Soup Challenge - How to - 52 Weeks of Soup

More than a year ago I started a challenge together with my girlfriend. We both like soup, but we didn't eat it very often. And if we did, it often was from a can or something similar. That had to change and the soup challenge started. We would eat a different soup every sunday for the next year, all made ourselves. Some weeks this meant not a warm soup, but something cold for desert, other weeks we had to pass because we had other obligations, but in the end we finished 51 weeks. Some were nice, other weren't. From most of the soups we didn't take pictures, so we can't show all soups (luckily the internet provides great images for a small compilation). The pictures of the soups we did take pictures of can be found in the next step.

This instructable will cover how to do this challenge. Where do you get you're recipes, when do you make what soup, how to persevere an entire year etc. This instructable also will cover some recipes I think you have to have like my number 1 the bell pepper soup and also my grannies peasoup.

Follow our path of soup-delight in this instructable and complete your challenge. Share pictures of your soups below with the 'I Made It!' button and let me know how many weeks you continued before giving up. Or share your list when you've finished. I even give away pro-memberships if you provide me with the recipe to finish my last week of the challenge. Enjoy and good luck finishing your soup-challenge.

Step 1: List of Soups

All the soups from my soup-challenge can be found in the list below. In the instructable I included the best recipes which are bold and italic in the list. Soups I found on the internet will be linked to that website, but most of those are in Dutch so many of you will need to translate it. Just PM me if an automatic translation doesn't work for you and I'll try to translate it for you to English.

Bell pepper soup
Carrot soup with coconutmilk
French onion soup
Cobweb Apple Soup by xGrape
Mustard soup from Overijssel by Rudolph van Veen
Common mushroom soup
Creamy leek soup
Ruuds pumpkin souprise
Simple cauliflower soup
Spicy squash soup
Sandras mom tomato soup
Courgette soup
Kruidnoten soup
Soupvegetable soup
Ratatouille soup
Fish-fennel soup
Bell pepper-ricotta soup
Grannies peasoup
Creamy mushroom soup
Corn soup
Peanut soup
Potato-garlic soup
Cherry gazpacho
Broccoli soup with pine nut
Lettuce soup
Pea-potato soup with curry
Courgette-fennel soup
Grannies chervil soup
Grannies chervil soup with salmon
Green asparagus soup with almondpaste
Chinese tomato soup (sweet tomato soup)
Yellow curry soup
White asparagus soup
White gazpacho
Spring onion soup
Tomato soup Ardechoise
Minestrone soup
Salty Spinach soup
Endive soup
Peachkin soup (Peachy Pumpkin soup) by anoukkantelberg
Wild mushroom soup
Kohlrabi soup with mustard
Fennel soup (with salmon)
Ruuds lovely leftover
Sauerkraut soup by HappyFoods
Cheese-Leek soup
Roasted garlic soup
Sweet potato soup
Broccoli-cauliflower-curry soup
Borsjt (Russian beetroot soup)
Orange soup (the color, not the fruit)
... (see the last step)

Step 2: Where to Get Your Recipes

52 Weeks means 52 different recipes, which I guess many people will find hard. Therefore I made this small guide on where to get your recipes to provide you with at least 52 different recipes.

Instructables:

Where to better find new recipes than in our own favorite community. In the food category go to the soup and stew channel to find all soups and stews our community has to offer. From contest winning watermelon soup to soup filled breads.

Want something specific, just search for your ingredients and include soup in your search, for example you can find this instructable by searching soup challenge.

Supermarket websites:

In the Netherlands where I'm from, many recipes can be found on the websites of supermarkets. Many of those supermarkets publish a weekly or monthly magazine full of recipes you can make with their products. Those recipes can always be found online as well.

Tip: If you are lazy you even have a chance the supermarket has a phone app where you can import the ingredients to a shopping list. When you're even more lazy, some apps can tell you exactly how to walk through the store to get all the ingredients most efficient.

Cookbooks:

Not much has to be told here. There are plenty of cookbooks dedicated to soups. For people less interested in cooking, many soupbooks are available providing you with an almost unlimited list of recipes suitable for all occasions.

