Riotous Winter Soup

A soup I made this morning. It was planned for lunch, but Papa is in training and didn't make it home at noon, so I had a small bowl and saved the rest for tonight's dinner. Even J-Baby gave it the thumbs up.

~ Whatever homemade stock you have at home (I used about 6 cups homemade chicken stock)

~ Potatoes from the CSA (red and white)

~ A local leek, wilted in olive oil

~ One stalk of local celery, sliced

~ One baby butternut squash from the CSA, peeled and cubed

~ 3 large scoops of leftover beans, drained

~ A head of chard from the CSA, washed well and chopped

~ A squeeze of lemon (CSA)

~ A sprinkling of grated Gouda (local)

One thing I have found with a full-bodied stock is that soups require far less fuss in terms of sauteeing vegetables and such. I did wilt the leek to bring out its flavor, but everything else just went into the pot with the broth. Except the cheese, which was a condiment sprinkled on top (just 1 T. per person; local cheese is expensive because the costs aren't externalized).

I "throw" together soups all the time, which is one reason I am going to miss chicken if our January ban becomes permanent. I like having a good broth to start from. I'll be making beef broth this week, so we'll see how that goes as a soup starter. I'll also look to make vegetable stock again, although it often seems like a waste of good vegetables, whereas I made chicken stock from carcasses, wings, backs, and bits of meat, plus just a few veggies that were then fed to the dog.

I like bone broths. That's rather weird considering that I was vegetarian, vegan, or pesco-vegetarian for 18 years. But I really see how the minerals and gelatin from the bones become part of the stock and fully nourish us.

I do have some poultry stock in the freezer; 8 cups of roasted turkey stock and 6 cups of chicken stock. And I have a few chicken bones and a turkey neck, so I can pull together one more small pot of stock using those. But I'm hoping that we are happy with beef stock, as we can make that with bones from grassfed cattle.