Cooking Capers

(Or, things that the cookbooks do not tell you when you are attempting to make soup).

I recently acquired a blender, and have been trying my hand at different soup recipes ever since. Here are some lessons I've learned, which don't come qith the cookbook.

Many thanks to fellow contributor karob for providing hints #1-4!

1. You DON'T have to make your own vegetable stock (although if you have the time, energy, patience etc it tastes great in the end). Veggie bouillon cubes or powder work just as well.

2. If you do you make a vegetable stock, don't go out and buy new vegetables just for this purpose. Collect lots of vegetable scraps (peels, cores, stems etc) and use these instead. You can freeze them while collecting to keep them from rotting.

3. If you, like me, do end up using fresh whole veggies for this, and can't wrap your head around what to do when you've strained all the juice out of them, toss them in some oil & herbs and pop them in the oven for a delicious roasted veggies dish!

4. Make sure that the soup liquid is cooled down before putting in a blender, or you could ruin your blender forever.

5. Make sure that you put the soup liquid in the blender after the ingredients are well cooked. Otherwise you will end up with a lot of burnt soup.

6. Use a hand blender instead of a regular blender, to avoid rubber burnage, messiness and countless other cooking capers.