Soup

We have reached the first new food item to appear in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban! How exciting! Too bad it feels like march outside instead of January, making it far less desirable (kind of like dinner with Aunt Marge):

"They got all the way through the soup and the salmon without a single mention of Harry's faults; during the lemon meringue pie, Uncle Vernon bored them all with a long talk about Grunnings, his drill-making company; then Aunt Petunia made coffee and Uncle Vernon brought out a bottle of brandy" Prisoner of Azkaban 26).

Ms. Rowling does not specify what kind of soup Harry enjoys with the Dursleys, which means I get to choose! I will be making a soup I created when I was about 16 as a substitute for a delicious but meat-filled soup my dad always made in wintertime. And so we shall make Vegetable Dumpling Soup! Heads up, I don't really do measurements when making this soup, I kind of just throw ingredients in until it looks good :)

You Will Need:

10 (ish) cups water

vegetable boullion paste (or you can use cans of vegetable broth instead of water and boullion, but it's not as good)

carrots, chopped

onions, chopped

celery, chopped

potatoes, chopped (you can peel them if you want to)

a small bag of frozen peas

a bay leaf

salt and pepper, to taste

a little bit of flour and milk

1 can of Grands Homestyle Buttermilk Buscuits

1. Add your cold water to a large pot and throw in the potatoes. You always want to add potatoes to cold water when cooking them, and then heat the pot so that all the pieces of potato cook evenly.

2. As the water heats up, add the boullion paste according to the package instructions (ish). I recommend dissolving a couple teaspoons at a time and then tasting it. You don't want it to be too salty! Or too bland!

3. Add the carrots, onions, celery, and the bay leaf. Bring to a boil.

4. Turn the heat down a bit and add the peas.

5. In a small cup, mix together about 1/2 cup milk with a Tablespoon or so of flour. Whisk out any clumps, and then stir it into the soup. It will immediately get cloudy-looking (what you've done is thickened the broth so it will support the biscuits).

6. Open your can of biscuits, peel them apart, and place them gently on top of the soup's surface. Hopefully your pot is big enough that they all fit (even if a bit squished). Cover.

7. Raise the temperature a little to a heavy simmer and cook until the biscuits are cooked. It might be tricky to tell, because they'll be a little slimy-looking from the broth. Honestly, I generally know my soup is done because that's right about when it boils over... but try to avoid that.

8. To serve, use a ladle to scoop out a biscuit into a bowl, then kind of "ice fish" through the biscuit hole to get to the soup and ladle it over the biscuit. 

This soup is sooooo delicious. Who needs crackers? There's a biscuit right in the soup! It's even good re-heated the next day (though at that point it's much more dumplings with veggies than soup!). I hope you like it! And hopefully you don't have to endure an Aunt Marge while you enjoy it!