Stone Soup

Today was a 'snow day' at the Wandering Wardrobe. I was afraid we couldn't keep the snow off the sidewalks and porch. Our customers' safey was more important than opening today, so I stayed home and cleaned a couple of drawers and closets. I hope our consignors did too, and that I'll be busy tomorrow.

The weather was perfect for making a big pot of homemade soup, but not for going to the grocery store. When our girls were little, one of their favorite stories was "Stone Soup", and I decided that if that old woman could make soup out of nothing, so could I. I dug through the refrigerator, freezer, and pantry, and came up with the fixings for one great pot of soup. No recipe, just a bunch of stuff in a pot.

Here's what I did, and what you could do to make this delicious soup: saute' one onion in about 2 T of butter. Add one garlic clove. Add 1 can vegetable stock and about 4 cups of water. Add 1 large can whole tomatoes (I used our very own home canned tomatoes!). Add 4 or 5 beef bouillon cubes. I added a beef soup bone because Kenny doesn't consider anything made without meat to actually be a meal, but you don't have to. Add some chopped celery, carrots, purple cabbage, and any other vegetable that's in your crisper. Add frozen or canned green beans, corn, mushrooms, and/or brocolli. Add some red or great northern beans. I added an old package of frozen asian noodles, and I actually think this is what made the soup so good. I seasoned with salt, pepper, basil, bay leaves, lots of seasoning salt, and sugar.

I made homemade cornbread muffins and added a cup of leftover pumpkin puree' to the mixture. Oh my, they were good.

I made that soup and muffins with bits of leftovers, and it was as good a meal as I've ever made.