The Joys of Soup
It is a damp, drizzly day, and I am making soup. The making of soup not only provides consolation for the weather's inhospitability, it almost makes one glad of it. Therefore, I shall devote this post to the glories of that useful food.
The great thing about soup is that one can make it out of anything. Well, anything edible, anyway. One can dump in yesterday's leftover casserole, a bunch of bones that have too little meat on them to be good for anything else, and the dried-out rice from last week's takeout Chinese, and somehow it still ends up tasting good. One can even make an entirely different soup out of leftover soup. Soup-making is very creative. You can experiment with mixing flavors in different ways, and if your first attempt fails, you just pour in some more water and keep adding flavors until you get it right.
In our house, we have refined this process to its ultimate extreme: The Never-Ending Soup Pot. You start with a good basic soup, like potato or tomato-vegetable. Whatever's left over from the first time you serve it, you use as a base for the next night's soup; then you use the leftovers from that as a base for the next, and so on. The challenge is to make each soup as different as possible from the last, while blending in the last soup's flavors. On Friday, we had a tangy tomato soup with vinegar and corn. For Saturday, I made it into a really spicy southwestern soup by adding chili spices, more corn, and black and garbanzo beans. Then today, I mellowed it out with creamed corn, leftover Ragu sauce, spinach, green beans, and lots of sour cream; now it's a creamy tomato-vegetable soup.
Once one's family threatens to revolt if fed soup any more times in a row, one pours the remaining soup into a half-gallon pail and freezes it; any odd leftovers you have in the meantime can be thrown in with it. A few weeks later, you can defrost it and start over. This process can continue indefinitely, or until you miscalculate the amount, and your family eats all of it, leaving you without leftovers.
It's a beautiful thing.
I know, strange things make me happy.
The great thing about soup is that one can make it out of anything. Well, anything edible, anyway. One can dump in yesterday's leftover casserole, a bunch of bones that have too little meat on them to be good for anything else, and the dried-out rice from last week's takeout Chinese, and somehow it still ends up tasting good. One can even make an entirely different soup out of leftover soup. Soup-making is very creative. You can experiment with mixing flavors in different ways, and if your first attempt fails, you just pour in some more water and keep adding flavors until you get it right.
In our house, we have refined this process to its ultimate extreme: The Never-Ending Soup Pot. You start with a good basic soup, like potato or tomato-vegetable. Whatever's left over from the first time you serve it, you use as a base for the next night's soup; then you use the leftovers from that as a base for the next, and so on. The challenge is to make each soup as different as possible from the last, while blending in the last soup's flavors. On Friday, we had a tangy tomato soup with vinegar and corn. For Saturday, I made it into a really spicy southwestern soup by adding chili spices, more corn, and black and garbanzo beans. Then today, I mellowed it out with creamed corn, leftover Ragu sauce, spinach, green beans, and lots of sour cream; now it's a creamy tomato-vegetable soup.
Once one's family threatens to revolt if fed soup any more times in a row, one pours the remaining soup into a half-gallon pail and freezes it; any odd leftovers you have in the meantime can be thrown in with it. A few weeks later, you can defrost it and start over. This process can continue indefinitely, or until you miscalculate the amount, and your family eats all of it, leaving you without leftovers.
It's a beautiful thing.
I know, strange things make me happy.
posted by Deborah | 2:47 PM
2 Comments:
I find something disturbing about the entire concept. Don't the leftovers ever go bad? Surely there must be some trace of the original soup from aeons before still remaining in the current rendition. Is that healthy? :P
I came upon your blog while looking for 'that thought provoking article about head coverings' by Andree Seu. I, too, was moved by that essay. I'm still praying and thinking about what I am going to do about it. As an independent child of the 70's "do your own thing" mentality, I struggle, but as a child of God, I desire to honor and obey Him. Anyway...I will think about it over a big bowl of soup. Thanks for the inspiration! Love your blog.
Post a Comment
<< Home