Personally I would suggest a book which includes the basics of soup making. Those books often contain several useful broth recipes and can tell you what kind of broth fits what kind of soup. I have a book from the 70's containing very basic recipes which can be used as a basis for many other soups. Some soups are organized per country, other recipes are dedicated to the time of day. The more basic the book, but with specific info like the country or time of day, the more versatile you can use it.

The rest of the internet:

Try google, try the website of you favorite chef even try the 10 year old website of your neighbors. The internet is full of good (and bad) soups.

Friends and family:

Don't forget to ask your grandmother and aunt for their recipes. Probably those recipes have been around for ages and there is a reason they survived. The same counts for your friends, if they like to give you a recipe they probably think it well worth your time and effort.

Step 3: Themed Soups

Another help in obtaining enough recipes is the themed soup weeks. Every occasion can have its own soup. Go for something original and adjust your soup to the holidays, a season or maybe your mood.

Mood:
Also known as comfort food I guess, but soup can match your mood. Are you home alone or you miss your boyfriend, get a full bowl of something spicy to get you warm on the inside again. Angry at your teacher of colleague, get something refreshing like lemon soup for desert.

Season:
I can't think of a season without its own specialties. During summer I'll make lettuce soup, winter will be peasoup, in autumn pumpkin soup will be served and go crazy in spring with an avocado and mint soup. Is that not crazy enough for you, I'd love to get a recipe with an edible flower as basis.

Holidays:

Whether it is Halloween or Christmas, or maybe it's your child's birthday, there is always a soup which matches the occasion. Make a tomato soup on which you draw Santa's hat with cream for Christmas. What about a sweet strawberry soup for desert for Valentine. And when it's your child's birthday, let him decide what goes into the soup and make the soup together.

Step 4: Mini Challenge

Do you play games, than you know the mini games or miniboss. Just like that I like to introduce you to the mini challenge.

Ingredient battles:
Do you think pumpkin soup is pumpkin soup, well I think it's not. So this mini challenge is all about making multiple soups with one main ingredient. One week you will do a steaming sweet tomato soup, next week a spicy tomato gazpacho.

Fruit soups:

Bored of the same vegetables in all your soups? Bored of another beef of chicken broth? I guess it's time to do this mini challenge. The next 2, 3 or 4 weeks you will do the fruit soup challenge. Apple, strawberry or even banana, turn it into an incredible soup desert and you are one week less from completing the soup challenge.

Random buy:

I love this mini challenge, but be prepared, it can be one of your most challenging weeks. Let a friend or someone else get you your ingredients and prepare the most crazy soups with them. Just hope (s)he doesn't bring you squid, marshmallows and a ready to go sandwich.

Step 5: Bell Pepper Soup

My favorite from the list I guess, hope you will enjoy it as much as I always do.

Ingredients:

2 red bell peppers
1 onion
2 cans of peeled tomatoes
1 big ts. paprika
2 ts. crème fraîche
15 to 20 drops of Tabasco
Basil
Powdered vegetable cubes
water

Preparation:

Saute the sliced onions with sliced bell peppers.
Already add some of the powdered vegetable cubes.
Slice the peeled tomatoes and add them (without the juice) to the onions. Saute briefly.
After a while add the tomatojuice and paprika, continue to saute.
Add water so all vegetables are just covered.
When the water boils puree the soup.
Add water to get the right consistency.
Taste and add more powdered vegetable cubes if necessary.
Add Tabasco and crème fraîche and stir.
Serve with a freshly chopped basil.

Step 6: Grannies Peasoup

You aren't Dutch if you don't like peasoup, that's my theory. Peasoup is a traditional Dutch recipe excellent for in the winter. Some people say in real Dutch peasoup belongs a piece of rookworst. But that's not something you will find in my recipe, I prefer real meat and go more traditional. But I do like a piece of rookworst as a side dish on a piece of French bread.

I think this recipe is from one of my grandmothers, but it could well be a combination of my two grandmothers. You should ask my mother. Since I first made it I also changed some of the quantities of the ingredients, but mostly that's for easier buying. Enjoy.

