There are very, very, very few soups that I make to recipe. Usually, if there's something new-to-me in the soup department, I make it according to the recipe the first time then I'm off and running in the self-designed direction.
Take today, for example. I started with three links of turkey sausage with sundried tomatoes. I parboiled them while raiding the fridge for items that needed to be used up (one sweet potato, for example) or the staples of nearly every soup in this house—onions, celery and green peppers.
I added a small cache of Swiss chard that I froze from my garden in the summer (chopped while in a semi-frozen state), some cutup cherry tomatoes (also frozen from my gardens), a can of diced tomatoes, a half-cup each of lentils and rice then some garlic, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin and three chicken bullion cubes.
One of my latest cooking discoveries is adding all of the spices to a dish before I put it on the stove to cook. I've been doing this with chili and soups lately and for some reason I don't understand—unless it's me putting in more spice at leisure because I'm not in danger of steaming my hand—everything is tastier. Usually the last of the chili sits in the fridge for a while and may even be thrown out. But not since I started adding spices while the dish is totally uncooked.
When you think about it, none of us would eat some of the the items I listed uncooked. Lentils? Rice? And separately, this group would taste nothing like what they will once they are transformed into soup.
Soup is one of my very best favorite meals. It never tastes quite the same each time, warms your insides like nothing else and the leftovers make a nice addition to our freezer for one of those days when no one has time to cook.
Powerful stuff, heat and water.
Gosh, I'm hungry. Gotta go.
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