In this world there are salad people and there are soup people. I was born a soup person; On chilly winter days when the wind blows or when I feel a cold coming on I whip up a batch of simple vegetable soup. Over the years I have fine tuned my basic veggie soup to a minimum of ingredients, which I can then embellish with spices and herbs from my pantry. With flu season upon us I love throwing in a chunk of ginger to simmer along with the vegetables to give it a sinus clearing kick.
Gingered Vegetable Soup Recipe (Serves 2-3)
Ingredients:
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 small onion, diced
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 carrots, peeled, sliced into rounds ¼” thick
- 1 stalk of celery, sliced ¼” thick
- 1 cup of diced butternut squash or sweet potato
- 1 15-oz can of white beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ tsp ground black pepper
- 4 cups (1 quart) Vegetable or chicken stock
- 2 oz piece of ginger, peeled and smashed
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Directions:
- In a heavy bottomed soup pot over medium heat, warm the olive oil.
- Add the onions to the pot and sauté until translucent. Add the garlic and continue to sauté until aromatic. (about 30 seconds or so)
- Add the carrots, celery and squash to the soup pot. Sweat the vegetables for 10 minutes to draw out flavor before adding the vegetable stock, ginger, salt and pepper.
- Simmer for 15 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Remove the ginger and add the beans. Stir to combine. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper and enjoy!
Guest Writer – Phoebe Schilla
Phoebe dreamt of going to cooking school as a young child, and when she was 19, she was given the opportunity to study at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, France. Needless to say she jumped at the chance and hasn’t looked back since. After her return from France she continued her education working in restaurants, and eventually found herself back in Culinary School, this time at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, New York. She spent two years there, and graduated with an AOS degree in the culinary arts.
The Cordon Bleu and the CIA couldn’t be more different. The two educational styles complemented each other and gave her a well rounded education. As a result, she knows a lot of minutiae about the culinary arts and feels comfortable cooking just about anything. There is nothing that pleases her more than to make something beautiful and fragrant to eat. This is what she was meant to do, and she loves sharing her cooking skills and knowledge with others.
More information and recipes can be found on Phoebe’s website, Studio of Good Living!