Stockless Soup

I promised a post about soup, didn't I?
Unlike when I last posted about soup, this one was successful!

Have you ever been looking for soup recipes, found something that sounds delicious, only to read something like this in the ingredients?

 "2pts vegetable stock"

Do you then groan because you know you used the last one and haven't bought any more yet?

Yeah, me too.

So one day, I thought 'screw the vegetable stock!'
And I made Stockless Soup. Handy if you have no premade stock, but plenty of herbs and spices.

Here's how:

 
Gather your desired vegetables (seen here: pumpkin, onion and carrot).
Also gather various condiments, herbs, spices, etc--whatever floats your boat. (pictured: pepper, himalayan salt, garlic, horseradish, ginger)

Heap your prepared vegetables into a big saucepan and add your herbs/spices/whatever else. I always put in far too much horseradish, therefore my soup could also be known as 'Sinus Clearing Soup'!

Add water and cook until the vegetables are cooked through. Taste occasionally during cooking to see if you need to add more salt/pepper/other flavourings you might have knocking around.

Once done, give it a whizz through a blender if you prefer your soups thick and smooth :)

Extra tips from Kei's Gung-Ho School of Cookery:

How to tell if something will taste good in your soup: Wait until the veggies and a few basic additions are cooking. Smell it, smell what you're unsure about, and smell the soup again. If the two smells 'match', it will be a good addition. If not, don't do it!

Amounts to add: For things like ginger, garlic and horseradish, I go for about 1 tsp per litre. For everything else I use to the old fashioned measure, 'shake a bit in and see how it tastes'

What to add: See what you have in the cupboard! In the past I've used various combinations of five elements salt, pepper, curry powder, garlic, ginger, horseradish,black pepper, himalayan salt, regular salt, a lemon pepper mill thingy from Marks & Spencer, ditto chilli mill thingy, basil, marjoram, rosemary and parsley. Our cupboard for these kind of things is right next to the cooker, so I tend to open the cupboard and add things as I'm going :)

I prefer cooking soup this way to using readymade stock. The first soup I made this way tasted like the homemade soup my Mum sometimes buys from the deli, so I knew I was on to a good thing! Also, from a nutritional standpoint, by cooking in this way you know exactly what has gone into your soup! :)