Soup's On!

How did fall sneak up on us so suddenly? 

I don’t know where you live, but here in New England the trees are starting to change colors already! That means I start thinking about soup.  Since it’s one of the easiet things to make, I don’t for the life of me understand why anyone would buy sodium loaded canned soup!  

One of the best incentves for making your own soup is to clean out your refrigerator. Those limp carrots and celery? Toss thiem into a soup pot with an onion. Got frozen peas? They can go in, too. How about potatoes? Sure! Herbs like parsley, basil, and thyme are great in soup. Chopped up skinned tomatoes will give flavor and added color, and chicken wings will provide protein and bulk. 

Once all these things are in the soup pot, cover the ingredients with water, and bring to a boll. Then lower the heat to simmer and let eveything cook gently for a couple of hours. Strain out the liquid, return it to the pot, and cut up the carrrots, potatoes and celery into bite size pieces. Remove the meat from the wings and put it in the pot. Season with salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice and you’ve got soup. 

For a beef-based soup use beef shank in place of the chicken wings. 

Other soup recipes can be found on the Ciao Italia web site under soups. Two of my favorites are tomato bread soup and Tuscan onion soup. Add a hunk of bread and life is good.