A new approach to soup making

How many times have you had soup that tastes like it was cooked to death?  You know, the pale mushy vegetables?  Last night I experimented with a different approach to soup that avoids all that.

The day before I had made the chicken stock much as I always have by cooking a whole chicken in a pot of water with a sliced onion and some pepper corns.  By last night I could easily skim the fat off the broth and take the chicken off the bones.

Quite apart from the broth, I sauteed in lemon olive oil a mix of vegetables -- garlic, ginger, eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, and sweet red pepper.  After 10 minutes or so, I added spinach, dill, cilantro, “silk road seasoning”, and a small amount of salt.  

As I heated the chicken stock and deboned chicken, I added some whole wheat linguine  to the pot.

Only when it was put into serving bowls was the vegetable mixture married with the chicken-stock-linguine.

The result was a tasty mix of flavorful vegetables that were cooked to perfection.  

The beauty of this approach to soup is the fact that the rest of the chicken-stock-linguine mixture can be combined with entirely different vegetables and seasonings.  It does require a little more attention in the preparation, but it’s well worth the extra 15 minutes of stir-frying.