Autumn Soup

I had a culinary success tonight in creating my own recipe! A few weeks ago, Joseph spent a couple days in Nevada with some good friends of ours picking organic apples. The last couple dozen of the half bushel that I bought are desperately needing to be eaten, so tonight I decided I would try to add them to my vegetable soup. I looked online briefly for a recipe and saw that people actually did put apples in soup-- so I attempted to adapt my regular vegetable soup recipe from my sister, Misty, to include them.

It turned out really yummy! Even my kids like it (and they don't usually like vegetable soup-- in fact, they cry when I tell them I'm making it for dinner). I named it Autumn Soup because it's perfect for this time of year. We topped it off with some delicious home-pressed organic apple cider which Joseph helped my friends make on his adventure.

So here's the recipe if you're looking for a new soup this fall:

1 white onion
1 purple onion
5 stalks celery
2 carrots
2-3 TBS olive oil
celery salt to taste
6 cups water with chicken bouillon
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1-2 sweet potatoes
5 small apples
1 can kidney beans (or about 1 1/2 cooked kidney beans)
1/4 cup tomato sauce


Dice or chop vegetables to desired size (bite size). Saute onions, celery, and carrots in olive oil and sprinkle with celery salt until onions are cooked through (don't brown). Add water, bouillon, and spices and bring to a boil. Add potatoes, apples, kidney beans, and tomato sauce and cook with a rolling boil until vegetables are tender (don't overcook or they get too mushy).