We all have our time honored meal choices, but sometimes we need a little inspiration in the kitchen. While the internet is overwhelmingly full of ideas, what we really enjoy is hearing from friends and members about their culinary creativity. We wanted to give a shout out to Catherine Stevens this week for sharing with us her no recipe recipe for CSA Soup.
CSA Soup
Making homemade soup is easy and the ingredients in this recipe may be changed to match whatever veggies were in your JSF CSA share and whatever you might have in your kitchen. Be creative, taste for seasoning as you go along and allow the soup to simmer to deepen the flavor. If you've never made soup before, please give it a try--it's so nutritious and delicious! Plus, homemade soup freezes beautifully and I have several types of soup in my freezer for those days when I get home from work and haven't planned anything for dinner.
Ingredients:
- Olive or vegetable oil and, if you want a richer taste, a little butter
- Chopped/diced vegetables including onion, garlic, leeks, carrots, tomatoes (fresh, frozen or home canned), potato, summer squash, green beans, peas, turnip, kale, spinach, chard, cabbage, etc.
- Quinoa or rice or barley or noodles or small pasta (ditalini) or farro or cooked beans.
Basic instructions:
- Put a few tablespoons of oil in a dutch oven or soup pot and add the basics: chopped onion/leeks/garlic, carrot and celery. These are the "trinity" that create the beginning flavors in your soup. Cook, stirring occasionally, on medium until the onions are turning translucent. Don't let them burn.
- Add any of the other vegetables listed above and/or whatever you have; add vegetable stock (or chicken or beef) to twice cover the vegetables and simmer until the vegetables are cooked. At this point, taste for seasoning and add salt, pepper, chopped parsley and/or basil/and or other herbs you like. Add the rice/pasta/quinoa/beans and taste for seasoning again. Depending on the pasta/beans that you added, and depending on whether you like a thick soup or a thin one, you may need to add more water or stock at this point. Taste again for seasonings.