Girls night!  (with some of the girls)  Carolina hosted, Autumn supplied some fabulous greens from her garden, and I threw all the ingredients in a pot.  Vegetable soup is really easy!  Basically, as long as you have a nice base, you can add any veggies you like.  Here is what we had on hand to make our soup:

What you'll need:

1 large onion, diced

1 sweet potato, diced

a handful of carrots, diced

a few stocks of celery, sliced

1 ear of corn, kernels removed

1 can of diced tomatoes 

2 32 oz. containers of vegetarian vegetable stock

a few cloves of garlic, minced (use as much or as little as you prefer, I use a lot!)

a couple handfuls of fresh greens, roughly chopped (we had beautiful spinach and swiss chard thanks to the lovely miss Autumns garden!) 

a large handful of parsley, chopped

olive oil

What you'll do:

When making soup, the most important thing is to add the ingredients in order from cooking longest to shortest, so all your vegetables are evenly cooked.  Another tip is never cook soup on high heat!  It will over cook or burn your veggies.  You will get a lot more flavor out of them by cooking a medium low heat.

First drizzle about 1/4 cup olive oil in your pot.  Turn heat to medium low and add the onions and sweet potatoes.  Add a large pinch of salt.  Stir and let these get a little happy.  The onions should start to caramelize and the sweet potatoes should start getting tender (not fully cooked!)

Next add in carrots and about 2 inches of broth.  Let come to a soft boil.  Then add in the garlic, tomatoes, the rest of the stock and a sprinkle of dried oregano.  Stir and let come back to a soft boil. (a soft boil is just when small bubbles begin to come up)

After about 3-4 minutes, add in the corn and celery.  Taste the soup and see what it needs, salt? pepper? etc.  Add accordingly and add the greens and after another 2-3 minutes, your soup is done!  Turn off the heat and stir in some fresh parsley (always add a the end so it doesn't over cook and get mushy) and serve.

I always top my soup off with a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch more of fresh parsley and a pinch of salt.

From our girls night to yours, enjoy!