Holy soup!

You know what I decided at 5:08am this morning? No, not to get rid of the cats. It was to make this the Winter of a Dozen Soups. Yeah, it's not terribly exciting, but how many amazing ideas have you had at 5:08am?

I have this great book, The Soup Bible. It is wonderful, and yet year after year I make about 3 soups over and over again.

So, you want to hear what I've done so far?

1. Chicken soup. This is not from the book but is a bastardization of many recipes. I use chicken thighs since they're sooooooo tender and I also add a bit of roux to the soup to make it a touch thicker than just broth. This is a delicious soup.

2. Pea soup. This was ...okay. It lacked flavor. Or rather, the only flavor was PEA. And I love peas, but to have a dinner that tastes only of pea? No. I did add pancetta and parsley, but the soup was still not that great - I probably won't make this again, which is sad, because I usually love pea soup.

3. Spicy carrot soup. Oh, I liked this a lot. I didn't follow the recipe from the book exactly, but mostly. The first time I added a little too much cayenne and it was SUPER-spicy carrot soup, but I've been more moderate since and it's an easy and yummy dish.

That's all I've made so far, but I'm excited to do more. I know this book has fantastic garlic soup, wild mushroom soup, and tomato soup, so those will likely be tried soon. Also I make a decent French onion soup so I can make that again. The problem I have with some of the recipes is that they have some pricier ingredients and I always hesitate to try a new recipe that I have to spend a bunch of money and time on and then I don't like the result. But, you have to try new things, no?