WK Spicy Vegetable Soup

"mmm mmmm mmmmmm good"

What do you do when its fall, the air is crisp, the leaves are changing colour, and you have a ton of vegetables on hand and no wings? You make soup of course! And when the WK is involved, its gonna be spicy. This was my first attempt, ever at making homemade soup. For me, it has always been from a can . . . but things have changed.

WK SPICY VEGETABLE SOUP

INGREDIENTS:

• oil
• onion (diced)
• garlic (minced)
• carrots, (chopped)
• celery, (chopped)
• potato, (chopped)
• jalapeno, (chopped)
• corn
• diced tomato, 1 can
• beef broth
• water
• Worcestershire sauce
• ground coriander
• red chili pepper
• S & P

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Chop all vegetables
2. In a large pot at medium/high heat, add enough oil to coat bottom (I used EVOO), add onion & garlic and let sweat for about 5 minutes until onion is clear. Add salt & pepper.
3. Add carrots and celery and cook for about 5 minutes.
4. Add the rest of the vegetables. Cook for 5 minutes.
5. Add spices, Worcestershire, broth. If liquid does not come to near top, add water.
6. Stir and cook for 1 1/2 - 2 hours on medium/low. How simple was this?
   
   
   

Onions and garlic sweating. I don't know what sweating is, I've just heard Alton Brown say that before. I'm just cooking them as far as I'm concerned.

All the vegetables into the pool! Oh wait, I should have let the harder vegetables (carrots, celery, potato,) cook longer first! Oh well. As for the number, I have no idea. 10 little potatoes I think? 2 giant carrots? 1 long jalapeno? I don't know, just gage yourselves for what you want.

Let's add some instant soup maker. Most people would probably use chicken broth, but I thought beef would give a fuller taste. And it did.

Wow, this pot filled up fast. But it needs more liquid. I feel kinda weird just putting in water.

But water works.

Now here is where I make a small confession. So about 1.5 hours go by of cooking. Things are going along swimmingly. Sure, the potato was still hard, but the cooking process was going good, samples tasted great etc. Then I had the car and had to go pick up LJ from work. So I put the heat down to minimum. And I left. Note - DON'T EVER DO THIS. You know, keep cooking while your not there. This is dangerous. Now, not only did we not return right away, I forgot about the soup and we ended up going out for dinner. 2 hours later we rush home after remember the soup, and . . . the liquid was gone. Boiled right out. Now don't get me wrong, nothing was burnt - the vegetables were very cooked. It was almost a STOUP, as Rachel Ray calls them - too thick for soup, too thin for stew. I debated keeping it in its current condition or adding water. I decided I wanted soup dammit and I boiled some water in a kettle and added it - boom. Soup again, and nothing was lost.

The final product. See, forgetting this on the stove and adding water didn't hurt this soup at all. Look at those hearty vegetables. Corn, carrots, potato so good. The jalapeno and spices really gave this a kick, but it was the corn that add that certain something this soup needed.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE DIFFERENTLY? Umm, I don't know. Add more vegetables? Try chicken broth? The jalapenos were definitely hot. Every bite I needed to take a drink of milk, but it was a flavourful mouthful of heat. Even me letting it cook forever seemed to work out in the end. I was very happy how this soup turned out.