mulberryshoots

The other day, I posted a piece about umami taste and in particular about making a fragrant vegetable broth from scratch that I froze to use as a base for when I make soups or sauces.

Today, when I returned from my physical therapy appointment for my ankle, broken in February, I thought I’d make a small batch of soup for our lunch. I’ve been thinking about composing a vegetable soup recipe that would become a constant companion drawn from ingredients that I have on hand most of the time. Here’s what I cooked up:

1/4 Vidalia sweet onion, chopped and browned in extra virgin olive oil;

added:

3 stalks of celery hearts with leaves, chopped

3 carrots, peeled and quarter cut*

(*hold the carrot (ends trimmed) perpendicular on the cutting board and make a small diagonal slice; turn the carrot a quarter turn; diagonally slice again; turn a quarter turn, slice again–keep doing this until it is cut up. This also works beautifully on fresh asparagus and parsnips too where you want irregular shaped but diagonally uniform cuts of vegetable.)

2 small cousa squash, cut in pieces (slice lengthwise; stack together and then cut diagonally to make bitesize pieces.)

1 small garden tomato cut in wedges

Stir-fry while browning vegetables and then add:

3 cups homemade vegetable broth

Cover pot and simmer until vegetables are tender but not overcooked.

Add a few stalks of chopped fresh parsley towards the end.

Serve with cold sliced ham, corn muffins and dark rye crackers with blue cheese.

It’s supposed to be hot today, but this soup tastes sublime and is so easy to make on a slow summer day. I think it’s also a good candidate for repeat performances!

When I make it again, I think I would keep everything the same except for reducing the celery and carrot to two instead of three. That would make the batch just right for two people to have a bowl and a half each of this delicious soup.