Garden Vegetable Soup

 Soup... History in a bowl. Soup is one of those food items that transcends history, culture, language, and time. It's always been there. In ancient times soup was something waiting for you at the hearth or bubbling on the campfire. During the Depression soup was a hodge-podge of whatever could be rustled up and thrown in the pot for sustenance. It comforts us and brings nourishment when we are sick. Now in present day as we venture into the future soup is still there just as the sun rises every morning and sets every evening. Soup.... as steady as the time that marches on.

In this post I am sharing one of my favorite soup recipes.

Garden Vegetable Soup

For a wedding gift I received a cookbook from my step-mom called The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. You can find the book here. This is a staple cookbook in my kitchen mainly because it focuses on cooking with fresh ingredients... fresh meats, fresh vegetables, and cooking from scratch.

Last summer I had so much zucchini coming out of my garden so I frantically found as many ways possible to use it in different recipes. Of coarse there's the obvious like zucchini bread, but I added zucchini to omelets, stir-fries, and then one day I had a light-bulb moment... soup! I pulled out my New Basics Cookbook and sure enough, there was a recipe. Now the recipe in the book calls for parsnips and leeks, which I didn't have on hand so I substituted the zucchini for the parsnips and onions for the leeks and it turned out perfect so the recipe below is a revised version of the recipe in the New Basics Cookbook. Since zucchini season is right around the corner I thought I would share this wonderful recipe.

Another thing I love about this recipe is you can interchange the vegetables for whatever you have on hand. As long as you keep the white wine vinegar, garlic, butter, chicken stock the same... everything else can be changed out and it still comes out super tasty. 

Homemade chicken stock really makes this soup much more rich and full of flavor. If you would like a printout of my chicken stock recipe click here or you can click on the tutorial video below. 

Enough talk! Let's get cooking!

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Author: Greeting Tree Farm adapted from The New Basics CookbookPin it

Garden Vegetable Soup

prep time: 30 minscook time: 8 hour and 20 minstotal time: 8 hours and 50 mins

This soup is delicious anytime of the year, especially if you use vegetables that are in season. Pair with grated Parmesan or Asiago and crusty bread.

ingredients:

• 1 small purple onion, diced
• 2 cups of filtered water
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 4 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 3 small zucchinis, peeled and chopped
• 6 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter (I prefer salted)
• 4 cups homemade chicken stock or canned broth
• 8 small red potatoes, quartered
• 12 ripe tomatoes, cut into 1-inch chunks
• 1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh parsley
• 12 large fresh basil leaves, roughly chopped
• 1 1/2 tablespoons dried tarragon
• 1 tablespoon season salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

instructions:

1. Wash, rinse, and prepare all vegetables as listed above. 
2. In a large dutch oven or a crock-pot add all ingredients except butter.  
3. Once all ingredients are in pot/ crock-pot give it a good stir. 
4. Dot the top of the soup with butter and place a lid on  the pot/ crock-pot. 
5. If using a dutch oven, cook at 375 degrees for 20 minutes and then reduce heat to 200 degrees and cook for an additional 8 hours. 
6. If using a crock-pot cook on low for 8 hours. 
7. garnish with grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese and serve with warm, crusty bread.  

http://www.greetingtreefarm.com/2018/06/garden-vegetable-soup.html

The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins

Created using The Recipes Generator

REFERENCES:

Lukins, Sheila, Julee, Rosso. The New Basics Cookbook.Workman Publishing Company, 1989.