The Last of the Vegetables

When the temperatures drop, I think of soup. First comes my Greek lentil soup. Easy, inexpensive to make, filled with nutrition, so delicious and great for healing any ailments--colds, cranky mood, lost love. Next comes a bean and root vegetable stew with a story. You can find that recipe here. And then there are times when you want that soup in a hurry. You're hungry, and you need a comfort food moment now! Today's recipe is the soup for you. Here's the recipe.

Sometimes, I think that my best cooking skill is pulling together bits and pieces of ingredients--something akin to the Food Network show Chopped. This is how today's recipe came together. On a recent Sunday afternoon, the temperatures dropped to fire-building weather, so my Dewey built a fire. One week away from going off on a two-week vacation, I found lots of vegetables in the refrigerator. I needed to find a use for them. Salad! No, not comfort food. Soup? Absolutely, but I needed something with a creamy consistency for the comforting mouth feel.Fortunately I keep good quality canned beans in the pantry, so I could add them to the veg towards the end. This way they would still be firm, but they would soften enough to release some of their starch. Perfect. Click here for the recipe.

I shared the soup with friends. They wanted the recipe and asked how I managed to keep the vegetables tender but firm. As you'll see in my recipe, how you cut the vegetables and when you add them to the pot makes a difference. The key to great flavor is having quality vegetables and using enough salt.

Everything is cooked over high heat.

The recipe calls for cutting the carrots into thick slices. I use what is known as a quarter turn to get a more interesting shape and to be sure that all of the pieces are essentially the same size. If you'd like to learn this technique, spend a couple of minute on YouTube. Or...

This short instructional video from Saveur magazine shows how to do a Roll cut or Oblique or Quarter Turn. Whatever you call it, it's a great way to use carrots in stews and soups, no matter how large or small your carrots are.