Great Homemade Soups – A Cook’s Collection

By Tara Richter…

This winter has been one of the most brutally cold (and long) winter’s that I can ever remember. When I hear my parent’s say the same thing, I know it has to be one of the coldest on record. The bitter cold makes me want to stay home, cuddle up with blankets, watch movies and hibernate. I must say one of the things that provide comfort in this cold is a great bowl of hot soup. Even in the spring, there’s something so satisfying about a warm bowl of soup, don’t you think?

I was super excited when I received the beautiful cookbook Great Homemade Soups: A Cook’s Collection by Paul Gayler. This cookbook has dozens of wonderfully crafted, yet easy to make soups. I love the full-page color photos of the soup and the easy to follow instructions. The first 16 or so pages of the book provides some really great general information on soup including; classifications of soups, garnishes, toppings and how to make homemade stock. The remainder of the book is split into categories based on the type of soup which includes broth, smooth & creamy, hearty & wholesome, traditional favorites and wild & exotic. Depending on the type of soup you feel like making, that categorization definitely helps narrow the choices down to a handful of recipes.

While flipping through the cookbook trying to decide which soup to make, I landed on page 106 and immediately knew it was the one. The picture itself made my mouth immediately water, and I knew with the title of Farmhouse Soup that it was a definite winner. The photo alone brought back memories of being on the farm with my great-aunts and their own farmhouse soups. Mostly though, it made me think of my mom and her delicious homemade soup. The great thing about making soup, is that it allows the cook to put his/her own spin on it by adding favorite seasoning or ingredients. I tossed in few of my own favorite ingredients including soup noodles, kernel corn, and cut up baby potatoes.

The final product was picture-perfect and the aroma that filled the house was incredible. My son and I sat down to a hot bowl of soup for lunch with a side of toast while the snow and wind blew outside. It was so delicious we both helped ourselves to a second serving. The great thing about soup is that it keeps incredibly well in either the fridge or the freezer. I filled enough containers with the leftovers to take for lunch every-day that week at work. With every passing day the soup seemed to take on a new taste as all the flavors from the ingredients more thoroughly blended together.

I’m looking forward to more of the recipes in the Great Homemade Soups this spring. I can hardly wait to try some of these unique recipes including borscht made with beef and sausage, carrot soup with 7 spices, or the roasted red pepper and aubergine soup with saffron aioli.

If you are a soup lover, you’ll definitely want to get your hands on this cookbook with a title it definitely lives up to. If you are not a fan of fish in soup, like me, don’t let the cover photo with fish scales throw you off. You will most definitely find dozen’s of recipes in this book to please your palate.

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