When I find the fridge dangerously full of vegetables, with the choice between using them and throwing them out leaning closer and closer to the trash, I make soup. This week, I had sweet potatoes coming out of my ears, some chayote that were puzzling me and leftover vegetables like roasted fingerlings, carrots and green beans. To make a vegetable soup, it doesn’t matter how many or which kinds of vegetables are holding up in your refrigerator. Throw them into a pot with broth and a starch like rice or pasta and you have a great dinner or lunch in the making.
I used my enamel covered Dutch oven for this soup. I put some beef bones into it and roasted them for a few hours; until they were nice and brown. Then I added some boiling water to the pot (putting cold water into the hot pan would have been disastrous) with some onion peels, celery tops and other weird things I keep in my freezer to make broth. After another two hours or so, I strained out the solids and the bones and started putting in the things I actually wanted to eat. In went the chopped sweet potatoes, chopped onions, chayute, leftover potatoes and anything else I found in my fridge. I let them cook, covered for another hour. In went some orzo for 10 minutes. Then, we ate. It was delicious.
If I hadn’t had soup bones in the freezer, I could have started with a chicken or pork chops or ham. I could have added some beans or lentils or even chunks of meat. The possibilities are pretty much limited by your imagination or the contents of your vegetable bin.
1. Info for Vegetable Soup
- Cook Time: unavailable
- Total Time: unavailable
- Servings: unavailable
- Calories: unavailable
2. Ingredients for Vegetable Soup
- 2 pounds soup bones
- 1 onion, chopped
- 4 stalks celery, chopped
- 3-5 carrots, peeled and sliced
- 1-2 bay leaves
- potatoes or sweet potatoes (1/2 per person being served)
- 1 can green beans or corn or peas
- any leftover vegetables you may want to use
- 1-2 quarts water
- 2 tsp salt or to taste
- 1½ cups rice or pasta
3. Directions:
- Roast the bones in the oven at 400 degrees for two hours.
- Remove and add to stockpot.
- Add water, onion, celery and carrots to the pot.
- Cover and simmer for 2 hours.
- Remove the bones from the pot and add other vegetables.
- Cook for another half hour.
- Add the rice or pasta.
- Cook only another 15 minutes for pasta, 30 minutes for rice.
4. Tips and advices:
- Gluten free if made with rice.
