All the Veggies in the Fridge Soup

The idea for this soup started with that panicked moment when I was about to leave town with too many vegetables in my refrigerator. I was stressed about the potentiality of the wasted veggies. What were they meant to be? What, yet, could they be? Right now? My sister, ironically, because, she never has and probably never will do this, said, “why don’t you cook it all and put it in the Vita-Mix for a soup?”

….

Uh. Whut? HOLY SHIT! And therein lies the innocent beginnings of my favorite thing to make on “fend for yourself night” (a night when the kid has to make her own dinner out of whatever is available and I get to make whatever I want from toast to chocolate and green tea to overly complicated baked salmon dish that I know she won’t eat).

Tonight, after a thoroughly blustery and rainy day in Los Angeles and a week of leftovers from Thanksgiving, I was faced with a fridge full of random veggies.

Here’s what I had: arugula, a few broccoli heads (why were there only, like, FIVE?), some butternut squash “noodles” (impulse buy), a red onion, a couple of carrots (saved two for the horse), three celery sticks, some questionable ginger, a ton of garlic, and some boxed chicken broth (I hate using box broth — however, I did not want to make homemade because I didn’t have the supplies or the patience and that is the opposite of the point of All the Veggies in the Fridge Soup which could also be All the Edibile Stuff in the House Soup). I chopped up the onion, carrot and celery for a mirepoix (as one does), sautéed it in GHEE (!!!), and added all of the other stuff except for the arugula. After I good long simmer, I dumped everything plus the arugula in the vita mix and whirred it up until it looked like a cozy vegetable smoothie (yep, there’s a theme here).

There are no rules to All the Veggies soup. It is a soup from the gut. For instance, no, I didn’t add some of the leftover fresh dill tonight. Ew. I suspected tha if I added a bunch of ginger, the kid would like it. This soup is not fancy. It is like your favorite pair of jeans. It is warm. And healthful.

I drink mine out of a mug. Always.

PS YES, I do know that you can dump all the stuff into the vita mix and “cook it” while blending. But who, on this tiny planet, could possibly tolerate listening to a vita mix for FIVE MINUTES. Crazy making.

PPS My daughter just said, “Umm! Good soup!” She takes hers in a bowl.

PPPS I put a slosh in my dog’s food. He is speechless. And has it all over his face.