ISO help with vegetable soup recipe

[Trumpstylz]

Im making a vegetable soup and wanted to know when the ideal time to add each vegetable was. I have: Red pepper, baby carrots, yellow onions, celery, zucchini, yellow squash, and canned crushed tomatoes and canned stewed tomatoes, and a box of quaker quick barley.

Can someone tell me when to add which ingredients? Any additional input is appreciated.

Also- would it be possible to add cucumber or unpickled pickles, or would that change/overtake the flavor too much?

 

[CharlieD]

Welcome to DC. First I would like to ask what you do with your veggies? Chop, cut, grate, dice? I would dice onion and peppers, slice celery thinly and saute all of them in a little bit of oil until onion is soft. Then add your stock. Bring it to boil. Baby carrots, if left whole will take the longest time to cook. I would put them first. I would cook them first even if I sliced them. The zucchini and yellow squash cooks very fast. Dice both of them and put it in when carrots are half ready. When carrots are almost ready add you canned stuff, it is cooked, it soft, it doesn't need a lot of time. Add them in, bring soup to boil. After soup boils let them cook for about 5 minutes and they are done. I have never cooked cucumbers in a soup. But pickles I'd add very last, Right after canned tomatoes. About flavor, pickles do have strong flavor and will definitely affect the taste, but do not put too many of them, and also make sure to taste. With all the vegetables that yo are putting in. I would let the soup seat for a bit, to let the flavors mingle in the pot, let them meet each other, get introduced, mingle a little bit. With the right seasoning it will be great. This soup will not take more than 20 minutes to cook.
Good luck.

 

[Trumpstylz]

What if I prepare it in a crock pot? Would that change the recipe? Would you recommend against that?

 

[CharlieD]

I've never cooked this kind of soup in the crock pot. But you are planning just to put everything and leave for work, then I do not think it makes a difference what you put in first.

 

[Dawgluver]

Good advice from CharlieD. One word of caution, go easy on the barley. Too much barley can turn your soup into a gloppy gruel. Several of us here have learned that the hard way.

 

[CharlieD]

Oops. I totally missed barley. Personally I never cook it in the soup. I prefer it cook it separately and then people can put as much or as little into their bowl/plate as they want. Barley expands a lot, sucks up a lot of water. If I were to cook it in the soup, this particular soup, I would start with barley and the add everything else at the end, when barley is nearly done. But I would personally never do it. And I mean never. Thanks Dawg, for catching it up.

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[larry_stewart]

When I make a vegetable soup, I usually cut the carrots, onions , celery to similar sizes ( I don'd put pepper in, but if you are going to, do the same with the peppers). I then saute them in a little oil and salt for about 5 minutes, not to brown, but to heat up a bit, and draw some of the liquid / flavors out of them. At this point I add the canned tomatoes ( in my case I add some vegetable broth too) and let simmer for about 1/2 hour or so. The last 3 -5 minutes I add the squash, since as mentioned above, cook quickly and will start to break apart if cooked too long.

I do a different vegetable soup ( which is mushroom broth based, not tomato based) that has barley in it. Its about 1/4 cup of barley to about 4 quarts of broth. I add the barley in the beginning, and the soup is done when the barley is done ( about an hour or so, not %100 sure about the time) Also, you mention it is quick barley, which I assume would cook quicker than regular barley ( which is what I usually use)

Ive personally never had cucumber in a tomato based vegetable soup, but I would guess it cooks like a squash, so I'd add it when adding the squash

 

[CharlieD]

I think cucumbers are thought than squash, I think they would cook longer. BUt, alas, the OP was asking about crock pot, so it would be cooked no matter what. Still cannot imagine the taste of cooked cucumber.

 

[larry_stewart]

Still cannot imagine the taste of cooked cucumber.

When I lived in Philly, there was a Chinese restaurant that put cucumbers in their stir fry. In a strange, bizarre way, I kinda liked it.