Eat Your Vegetables!

For my birthday back in February, my lovely girlfriend B surprised me with a couple "food" themed gifts. The first gift was a cooking class for us at Whole Foods (I'll blog about that some other time). The second gift was a 5.5 quart Le Creuset French Pot. It truly is the gift that keeps on giving!

Since I've gotten this enamel-coated-cast iron-cooking vessel, I have been on a one pot meal whirlwind... There's nothing like a bowl of hearty chili, aromatic and chuncky vegatable soup, or meaty-rich bolognaise to fight off the cold, grey Seattle winter. And each of the three things I just listed off is extremely easy to make. All you need is a large pot, easy to attain ingredients, and some time for the soup to simmer.

In reading over other's food blogs, I've learned it's bad form to blog about a tasty dish without leaving a recipe to share... So to follow the proper etiquette, I am giving you my "recipe" for Spencer's-super-simple-vegatable soup. Enjoy!

As I've mentioned already, this soup is really easy. You don't neeed any fancy ingredients, and anything I've listed below can be removed or supplemented. In fact, I've started calling this recipe my "clean out the fridge" soup since it works with any veggies you have. A couple tips to keep in mind - 1) if you can dice everything around the same size, it'll cook more evenly. (But even then, if you can simmer the soup for a while, you'll be fine.) 2) This soup is really flexible. You can add meat (chicken, beef), grains (brown rice orbarley), pasta (orzo works great)... Whatever you like can be thrown in the pot. Don't be afraid to experiment!

Ingredients-

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3-4 carrots- diced
• 3-4 celery stalks- diced
• 1 medium/large onion- diced
• Any other veggies (yellow squash, cucumber, green beans, etc) - diced
• Salt & Pepper
• 1 quart low sodium chicken or vegetable broth
• 1 28 oz can of tomatoes (any type of cut will work. I prefer crushed for this soup, but if you like more chucks, diced or hand crushed whole tomatoes work too)
• 2-3 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon of oregano
• 1 teaspoon of thyme
• Water (optional)

Take a large pot and heat it to medium high. Add olive oil (more if you like the flavor or have a stainless steel pot). Add all the diced carrots, celery, and onion to the pot, and cook until soft. Add the salt and pepper to season. This should take about 8-10 minutes. (If you have softer veggies, feel free to add them after 5 or 6 minutes.) Also, browning is great, but don't burn the veggies.

Once the veggies are soft, add the remaining ingredients. Depending on how much broth you like in your soup, feel free to add more water. As you simmer the soup, it'll reduce and the flavors will begin to blend. Simmer the soup for at least 30 minutes, with the pot partially covered. As it nears that time, start tasting and season accordingly. Whenever the soup gets to the level of broth you desire, ladle it up and serve!

(serves 4-6)