Stock is one of those things that’s always better from scratch, but seriously, who has time for that? When I did (when I was in school) I used to diligently save veggie trimmings in a bag in the freezer and turn them into stock on a regular basis. I do not do that anymore (though I should, I suppose… come to think of it, I think I started to a year ago… I should probably fish those freezer burnt scraps out of my freezer and compost them… whoops).
The day I made this recipe, it snowed. A lot (for Calgary, at least). The roads were dry the day before, and by 7PM that night there was 10cm outside. By lunchtime the next day everything outside was white. I watched a car wiggle and swerve down our street and considered myself lucky to be sitting inside in my pajamas. Calgarians forget how to drive in snow in about 3 days, unfortunately.
Anyhow, this stew was perfect for a snowy night. I served it over brown rice with sour cream and snipped green onions. It was deliciously creamy and warm and yum. The sweet potatoes become meltingly tender and the broth reduces to be rich and flavourful. Mmm.
This soup is so, so easy, and is perfect with rustic bread slathered with butter. It’s also a good fridge-clearing soup—you can throw pretty much any vegetable into the roasting pan and it will still be awesome.
This soup is all about low and slow; long cooking times at low temperatures to bring out the amazing flavours hidden inside onions and mushrooms. You’ll need a good sized chunk of spare time to make this soup, but you can make a big batch and enjoy it for days. And, like all soups, it gets better with time, so the make-ahead strategy really works in your favour.
Make sure you start with a nice selection of mushrooms. My local grocery store isn’t exactly a hotspot of mushroom variety, so I made do with button, shiitake, oyster, and cremini mushrooms. Feel free to use any mushrooms you can get your hands on. You’ll want quite a few—enough to yield 6 to 8 cups once they’ve been chopped.
Sometimes you need lots of vegetables, and what better way to consume them in January than floating in tasty lemongrass and ginger broth? I can’t decide if the broth or the vegetables are the best part of this soup. The broth is really lovely; stock flavoured with lemongrass, ginger, galangal, and soy sauce, and then accented with a drizzle of hoisin sauce and some chili garlic sauce. Yum.
Tomato soup has been a lunch time staple for as long as I can remember, along with macaroni & cheese and ici-ban. We usually served canned Co-op soup with grilled cheese sandwiches and/or lots of soda crackers to create a sort of tomato soup mush that is much tastier than it sounds.
Though I’ll still happily eat canned tomato soup when the mood strikes, I generally prefer to make my own. It’s easy, creamy, and wonderful with all kinds of bread and/or grilled cheese sandwiches. I like to make a big batch, divide it into containers, and take it for lunch for the rest of the week.
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