Clean Out the Fridge/ Snowstorm Soup

Last night, a snowstorm hit the East Coast, keeping many Greater New York area residents indoors. As such, I felt that this soup was appropriate as it uses ingredients I had in my fridge/pantry. Even though technically, I made this soup before the snowstorm. Hours before I left my apartment to go home for the holidays, I found myself with nearly three pounds of Yukon Gold potatoes, about half a bunch each of carrots and celery. The potatoes were already growing eyes, and the carrots and celery were from when I made this soup. So I was worried these otherwise sturdy vegetables would not make it over the long weekend. So what do with vegetables before they go bad? Make soup!

I found my inspiration from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything, an early Christmas gift, using the recipe for Simple Potato and Carrot Soup and the springboard for this soup. When the soup was done, I poured some into jars to bring home to share with my parents, and left some behind in the fridge. After driving in the aftermath of the snowstorm back to my apartment today, I was glad to have this soup waiting for me at home to simply re-heat and eat.

Clean Out the Fridge/ Snowstorm Soup

Adapted from Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything

Ingredients
(I am leaving out the quantities, because really they are quite fluid and depend on what you have in the fridge)
Potatoes
Carrots
Celery
Onion
Pat of butter
Olive oil
Chicken broth
Water
Salt and pepper to taste
Dried herbs (I used basil, oregano, and thyme)

Method:
Chop up all the vegetables into bite-sized pieces. Heat butter and olive oil in a large stockpot. When the butter melts and gets foamy add vegetables. Cook vegetables until the onion becomes translucent (About 5-7 minutes), stirring occasionally so that the vegetables do not stick to the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the vegetables. Add chicken broth (If you don't have enough broth to cover the veggies like I did, then add some water). Bring to a boil, and then let simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. Add dried herbs and season with salt and pepper to taste.