Mmm Moosewood.  Mollie Katzen’s Classic cookbooks are all well worn around these parts.  I’ve mentioned them here before, but somehow forgot to share our favourite soup during last year’s soup swap recipe posts.  

The Moosewood Vegetable Soup from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest
and it’s many variations are a regular part of our fall meals around here.  There’s a big pot of it boiling on the stove right now for our dinner so there’s no time like the present to share this classic.

As the title suggests, this is a basic vegetable soup recipe with  bunch of great suggestions on how to mix it up.  This is our favourite way to make it, with a gazillion mushrooms and a rainbow of carrots, but it changes seasonally.

Boil together until the potatoes are just tender:

4 cups vegetable stock
1 large potato sliced thinly
a dash of sea salt

Next you’ll need


2 1 1 1 1tablespoons of butter
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 large white or yellow onion chopped
1 large clove of garlic crushed
1 teaspoon of salt
4 carrots, we use a mix of orange and purple carrots
a handful of button mushrooms
a bunch of enoki mushrooms
1/2 teaspoon each; thyme, savoury, marjoram, basil
freshly ground pepper to taste

Heat a heavy skillet, add butter, olive oil, onions, garlic and salt and sauté on medium heat for 5 minutes or until onions clear. Add the remaining finely sliced vegetables and herbs.  Continue stirring for 8-10 minutes.  Add the skillet full to your pot of stock and potatoes. Simmer for another 20-30 minutes.

Before serving we add little italian soup noodles, especially the alphabet ones.  This is how my mother made it and now how we make it for our family. 
You need to cook the noodles separately or else its a big mess.  So cook one cup of soup noodles until al dente. Drain, rinse and put them in the bowls.  Serve the soup on top of the noodles, mix gentle and enjoy.

We’re sending some over to a some friends with new babies, so we send the noodles separately with the instructions written on the lid of the jar.
Now I’m off to eat some.  I can’t wait for a reasonable dinner hour.