Half the time I throw in some cabbage, but I always pretty much make up the recipe each time I make soup based on what’s availabe and my mood.
They look more cream or ivory than yellow to me. I’ve SEEN them in the market, I have just never had one.
Parsnips are sweet-ish and nutty, the carrot shape is the only thing like a carrot. The core is like a carrot’s, but is hard and fibrous, I usually cut it out if I’m serving parsnips as a vegetable.
Oh, and you really need carrots/onions/celery. They’re ingredients. They make veg soup taste like veg soup. (but I always used big chunks so them’s that don’t like 'em can fish the pieces out of their soup bowls. They still flavor the soup, though.)
For those of us who are confused (or maybe it’s just me) what kind of vegetable is a swede?
Goes also by the name of rutabaga, and is very suitable for veggie soups.
If I don’t have onions and celery, at least, I usually won’t even bother making a soup. I’m not terribly fond of cooked celery, but soup isn’t soup without the celery. I do like raw celery. I’ll run out and get carrots if I’m out of them, and I want to make soup. After the Big Three, I want potatoes, turnips, cabbage, and green beans.
I also like to make Bisquick dumplings for beef and chicken soup, and I usually add some dried parsley and chives to the batter. I think it improves the taste and appearance.
I voted for all of them. For the corn, green beans and lima beans - and peas!, I just use a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. All the rest is fresh, or leftover. Sometimes I save bits of leftover veggies and freeze them, and throw them in a soup.
This might belong in a different thread, but I always try to include the following vegetables in chili:
onions
garlic
peppers (variety – usually 4 poblanos, 8 Anaheims, 4 jalapenos)
carrots
celery
corn
beans (variety – usually a mix of kidney, pinto, and black beans)
tomatoes (canned)
Is there anything you would add?
To purists, I realize, everything on that list is abomination save the onions, garlic and peppers. A traditional bowl of Texas Red has not even tomatoes (getting its color from paprika) – if it does have tomatoes, then it’s Oklahoma Red.
Well, I was sort of thinking of developing (flavor) caramelization in the oxtails and root veg for a braise or soup. But when I refer to soup here, I am really thinking of a "soup " that is more substantial and hearty, and less “soupy” , in the classical sense- more like a Osso Bucco, maybe. Maybe a couple of pounds of chopped oxtails and a variety of coarsely chopped, reserved, rootveg and mirepoix, tossed/coated with a dressing of honey, lemon juice, Olive Oil, fresh thyme, salt and pepper and a touch of water. Roast them at 375 till they all get a nice browning. Remove the oxtails to the soup pot, adding some “fresh” reserved root veg, push the roasted root veg, drippings, and mirepoix through a fine chinoise into the soup. Barely cover with some good Beef stock and simmer till the oxtails are truly tender and the root veg has mellowed, finish the soup with a squeeze of lemon juice and some grated or dried orange zest and parsley. Just kind of layering flavors. Rustic and simple, if not classical- Nothing more than developing veg and bones for stock.
Thanks to this thread, my desire to make a pot of stew became irrestible.
Now I’ll be eating lamb stew through the weekend.
I checked everything. I can think of only a few veggies that I’d not put in vegetable beef soup.
I use all of the above, plus cabbage. And occasionally mushrooms and barley.
I left out onions - I do use them to make the stock but those onions get thrown away and I don’t re-add (as opposed to carrots, which do get re-added).
Cabbage also, of course.