True Americans use powdered, sir.
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In fact, that’s pretty much the tagline for ANY homemade soup or stew.
Start by sauteing chopped onions, add chopped carrots and celery (mirepoix for the win), garlic and/or herbs, any other chopped veggies you want to use, some sort of protein, cover with stock (but water will do), bring to a boil and then simmer until done. Serve as is, or blend to a potage consistency, or blend more thoroughly to a puree consistency. Add cream or yogurt or rice or pasta (etc.) if you want to.
You can make a different soup every day of the year with the above recipe.
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You’re thinking of bouillabaisse.
In my experience, by the time I’ve hiked seven to ten miles to the campsite and spent twenty minutes getting everything ready at the site just about anything tastes pretty great. In the words of my father-in-law: “Hunger makes the best sauce.”
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Boullabaisse always makes me think of ‘Our Man Flint’.
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I had to look that up. But I do keep one, woo-hoo!
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That’s true. it really just takes a bit of effort. before you know it, you’re an soup/stew/chili master.
In fact, I’ve never NOT won something in an informal chili cook off (work party, house party, etc…) in the top three chosen.
Both my parents worked and my mom made us a cooked meal from actual ingredients 90 percent or more of the time.
Either it’s a priority or not.
A little work ahead and a stocked pantry/fridge and it costs less than eating pre-made garbage or fast food.
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Moving out of the desert is the way of the future 
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The flaw with many supermarket stocks is that they are not stock. They’re broth, even the ones that technically count as stock have a perilously low gelatin content. I want my stock to be almost solid at room temp. Also salt, most of them are so salty that you really don’t want to reduce them.
Also in terms of your technique requirement. I guess your referring to clarifying/skimming. That’s totally unnecessary unless you’ve got reason to make clear stock. I never bother, cloudy stock has no effect of flavor and most of the grosser scum strains out with the rest of it.
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I, for one, would be interested in finding such carrots like the ones in this video.* Maybe not “mythical jackalope” but way bigger than any carrots I’ve ever found in a store.
My nearby bagel place evidently finds carrots this big for their veggie cream cheese.
*(Sorry about the ad – I don’t think it used to be there, but with Adblock the video doesn’t show up at all)
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We’ve got some older copies around somewhere 60’s, 70’s, 80’s the family tends to rebuy it every decade or so. I don’t remember it involving much canned anything but then they aren’t first editions from the 30’s. And the depression was kind of the start of the American processed/convenience food thing.
That explains a lot – I’ve seen a lot of my grandmother’s old recipes, and heaven knows I miss her cooking, but man oh man there’s a lot of processed food in there. “1 pkg Nippy Cheddar” etc. Whenever it calls for a canned ingredient (quite often), it’s never “15 oz.” or “28 oz.” Instead it’s “#2 can of cream corn,” “#4 can pearl onions” etc.
I guess I lucked out!
OR: Most of my consultatiosn of the book has been of recipes that just don’t call for soup. The last two things I looked up was preparation of Brussels sprouts and a meatball recipe.
“get of my lawn” = offspring of my lawn?
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I’m not sure if I’m more offended by the implication that making simple soup is just too hard! or the claim that a simple recipe composed of common ingredients and few kinds of dirt cheap vegetables is some how crazy expensive. Reminded me of [this bit][1]
But anyway, I’ve got a friend who was raised in Moscow. She makes this insanely good Russian mushroom soup. I had asked her for the recipe and she was actually a bit confused. Apparently all it is is a mushroom broth that’s a standard bit of Russian cooking, like a pantry staple, with some well browned mushrooms and whatever she has on hand. She’s not much of a cook so she tends to get store bought versions of this broth at Eastern European markets around New York. She did tell me the name for this broth, and told me there were TONS of recipes online. However I have forgotten what its called, and desperately want to make this soup from scratch. Anyone Russian (ethnically or nationally) and know what the fuck I’m talking about?
In similar not really a recipe news my grandfather often waxes poetic about traditional Irish foods his grandmother and mother used to make for him in the old country. Stuff you never hear about or think of as Irish food. Like roasted goat or goose soup (more of a horror story than a recommendation on his part, there as a kindly neighbor and a bit of puking involved). One of the things he brought up that worked rather well was the Oxtail soup my great grandmother used to make. You make a basic potato soup of the smooth and creamy variety. Any recipe will work. Once the soup is, well, soup you braise a ton of oxtails in it. For such a stupidly simple idea its insanely good.
[1]: http://ruhlman.com/2010/01/america-too-stupid-to-cook/
All we need to do to ignite a flamewar is ask whether chili should have beans in it and watch the fireworks. Almost as reliable as asking two fans of dubstep whether a particular song counts as dubstep or some subgenre of dubstep. We’re off to the races!
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Surely preparing brussells sprouts merely involves binning them?
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well damn, that is one spell check will miss, sadly my brain missed it too.
