Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

After the marathon of cooking and eating last week, soup has tremendous appeal.

Actually, it almost always does, and I have freqently turned odds and ends of leftovers into soup.  In my house, this is sometimes referred to as Garbage Soup, but sometimes it ends up absolutely delicious. We will pass over in silence those times when it doesn’t.

Then there are the soups that are made more deliberately. Sometimes this can involve almost as much effort as a turkey dinner, but I’d like to offer one of my really easy favorites. It uses only ingredients you are likely to have on hand.

Tomato and carrot soup

 

1 pound potatoes

1 pound carrots

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup canned tomatoes (whole, crushed, diced or puree)

6 cups water

1 teaspoon dried tarragon

salt, pepper

 

Peel and chop the potatoes and carrots into more or less equal chunks. (The smaller you chop them, the sooner the soup will be done.)

 Melt the butter in a large pot, add the potatoes and carrots, and let cook slowly for a few minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, cover and simmer until the vegetables are soft. Adjust seasonings.

Puree in a blender, food processor, or with an immersion blender. (You could also do this by hand with a food mill or pressing it through a seive. I don’t know why you would bother—I’d be more likely to leave it in chunks —but you could.) Add more water if it’s too thick.

This is obviously an adjustable recipe. Using a bit more or less of the potatoes, carrots and tomatoes doesn’t really matter. Broth can always be used in place of water, and quantities of seasonings should always be taken with a grain of salt. The older herbs are, the less flavor they have. I use tarragon in this soup because I happen to love it. If you don’t, use something else. Dill or basil or marjoram or bay leaf or thyme or… You get the idea.

That picture of a tureen? Well, I serve soup straight from the pot to the bowl, but I sometimes fantasize about serving it elegantly from a gorgeous silver tureen.