, medium flame, for 5 minutes. One medium onion and 3 cloves of garlic in 2 tbs of oil should be good. I usually make soup with olive oil, but butter also works. You can also add peppers or chiles at this stage.

Add your vegetable, cut in chunks, about 4 cups. My favorites are squash, beets, and carrots. Cooking them will brown the outside of the vegetable and add depth of flavor to the soup. Cook for 10 minutes, or until the vegetable starts to brown.

Add water, about 4 cups, or enough to cover the vegetables

Add salt or buillion. To keep a vegetarian meal, I use vegetable buillion, follow the instructions in the package to figure out how much. If you use salt, the quantity will depend on the vegetable, and whether you used butter for the cooking. You can always add it after cooking.

Bring to a boil, then lower the flame and cover. Cook until vegetables can be pierced with a fork, about 20 minutes.

Mix in the blender, careful not to overfill it. Serve immediately.