It's official: I'm on a soup jag. Today's soup is Alphabet Vegetable. It is the product of my Simple Tomato Soup (expired link removed - see recipe in comments section below) merged with extra chopped vegetables (this version includes finely chopped celery, carrot, red bell pepper, and corn kernels) and alphabet pasta, along with extra water to be absorbed by the pasta. I showered the bowls with chopped parsley, after the photo was taken, because I though all of the green bits would obscure the actual pasta.
The alphabet pasta was found at Granville Island, after a long, futile search in the supermarkets of Vancouver (well, I found some vegetable-dyed whole wheat alphabets, but they looked vile; I am not a fan of whole wheat pasta), and turns out to be alphanumeric, actually. I don't know if this is standard or not, since I never had alphabet soup growing up, but the numbers are a bonus, I think.
Adding stuff to my soup increased the cooking time by about ten minutes - the extras were all added post original recipe - which meant that the veggies still had some texture. Essentially, it is the variation for Tomato Vegetable that is listed at the end of the recipe, plus a half-cup of alphabet pasta and an extra cup of water. If you like the granular mushiness of canned vegetable soup, you might want to add another fifteen minutes (or more) to obtain the level of mush you desire. You may, of course, use any vegetables you want, including potato, parsnip, peas, lima beans...
We had this for dinner last night with toasted cheese sandwiches (i.e. not grilled, per se), and extra crusty bread for mopping the bowls clean.
Soup is such comforting food, and really lovely for the vertical weather we've been experiencing. So many of them also keep well for second days, lunches, or freezer-treasure. Next soup I've set my sights on? Salmon Corn Chowder. Stay tuned.
