Add the bouillon at the table

My own copy

The kids are in finals, so of course half the kids, and me, are coming down with a cold.  An excellent occasion to try at least the idea of Mark Bittman's Clean-Out-the-Fridge Vegetable Soup.  My soup was comparatively limited by what I had in the fridge to clean out, and I wasn't about to go out in the rain in my mildly sick and tired state to pretend I ever had on hand as wide a range of vegetables as Bittman.

Wannabe Mirepoix: leeks, carrots, mushroom.

Mine was a leek-carrot-mushroom-tomato-potato-spinach soup.  No pistou.  But served with cheese sandwich or hamburgers to take the pressure off.

I added my bouillon paste right into my soup bowl!

I serve a vegetarian soup at more than half our dinners in the winter, but tonight I was impatient with the thought of another vegetable bouillon broth.  So I did a crazy thing--I cooked the vegetables in water, and served a choice of vegetable or turkey Better than Bouillon soup base paste at the table.  I know this doesn't allow the vegetables to season in the broth while cooking, but it was worth it to me to serve vegetables in turkey broth to those who wanted it, without having to divide the soup into two pots so the vegetarian version would be available to those who require it.