A fine variation to those great
German Vegetable Soups is this tasty
Finnish Vegetable Soup.
It's very light. It's very tasty. It's very cheap. It's very easy to do. It even looks nice.
Here are the steps you need to do. (The amounts for this example soup are good for 1-2 persons.)
1) Buy some veggies. A good market place is recommended: the vegetables are fresh and often local. If there are no local vegetable dealers in your neighbourhood, try to buy veggies that are ecologically produced - you'll help the world, too!
You should buy:
potatoes. They're practically free. About 4-5 medium sized ones will do.
celery. As in German recipe, use the root. A small piece will do; half the size of your wrist will do - and that's plenty. If you are uncertain, a third of your wrist is enough.
rutapaga. Personally, I just love it. A piece large as your fist will do - maybe even a bit larger.
carrots. A couple of medium-sized ones will do.
beet. Buy a jar (from your local dealer) of reet halves from your local dealer. Small reet will do.
paprika. One will do. I prefer red ones, but do as you wish.
cottage cheese. About 200 gr is plenty for two. Make sure that the cheese is low-fat - 2% of fat in 200gr is more than enough. If you want to be very healthy, forget the cheese (or buy the no-fat-at-all -version).
citron pepper or black pepper. Take a guess what's this for. :)
2) Take a biggish boiler and pour some water in it. About 5-8 dl will do. Now go and try to guess a way to make the water boil.
3) While your water is heating, wash and peel the vegetables. (If necessary, that is - in some civilized countries you can get so clean potatoes in the summer that you don't need to peel them.)
4) Cut the washed-and-peeled veggies. Largish pieces will do.
5) When the water boils, throw everything but beet, cottage cheese and spices in.
6) Let the veggies boil for 10 minutes. Then add the beet. Don't put too much - 2 small beet will do. Or if you have slices, about 5-8 slices is enough. Let them boil for about five more minutes - then you're all set.
7) Take a masher. If you have a mixer, that's even better. Thanks to beet, the soup is nice and red. And it's warm.
8) The goal is to make the soup nice and flexible - somewhere between stages "mashed potatoes" and "water". If it's too watery, well, too bad. If it's too thick, add some water. With practise you'll make good soup - trust me.
9) Put some pepper in. Serve.
10) At the dinner table, put some cottage cheese into the soup. The taste is great and the food is healthy. Milk, water and fruit juice make excellent drinks. Don't drink sodas or alcoholic beverages - they just kill the taste of this fine soup.
11) To make a complete and healthy meal, eat also dark bread with light cheese, cucumber and tomatoes on top. Get some fruits (and maybe low-fat ice cream - it's cold) for dessert.
In short: this red soup tastes good, is healthy, cheap, easy to make and it looks nice. Yum! Enjoy!