Spontaneous Soup

I know this might not be specific enough for some people, but I'm going to give this a shot anyway for those that can break away from the standard recipe chain.

I had an urge to cook soup. The last one, due to my urge to use up my hot peppers, turned out to be hot enough that I didn't want to use it for school left overs. I typically take a frozen serving, for lunch, and eat it between labs, but there's no way in Earth I'd be eating that before statistics legwork.
So, I didn't make soup yesterday because I couldn't find time, but that left me with the soup-making bug. Between that and the fact I'm attending a study session Sunday night, I wanted to do this. I also wanted to do another, but I got carried away, so I think I'm set for soup for a while. I'm running out of freezer-ready containers...

I went to the store. I know, I know, that's what happens when one makes soup. Bear with me. My original thought? Get a medium butternut squash, maybe a couple of sweet potatoes, an onion, some celery, some cream, and head out. What actually happened was similar: celery, an onion, some squash and potatoes. Except it turned out to be four large potatoes, one very large butternut squash (maybe 8 cups worth? 6?) along with another small-medium-ish squash (3 cups? 4?) And half-and-half, which I didn't even end up using, but I'll find a use for it regardless.

The process for making soups couldn't ever really be much easier, and I find that a recipe is just a good guideline to give you an idea for how long things should be cooking. Squashes and potatoes take a little longer than, say, celery and onions to be considered 'cooked'. Carrots fall a little closer to potatoes due to their size, but, again, it depends on how you cut them.

I have a pot that fits perhaps a gallon, maybe a few cups more. I filled it with squash, to give you an idea of how much I had bought. And then I had more, and filled it almost 3/4's with potatoes. All of that, plus an onion, about 4 celery stalks and a red bell pepper (snatched it on the way out), filled my large pot. I'd say I got about 40-50 ladel-fulls; I can say that because I ladled them all out into the Gladware containers. It came out to about 17-20 servings, depending on how one would define a serving.

Now, this was tasty. Tasty. How did I do it? I cut up everything into cubes, and added everything but the pepper, onion and celery. I put in about 75 ounces of stock (cooked some chicken in the process for a later meal), and about a stick of butter. Why butter? It goes with squash. And, someone had left it out. I didn't want it to go rancid, but I don't think it was worth putting back into my fridge.

I didn't add any cream mostly because I didn't have any space. After I let it cook on medium-high for an hour (needed to be that due to the amount of things cooking; otherwise it never came close to simmering), I added the onion, celery and pepper for about 10-15 minutes. Then, I went back to my trusty stick-blender and annihilated the heck out of everything. It was a lot, so it still had a few chunks, but I like it that way. Has the occasional bout of color and texture that a soft soup doesn't usually present.

This whole thing cost me maybe 25 bucks. Could have been cheaper if I decided to find things on sale; this was pretty spontaneous, considering my lack of planning. I was also really hungry, so there went my financial worries for a minute or two. But, if you consider I have at least 15 servings out of all of it, that's about $1.67 a thing -- and I filled them up to be enough to fill the average stomach, or at least be quite satiable. So, I don't think I did too shabbily.

Why am I posting such a post? I mean, it's not nearly as well thought out, prepared or otherwise clearly written as the others. Well, for starters, I was hungry. For another, and more to the point, I think people are losing their cooking touch. I mean, this isn't that hard, and people seem to be horribly afraid of trying stuff like this out. Potatoes and squash go together in soups; tons and tons of soups have onions, pepper and some salt; most of the vegetable based ones have celery. It takes about 30-45 minutes to really soften cubed potatoes and squash; if you cook it more, then, well, it's even easier to soften with a stick blender.

My point here, people, is to go out and make some soup. You like apples? Make the one I posted about a couple-few weeks ago. Tomatoes? Go for it. Mushrooms? Probably cooks like tomatoes, except you replace tomatoes with 'shrooms. And a lot of those have cream. Gosh, so far, everything is better with cream (in most opinions I've heard so far) and you can't usually go wrong with adding it. You can add noodles, corn, broccoli, spinach, you name it. Bacon. Peas and bacon go great, and people love bacon. Heck, I've been asked to do some crazy concoctions, and I think to myself every time: why don't you try it? Why does it have to be me?

I might compile some stranger ideas and give them a shot next year. But, for now (and hopefully for a while, if not ever) just make some soup. Have something you like. It doesn't need a guideline, really. And if it stinks, well, so what? Don't do that one again. Try something else. I threw things together I was craving, and, may I say, it turned out amazingly.