Soup, not just for cold weather

Summer is upon us and not even yet at it's full height, but I'm already thinking about Fall. Then again I am always thinking of fall and even summer has it's cold and rainy spots and to fill those spots is soup.

Of course it doesn't have to be cold or rainy to enjoy soup, it just helps in my opinion.

Me being me I start all my soups from scratch, which means if they are meat based I use bones. You can collect bones and freeze them. Roasted chicken, ribs from BBQ, or you can go to the store and buy 'soup bones'. Simply I put the bones in a pot (no more than half the pot usually) and fill it with water to within an inch of the rim. Add a bit of salt, just a sprinkle, cover and boil, for hours. Cool and strain the bones out. You now have a simple stock to use. To concentrate it's flavor you can boil it down and reduce it. To enhance the flavor you can use onion, celery and herbs to do so.

Stock made from bones has added benefits other than just a richer flavor. The joints contain and impart collagen, gelatin, and many minerals, and the marrow adds rich flavor and fats.

You can also just boil the bones with meat on them. I often start my chicken and dumplings with whole chicken legs that I have boiled up and then stripped when they are cool. My favorite 'cut' for chicken stock though is chicken backs. Not a lot of meat and you need to be careful stripping them because those vertebrae are tiny, but such wonderfully rich flavor. You can roast them first if you like and if you do be sure to save the drippings to put in the soup.

Simple veggie stock can be accomplished by saving your scraps. A bag in the freezer for onion ends, celery bits, carrot and other peels as well. Just boil them up and strain them out. If you have no scraps about simply a few of everything cut up in chunks and boiled in some salted water will work fine.

Note about boiling onion skins, it may impart a slight yellow color to your stock, this is normal. Onion skins were used as a dye in the middle ages.

Now you have a base for most soups, have fun!