A friend of mine volunteered to make soup for the Nebula Awards coming to DC this May, and told me she needed some recipes for vegetarian soups. I’ve been meaning to make some soups without meat, but every time I see the words “vegetable stock” in a recipe, I flinch. This week I decided to grab the tuber by the stalk and shake it until it cried uncle. So to speak.

The notion of a chickpea soup had been on my mind, and a bit of research turned up two recipes right off that were virtually identical, one in my copy of 400 Soups by Anne Seasby, and the other on AllRecipies.com. My version starts where they start, but as usual winds up on it’s own. No animals were harmed in the making of this soup, though a cow may have been coerced to give up the half and half. Continue reading →

I’d been getting signals from Kaylen, one of the YearOfSoup testers, that it was time for another white bean soup, and maybe something with some kick to it as well. I’d really liked Barb Wilmer’s Awesome White Chili w Cumin and Clove when she resouprocated me with a sample, and thought I might actually follow a recipe from start to finish for once. I should have known following a recipe was beyond me, but what I came up with was quite decent on its own. I used a fresh jalapeno, but somewhere along the way decided that I wanted to use some of the preserved ones as well. The result is a bit hotter than some might like, though really, it’s still mild for chili. Continue reading →