soup from scratch

I’ll be moving back to Columbia from Springfield in ten days, leaving me with the daunting task of packing up my apartment and — I think this one may actually be worse — finishing off as much food as I can from my over-stocked fridge. I made a pilgrimage to the grocery store on Monday for fresh fruits and vegetables, but otherwise my goal is to use up what I have on hand.

So as soon as I got back from work, I pulled out my trusty copy of How to Cook Everything for inspiration. If you don’t already know Mark Bittman, now is the time to familiarize yourself with his work. His simple, easy to follow recipes have been a jumping off point for so many of my favorite inventions. Tonight I wanted a recipe for tilapia, possibly with a fruit salsa (I have a bag of frozen fish fillets from Target that I’m trying to polish off — I’ve found these thaw well enough for use in most dishes). However, I got distracted while looking for an application for zucchini, which I had left over from last night’s summer pasta dish.

The recipe that caught my eye was for a corn, tomato and zucchini soup with basil. I was about to make for the store to buy some tomatoes when I reminded myself of two things — one, I’m not actually a huge fan of tomatoes and two, I was on a mission to use up what I had. I ended up improvising a fantastic clear soup chock-full of squash and corn.



summer squash and corn soup

4 c vegetable stock (I used Massel bouillon cubes)
1 medium potato, cubed
1 1/2 c fresh or frozen corn
1/2 small zucchini, diced
1/2 medium yellow squash, diced
1/2 small yellow onion, diced
handful spinach, stems removed (optional)
1 tbsp parsley
1 tbsp butter
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

serves 4

This ended up being an incredibly substantial soup, perhaps more so than I intended. I started the soup in my 2 quart saucepan and had to transfer it to the 5 quart sauté pan.

I started with the potato, which I cubed and tossed into my smallest Pyrex roasting pan. I drizzled with olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper before popping the potato into the oven to roast. I imagine I could have boiled, steamed or even nuked it just as easily, but since it was a miracle I even found a potato in my messy cupboard I was going through the trouble of adding a potato, I wanted it to give the soup a nice hearty flavor.

Meanwhile, I brought 4 cups of water to a rolling boil and dissoved 4 Massel stock cubes. The best is homemade stock and the next best is canned broth, but if I have to use bouillon, I just make sure I use it in the right proportions. I prefer Marigold bouillon when available, but it’s difficult to find in the States. Massel, on the other hand, seems to be at almost every specialty food store and even some grocery stores. I use it instead of Better Than Bouillon when I don’t want even a hint of tomato taste in a dish. Once the stock was made, I dumped in the frozen corn to cook.

I sautéed the onion in about three tablespoons of olive oil, adding the zucchini and yellow squash once the onion was tender. I tend to add butter to soups because the fat adds flavor, but if you’re feeling extremely health conscious (you know, because this soup is SO bad for you to begin with), you can sauté directly in the butter and skip this step later. I sprinkled in some dried parsley before transferring the vegetables to the soup pot. That’s where I added the roasted potatoes, butter, spinach, salt and pepper, all to taste. I brought the soup to a boil for about a minute to cook the spinach, then left it to simmer until I was ready to eat (not very long in this case).

I cooked this soup completely from my cabinet without buying a single ingredient, which was what I intended to do today even if I didn’t prepare the intended dish. I ended up eating about a bowl and a half. The rest went into two Twist ‘n Loc storage containers. One when into the fridge for a quick lunch, the other went into the freezer to save for later.