Vegetable Soup

What do you make when you are cleaning out your refrigerator vegetable drawer?

Why vegetable soup of course!

Here is a simple recipe for vegetable soup using ingredients that I had on hand but of course you can substitute what you have on hand. This is easy to make and can be served as a starter or with a piece of hearty bread as a main course.

Most of the vegetable soup recipes I've seen call for just water, but I had an extra 4 cups of chicken stock leftover from another recipe, so I decided to try it and it work out fine. In fact, it gave the soup some extra richness.

What's On Hand Vegetable Soup
Cooking Methods: Sauté and Simmer
Serves 6

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium sized onion
2 each carrot
1 handfull green beans
8 each button mushrooms
4 cups chicken stock
3 cups water
6 each potato
salt and pepper
1/4 cup parsley

Not too much prep for this soup. Just chop up the onion, slice the carrots into 1/4 inch thick pieces, trim and halve the green beens. Slice the mushrooms into 1/4 inch pieces, chop the potatoes into 1/8's or 1/4's depending on their size and chop the parsley. Now you are ready to put it all together.

Heat butter and oil on medium high in a soup pot. Sauté onion, carrot, green beans for 3-4 minutes.

Add mushrooms and cook for another 2 minutes. Add chicken stock and water, potatoes, and season with salt & pepper.

Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and cook at a gentle boil until the potatoes are tender. (approx. 15 minutes) Add parsley just before the potatoes are cooked.

Season to taste and serve.