Recipe Please?

I've been doing the Ministry of Soup for 5 months now, and I have to say my soup is pretty popular. Quite often, I get asked for a recipe for the soup I've just made.

Here's the deal about recipes - I don't have any. I cook the way I love to play music - free improv!

During the time of year when my CSA is in season, I basically make up the soup by looking at what vegetables I have a lot of and then concocting something around that. As harvest time comes to a close I expect that my approach will change. I will have a concept in mind and then will obtain ingredients around that.

I learned a lot about cooking from my grandmother, Jean Fisher, who was an old-fashioned Kansas farm cook. Instead of measuring things, she'd eyeball quantities and then taste the results. I do own a set of measuring spoons and cups, but they're somewhere in the back of my utensil drawer. I prefer to throw things in the pot and let my nose and mouth tell me when I've gotten it right. Soup is pretty forgiving that way. I also remember her saying, "If the kitchen isn't a mess when you've finished cooking, you haven't put enough heart into it." One of these days I'll post a picture of my kitchen in the aftermath of a soup project. You'll see that plenty of heart goes into the soup. Sometimes I stir in some extra love too.

Because folks keep asking for recipes, I've decided to make this blog as a way to share about the soups I've been making. Keep in mind that I'm sharing ideas and experiences of soup-making & soup-sharing rather than recipes. I hope that if you are intriqued by any of the soups, you'll start your own experiments. I suppose it's possible to mess up a pot of soup, but not easy.