Ingredients:

750 gr. cuts of pork, for example ribs, shank or bacon
500 gr. green split peas
500-750 gr. leek
250 gr. celeriac with green attached.
1 large carrot (Dutch: winterwortel/winterpeen)
1 potato
2 onions
2-3 vegetable cubes
water
black pepper

Preparation:

Boil the meat and remove the foam which is created by the meat.
Peel and cut all the vegetables while the meat is boiling.
When the meat is ready remove it from the soup, cut it in small pieces and add it back to the soup. When your meat contains bones, don't add them back to the soup.
Add all vegetables to the meat.
Boil everything until it's one thick sort of stew, this can take between 2 to 4 ours. Don't forget to stir once in a while. The soup is ready when the peas are softened and have bonded the soup and a spoon stays upright in the soup.
Add pepper to taste.

Step 7: Courgette-fennel Soup

Sometimes it's very easy to add a new soup to the list. Just invite friends over for dinner and let them make the soup for you. In our case my girlfriend had a friend visiting and she had this great soup recipe. Hope you like it as much as we did.

Ingredients:

2 fennel
2 courgettes
1 union
1.5 liter water
3 vegetable cubes
oil or butter
green pesto

Preparation:

Saute the sliced unions together with the sliced fennel in some oil or butter.
Slice the courgettes and add them, continue to saute.
Add water and vegetable cubes and let it boil.
Once the vegetables are ready puree the soup.
Serve the soup and add green pesto.

Step 8: Spring Onion Soup

When we crossed our half way line I thought there would not come a soup that would beat the bell pepper soup, guess I was wrong. This soup either defeats it or is equally good.

Ingredients:

500 gr. spring onion
1 chili pepper
2 cloves of garlic
2.5 dl white wine
7.5 dl vegetable stock
butter
pepper and salt
pinch of sugar
2 ts. marjoram (or oregano)
rasped hard Italian cheese (pecorino or Parmigiano Reggiano)

Preparation:

Cut the spring onion in rings and fry them short in the butter.
Add the chopped chili pepper and chopped garlic and at them to the onions.
Continue by adding the wine and vegetable stock.
Add pepper, salt and sugar.
Add marjoram and let it boil/stove for around 15 to 20 minutes.
Serve the soup with the rasped cheese.
You can at croutons before the cheese for a more traditional serve.

Step 9: Salty Spinach Soup

At one point we wanted to make a spinach soup. And while we were making it we put to many vegetable stock in the soup making it a little salty for soup. Turned out this tasted really great with a salty cheese on top and a little bit of crème fraîche. One of our favorites was born, Salty Spinach. (We didn't try it yet, but add some roasted pine nuts on top.)

Ingredients:

300 gr. spinach
1 union
1 clove of garlic
500 ml vegetable stock (add extra vegetable cubes for the salty taste)
butter
salt and pepper
crème fraîche
rasped salty cheese

Preparation:

Chop the onion and garlic and fry them in the butter.
Add the (washed) spinach to the onions.
When the spinach is shrunk, add the vegetable stock.
When the soup boils remove the heat and puree the soup.
Add a little bit of butter and let it melt.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve the soup with a bit of crème fraîche and the cheese.

Step 10: Number 52 - Provide and Become Pro

Up to now we only made 51 soups. And since this is the soup challenge instructable, I like to challenge you to provide me with number 52. In the next month I will gather your recipes from the comments. I will take the one I like most after reading the recipe and will make it. After that I will take the next best recipe and make it. I will continue with this until I think I have the two best recipes. The best will get a one-year Pro-membership, the second best I will provide a 3-month Pro-membership.

Rules:

The recipes may be existing instructable from yourself.
The recipes may be recipes you found on the internet, but with an addition which makes it your soup.
It must be vegetarian, since my girlfriend is.
It may be everything you consider a soup.
Be creative (a soup trifle, maybe a soupsicle?)
My little challenge ends on June 6th.
After the challenge I will link to your recipe with your name, or, when you posted the recipe in the comments, I will add it to this step.