SOUP’S ON!
An old-fashioned vegetable soup without any enhancement, is a more powerful anti-carcinogen than any known medicine. ~ Dr James Duke, MD (1928-)
VEGETABLE SOUP
Okay, here’s the deal. We have a large pot full of broth from making corned beef & cabbage, the perfect starter for a vegetable soup (or many other kinds of soup for that matter). So we can do this easy or really easy. Either way, it still has to simmer for hours to get the soup mojo going. But you get to decide which one you like. Sometimes even a little quicker is just what you need.
REALLY EASY
The really easy way is to strain the broth (to remove the pickling spices used in the corned beef), refrigerate overnight and skim the fat off. The next day, bring the broth to a boil, and add every vegetable in sight. Simmer for half a day and it’s soup. That’s the Lightning Round. However, there is a little better way that doesn’t take much more time.
EASY
After skimming, I like to enrich the cooking liquid by adding onion, celery, tomatoes & parsley and simmer that for three to four hours, breaking down the vegetables. Strain and press the liquid out; the vegetable puree adds intensity and body to the stock. Simmer for four hours to concentrate the flavors. To this base add vegetables – whatever strikes your fancy – the firmest first — and cook until those vegetables are tender.
Refrigerate and reheat the next day and the flavors will be melded nicely but you can still identify the vegetables. Actually, I add only enough vegetables for a few bowls at a time. Reheat and eat, using all of the vegetables and leaving the soup base for the next batch.
I then refrigerate, reheat the next time adding more vegetables. Soup will keep in the refrigerator for three days after each reheating. The soup base just keeps getting thicker and richer. At any point you can freeze it. I prefer to freeze the soup base only, then defrost and add fresh vegetables for the next round. They retain their shape much better that way.
A vegan version can be made using filtered water to start instead of cooking liquid from corned beef. Make whichever way works for you, so long as you make soup!
