Soup’s on!
First, start water boiling, then take some old celery that’s starting to go bad, trim off the nasty bits for compost, and chop the rest for the stock-water.
Chop the ends off two onions, one red and one yellow, and strip their skins, putting all the trimmings into the stock-pot. Take the ends off a bunch of carrots, and peel them, putting those trimmings into the stock… and thus begin your mirepoix. Add to it the trimmings from a fresh stalk of celery.
Chop half of each onion, and run the carrots and celery through the slicer on the cuisinart (separately).
Using a cast-iron pan that was used yesterday to reheat leftovers from last week (thus introducing hints of scallops, brussels sprouts, and lemon), begin to sautée the onions. While waiting for them to go translucent, chop up an old but still serviceable leek (of course, putting the trimmings into the stock-pot). Add carrots to onions. Add salt and pepper.
Chop exterior bits off celeriac (yeah, washing and peeling it is an option, leaving more for the soup, but there’s already a lot of celery flavor in this, we’re not throwing anything away – just composting – and this method saves time). Add leek to onion-carrot mix. Mistakenly sprinkle bits of food around the stovetop and onto the floor. Switch to a bigger frying pan. Add celery.
Peel rutabaga and turnip. Just wash the potatoes, two red and two yukon gold. Slice all the root veggies in cuisinart, because time is short, so everything has to cook quickly, and it all has to start soon.
Using slotted spoon, then a colander, strain trimmings from broth. Add sliced root veggies.
Add to frying-pan mixture the pumpkin puree left over from making pie a week or two ago – not canned stuff, but from a real pumpkin that was cooked and pureed at home. Mix it in thoroughly. Look around the kitchen.
Notice the beets, lonely on the counter, and return them to the refrigerator. Take the stems off the fennel bulb, peel off the outermost layer, and slice the inner heart thinly. Add sliced fennel bulb to the now-simmering mix in the frying pan.
Test a slice of root vegetable in the soup-pot. Tender? Yes! Take the cover off, and leave it simmering to reduce.
When friends arrive, mix the thick stuff in the frying pan into the soup-pot, stir them together, and serve. Present soup with a slice of olive ciabatta from the bakery a few blocks away and a small glass of hard apple cider. Next time, add half a cup of white wine to the soup about half an hour before it’s done, and use more salt throughout.
Realize that dinner for three and leftovers for the week cost less than $20, and it’s too much leftover food for one person to eat alone in seven days. Hope for friends to help.