Soup

Soups are the best.  I am never more satisfied than when I make (and enjoy) a delicious soup.  The best thing about soup is, the simplest ones are always the best!

I had a big soup victory this Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving (can we coin this something, like Blue Wednesday?)  I have been fighting "the crud", one of those mysterious not-really-sick-sicknesses, ever since last week, and I thought Wednesday would be a good day to make some soup.

Soup is nearly impossible to make to make in small quantities.  Even though I only used one chicken breast, by the time I threw in all my random use-em-or-lose-em veggies, I had a whole stock pot of soup going.  I usually feel bad for throwing out the leftovers, but this turned out not to be a problem.  My boyfriend (Thomas) came over for lunch and ended up spending the afternoon at my place while I ran errands and went to class.  He went nuts over this random crappy soup I made and ate the whole pot over the course of the evening.  Why?  Because it's addictive, feel good, guilt free tastiness.

Do you know how to make soup?  Like, if you wanted to throw a soup together, do you have a good starting point?  Here are the two soup recipes that have trained me to throw one together on the fly.

Chicken Noodle Soup
Vegetable Soup

Having made every variation possible on that chicken noodle soup, I've learned that it's pretty much infallible.  Blue Wednesday's version was a chicken breast (thrown straight in frozen), 1.5 cups shredded carrots, a few stalks of chopped celery, garlic, a small can of corn, a small can of green beans (from this time that someone told me they lost a ton of weight eating tuna and green beans for lunch...those green beans sat in my pantry for 2 years), all the herbs in the recipe, some bouillon, and....I think that's it.  No noodles or rice.  It was AWESOME even as weird as it was, and I finally used those freakin' green beans.

Are you feeling snobby about bouillon?  I hear ya.  It's a ball of (delicious) sodium.  I have made that chicken noodle recipe with homemade slow cooked stock, and it's wonderful.  And if you have time to do that regularly, do it!  But bouillon is key to doing this stuff fast, and honestly, I don't remember the last time that bouillon was the worst thing I'd had in a week.  It's like corn.  Corn has such a bad rap lately, but one of my favorite salads I make has spinach, radishes, corn, chickpeas, and a splash of red wine vinegar.  I realize there isn't much good about corn, but if corn is the worst thing I eat in a week, that's a pretty good week.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself for selling Thomas on the wonders of soup.  Tonight, I got cocky and decided to try again.  In our post-Thanksgiving state of shame, we are trying to eat healthier this week, and I remembered that he bought a bag of lentils and some ham last time we went to the store together.  So, I went to his place and made lentil soup.

All this went into the pot:
Rinsed 1 lb bag lentils
bag of cubed ham (don't know how much, probably 1.5-2 cups total)
8-ish cups of water
a couple bay leaves, some dried oregano, basil, and thyme
Half a bag of shredded carrots (I almost always have these on hand...I hate chopping carrots more than I hate the weirdness of using shredded carrots in everything)
Chopped celery (1-2 cups.  Bought it pre-chopped, didn't measure it, just dumped it in)
Onion powder (use a real onion if your soup-eaters will eat one...mine will not)
2 extra large Knorr chicken bouillon cubes

Then, after the lentils were done (45-60 minutes), I added about .5 cup of tomato sauce.

So.  Good.