"I didn't even know I was hungry" (The Food Appreciation Thread)

Everything Soup
by Agen

Everything Soup is a great dish for the destitute student. It's basically a guideline to soup. Or a soup signifier. Most of the decision process surrounding it consists of "can this be boiled and will it taste nice if I do".

Now as a basic guideline, Everything Soup does have a set of core ingredients:

3-4 Potatoes (varieties suggested for mashing are generally better, but it's a potato. Use what you got.)
2 Onions
1 Whole celery (fuck yeah celery)
Some kind of meat*
Bones will add to the flavor - don't use chicken bones though, the small ones are a bitch.

FOR A MORE BORSCHT-Y TASTE
2 Tomatoes/cans of crushed tomato
- OR -
Tomato paste

FOR A CREAM SOUP SORT OF DEAL (less healthy, but my preference)
250ml of thickened cream, or whatever the small pots of cream are sized there

+ anything else you think will work***.

ACTUAL RECIPE:

1. Get a pot and fill it up about... halfway full with water? You can always let it boil down or add water later if it's not looking right. Then apply heat. Not the police kind. Cops are not part of this recipe, unless you're a cannibal, in which case I take no responsibility for your actions.
   
2. Wash and slice the potatoes. These will go in first. You can peel them if you really want, but fuck peeling potatoes. The peel's good for you anyway.
   
3. Throw the tater bits into the pot. They'll take the longest to cook, so leave them there for now.
   
4. Peel and slice the onions into chunks. So slice them into rings, then quarter the rings. Try not to cry. Set aside.
   
5. Slice up your meat on another cutting board and with another knife (It's VERY IMPORTANT to do this, to prevent cross-contamination of meat germs). Set that aside too.
   
6. Make sure you're stirring the soup.
   
7. Rip the celery apart into its stalks and wash them.
   
8. Slice off the top and bottom of each celery stalk, just under the leafy bit and just above where the bottom starts fanning out and turning white. Discard these. Mulch them into fertilizer for all I care. Grow more celery or something.
   
9. Save some celery stalks for snacks. Stand them in a glass of water so that they don't wilt.
   
10. Are you still stirring the soup? Make sure you give it a stir every so often.
    
11. Slice the celery stalks into bits (small slices about half a centimeter wide), chunks (about a centimeter), or swips (long, diagonal slices creating thin but long pieces, and yes I did make that name up)
    
12. The water should have been boiling for a bit. Fish out a bit of potato and test it. If a fork pushes into it easily, then they're cooked. Throw in all your meat stuff now.
    
13. Now take a break. Set a timer on your phone for, I don't know, four minutes. And twenty-three seconds. Read a book or something. Change up your cooking music.
    
14. THROW IN THE ONION! At this point, you should probably be also throwing in your everything elses.
    
15. Prepare your bowls and stuff. Set the table.
    
16. THROW IN THE CELERY! And also toss in the cream if you're using it. If you're not doing cream, throw in your tomato/paste in now.
    
17. Add a bit of water if it seems to be boiling a bit low. I like my soups thick and dense, closer to a stew, honestly, so I wouldn't add too much. Your preference, I guess.
    
18. Stir like you've never stirred before! Keep stirring until cream/tomato-ness is evenly distributed.
    
19. Turn the heat down to low, until it only just simmers. Hopefully your potato at this point is less chunks and more an evenly distributed suggestion of potato-ness.
    
20. Let it simmer until your hunger can stand no more.
    
21. Spice to your taste.
    
22. Serve hot. With a slice of bread because why not.
    

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*what animal you choose will affect the taste. This recipe is intended for red meat, but I suppose you can substitute white in a pinch**. Mince is your cheapest option but you know, it's not the best for you, so use what you can. Omit if vegetarian, of course.
**Chicken doesn't seem like it would soup too well, though. No inherent taste.
***Things that do not work in Everything Soup: lettuce, pasta, rice, pre-made soup mixes (I will hate you), pasta sauce, bacon (surprisingly), miso, seaweed, pancakes, mayonnaise, broken glass, plastic lids, pencils, exercise equipment, earrings, regular rings, headbands, hair, prescription medicines, flakes of nail polish, medical tape, USB flash drives, lightbulbs, noble gases, notebooks, phones, binder clips, rubber bands, needles, thread, glue, water bottles, paint, gender changers, ink, typhus, cholera, radioactive isotopes, electricity, apprehensions of mortality, world peace.

Tears are quite nice as a seasoning though.

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Disclaimer: if you hate this then i'm sorry