Soup Night Slapdashery by Rebekah Merkle has become the cookbook I’ve been turning to for actually simple soup recipes. I tend toward not-simple in my normal cooking and usually find that books categorized as “simple” are either filled with ingredients that are expensive or just end up taking more time when multiplying a recipe for our family of seven.
(There is a distinct possibility that I am the reason that “simple” recipes like this become not-simple, because if it calls for a jar of roasted red peppers and I’m doubling it, no way am I going to buy two jars of roasted peppers when I could roast them myself for 75% less… And then it’s not really simple anymore, is it?)
This book is unique in that it’s based of the author’s experience hosting a weekly soup night for dozens of college students, so the recipes are all in huge quantities – but never fear, all the same recipes are repeated in the back with a “normal” quantity. For our family I start with the normal-sized recipe and double it.
There are a few canned ingredients in there but they are pretty easy to substitute for homemade options – for instance, the recipe for Green Chile Chicken Soup called for a can of green enchilada sauce, of which I’ve found our home-canned salsa verde is a one-for-one substitute. (Selah’s tomatillos did really well this summer.). I also made my own gnocchi from potato flakes rather than buy it (see above about me complicating things).
In addition to the recipes, the introduction and chapters on “Supply Cupboard” and “Logistics” are quite useful if you are building your hospitality-for-large-groups muscles (or even just your normal-every-day-cooking muscles). I also think these recipes are simple enough that many of them would be excellent to hand off to a child who’s becoming more proficient in the kitchen.
If you’re looking for not-fancy but actually-simple soup recipes, come take a peek at Soup Night Slapdashery, available now for $19 at Harvey’s.