Awesome Autumn Vegetable Soup

Darlingses, I am not even going to bother pretending this soup feeds only one person It feeds six or seven people quite well, which I know because my mum makes it for Thanksgiving Dinner every year. I love this soup dearly. So here it is, and you can experiment with making it smaller. You can even make it Lenten (if such a soup could ever be considered Lenten) by subsituting leek stock for chicken stock. If you do that, though, you might need to add a little more salt. The recipe comes from Canada's milk marketing board. You need a blender, a cuisinart or a hand-blender.

Awesome Autumn Vegetable Soup

2 Tbsp butter
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 medium carrots, coarsely chopped
2 ribs celery, coarsely chopped
1 small zucchini (courgette), coarsely chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
2 medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped
3 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley (or 1 tsp dried)
2 cups chicken stock or leek stock (see leek stock recipe below)
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
1/4 tsp pepper
2 cups milk

1. Melt butter in a large saucepan. Add onions and garlic. Cook until fragrant but not brown.

2. Add carrots, celery, zucchini, potatoes, tomatoes, half of the parsley, stock, thyme, salt and pepper. Bring to boil, cover, reduce heat and cook 25 minutes or until veggies are very tender.

3. Puree soup in blender, cusinart, food mill, or with hand blender. Return to heat. Add milk. Cook until heated thoroughly. Do not allow soup to boil. Taste and add more seasoning if you think it needs it.

4. Garnish with the parsley.

This is a simply heavenly soup. I haven't tried it with leek stock instead of chicken stock yet, but the leek stock recipe is easy: just wash and roughly chop 2 leeks, cover them with 3 cups or so of water, and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20-25 minutes, and then strain. Throw the leeks out. The clear liquid will magically taste amazing. Use 2 cups of it in this recipe.