You could call this one of my haphazard recipes. I figured since everything in it would taste alright in spaghetti, they would go well together in soup.
It all started with the experimental veggie dish I made for Easter dinner. I wanted something healthy and colorful, and ended up combining:
- 1 eggplant
- 5 carrots
- 1-2 onions
- few handfulls of mushrooms
- 2-3 celery stalks
- 3 zucchini
- 7 campari tomatoes (quartered)
- olive oil
- 1 garlic clove
- basil
- Italian seasoning
- black pepper
- oregano
The idea was to cook everything lightly (with steam, preferably) and then pop it all in the oven to brown a little and keep warm.
*(Wait to do the eggplant until everything else has been cooked. It is very absorbent, and gets mushy really quickly. Toss it in the pan that you did the other veggies in, as it will soak up the residual flavors and seasonings.)
After the family dinner, I had some of the dish left. I figured we wouldn’t eat it by itself at home, and decided to turn it into soup. So I got my little soup pot (which I estimate to be about 2.5 to 3 gallons), filled it about one-third of the way with water, and added a couple chicken bouillon cubes (low sodium broth or real stock would be much better, but this was a last minute deal. I wanted soup NOW!).
I also added a bit more of all the herbs mentioned above. When the base seemed interesting enough, I dumped in the leftover vegetables and the liquid in their dish.
Mainly because I had to get rid of it, I browned and seasoned (with Italian seasoning) one half-pound of ground turkey. I added it to the pot. Turkey is much lower in fat than sausage or beef, but beware of the large amounts of hormones in many varieties.
Two more things went in the soup to add a little flavor: olive salad and balsamic vinegar. Olive salad is:
- 1 can of black olives
- 1-2 handfulls of green olives
- 1/2 peeled cucumber
- 1 clove garlic
- dash of minced onion
- Greek seasoning
- black pepper
Throw all of this together in a food processor or old fashioned chopper (by hand works if you have an hour or three to spare). The tiny pieces mix really well together, and were great in the soup. I also love olive salad on a green salad, a sandwich, or mixed with plain yogurt.
Let the soup simmer for a couple hours. It will be especially good if left to blend its flavors in the fridge for another day.
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