Odds & ends soup

Should I be calling this stone soup? I don’t really remember that book or story very well, I’ll admit.

Right, so sometimes I have a lot of odds and ends around the pantry and I’m feeling a bit lazy. In the winter, I’m a big fan of throwing them together to make soup. This can go better or worse, obviously, based on what you have to hand. Here’s my latest shot at this, which went pretty well.

Celery, one full bulb (is that what it’s called?) ends trimmed, each stalk cut into pieces of approx 1/2″ width

2-3 medium onions, chopped medium (not a tiny dice, not huge)

canned diced tomatoes, 1 lg can

sausage (I used fully cooked sweet italian chicken sausage, a full package of 5 regular hot dog sized sausages. You could use any kind, just be sure it’s fully cooked first; as far as that goes, I like the idea of cooking the sausage in the pan and deglazing to get the good stuff. At the same time, it might be a bit greasy, so could be better to do in a different pan. If obtained as ‘link’ sausage crumble into pieces)

5-8 B-size potatoes (I used gold, you can use any kind) diced medium

32 oz chicken stock

olive oil

herbes de provence, salt, pepper

water

Put a moderate amount of olive oil in a stockpot and bring to medium heat. Add onions and celery and cook until the onions begin to soften. Add sausage, herbes de provence, salt and pepper  – don’t be shy, remember you’re going to add a lot of liquid later, cook another 5 minutes or so until sausage is heated through. Add tomatoes, potatoes, and chicken stock, supplementing stock with enough water to cover all ingredients. Bring to simmer and cover, cooking for an hour or so until potatoes are tender. This makes probably 8 servings?

Now, you could also add to this carrots, garlic … there are a lot of possibilities. I like spicy things, so perhaps some red pepper flakes might be in order; or next time I’ll also use spicy sausage. I was also thinking that some kale might be a lovely addition. Of course you can make anything with vegetable stock instead of chicken stock.

My experience with freezing soups that have potatoes in them hasn’t been superb so based on that, I wouldn’t recommend freezing.

As you can see I’m not one for hard-and-fast recipes. If anyone has any other last-minute throw in a pot soups, etc, I’d be glad to have more info about those.