healthy, really tasty soup

[fabemmy]

anyone know a really nice recipe for a healthy homemade soup because I always try making one and it always tastes horribe and never a nice taste to it and always end up wasteing it by throwing it away.

[Clanad]

One of our favorites here in the western U.S. is Hot and Sour soup. Here's a slightly tamed down version of what we make:

1 tablespoon roasted sesame oil
1 clove garlic, minced
4 ounces mushrooms, sliced
4 cups nonfat chicken or vegetable broth
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
1/2 -1 teaspoon chili puree with garlic
1 carrot, shredded
2 cups chopped bok choy or spinach
2 cups broccoli florets

Warm the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook the garlic and mushrooms for several minutes, until soft. Stir in the broth, wine, vinegar, soy sauce, chili puree, carrots, bok choy or spinach and broccoli. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 5 minutes, or until the vegetables are cooked. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding more wine, vinegar soy sauce or chili puree if desired. Preparation and cooking time: 25 minutes.
We add about 1 package of the firm Tofu, sliced into 1/2 inch strips. It doesn't add any taste but we like the protein addition. We also use one or two eggs, to give the soup more texture. Again, they don't add a lot in the way of calories but do enhance the soup. Lastly, we use 1/2 pound of lean, cooked chicken breast for more flavor. Cut it into 1/2 inch strips like the tofu.

Here's the health contents:

Per serving: 94 calories , 3.8 g. total fat (33% of calories) , 1.4 g. monounsaturated fat, 1.6 g. polyunsaturated fat, 0.5 g. saturated fat, 6.7 g. protein, 8.7 g. carbohydrate, 2.9 g. dietary fiber, 0 mg. cholesterol, 776 mg. sodium. (A serving is one cup)... Best of luck!

[Jugglering]

Rather than giving you a recipe, here's a method for making soup so that you can adapt it to whatever you have in your fridge and veg rack:-

Wash, peel (if necessary) and chop your vegetables, separated out into 3 piles:- frying stuff (onions, garlic, leeks), hard stuff (potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips etc) and soft stuff (mushrooms, peppers, courgettes, aubergines, tomatoes).

Fry up the onions, garlic, leeks etc, in some olive oil then add chopped hard stuff and allow to sweat for 10 mins or so. Add some spices if liked (mustard seed, chilli powder, paprika etc) and stir well. Add a little water and cook for another 10 mins until the water has evaporated. Add the soft veg and gently stir into the mix. Add a bit more water and then heat through until all the hard veg are cooked. If you have a food processor, you can remove say half of the vegetables and whizz them up in the machine, then place back in the pot. If not, you can press them through a sieve or mash them up with a potato masher. This whizzing and mashing will give you a *thick* soup. If you just want a clear, thinner soup, then just leave all the bits in the pot and cook until everything is soft enough for you. Add some salt and pepper to taste. I often add a can of chickpea dal to my soups for extra body and protein or you could have added some cooked red lentils - they are really tasty (remember to taste - you may need to add more salt).

[butterflies]

The answer is in lightly frying the vegetables first before adding the water. Olive oil is best healthwise. If you just plunge the veg into the water it's really bland, no matter what you put in.

[I.Don No]

soup 1
boil a chicken carcass (after you have eaten up all the meat after you roasted it) in some water and then simmer for about 1/2 hour. Remove all the chicken bones and then add vegetables of your choice and cook till the veg are at the texture you want. You can also add dried veg to this recipe as long as you soaked them in cold water over the previous night but the soup will have to be cooked for a while before you add the fresh veg. If the finished soup looks too pale for your liking crumble an oxo cube in and stir.

soup 2
chop up some cleaned leeks and fry in a saucepan in some butter till they have wilted. Add some hot stock (I use knorr chicken cube in boiling water) Add raw cubed potatoes and bring to boil and simmer till spuds are soft. yummmmmeeeeee

hope this helps

[Tichfield]

The secret to a good soup is the stock. Make your own.

Chicken or fish or vegetable - depending on what type of soup your are going to make.