soup of (future possible) champions

This morning was the first of hopefully many weekly 5km fun runs (use of the word 'fun' is totally the PTIs' fault) on base, which I've been able to go to. Apparently we get to collect points towards an age group championship - thankfully you get 1 for turning up, 1 for finishing, and then 3, 2, 1 for finishing first, second, and third respectively. Fortunately, because I'm the only female in my age group, and therefore
technically only competing with myself until more people join up, I may be the winner in my division by default! Or at least come third, if only two other chicks start coming along, heh.

Anyway, it didn't go too badly, and I only finished last by a couple minutes (behind one of the other cooks!) in 33 minutes. Today was basically meant to be benchmarking day, seeing as I've barely done any running since I got here, so hopefully things will be on the improve as the weeks go on. It was rough going on some parts of the track that were lumpy bits of grass on the oval, but I guess it's hard to clear a path along the roads of the base just for a bunch of pesky runners. The tracks might change over time, so we'll see what happens.

I came back from a lightning quick shower, to dive into making the best soup ever. It seriously eats like a meal, and even though I was just asked to come up with a soup to use up some leftover chicken bits, I gave myself the challenge of making something that I actually would like to eat (as opposed to whatever's on the cyclic menu, or whatever other people want me to make up). I knew I'd be running this morning, so I
took my inspiration from Survival For The Fittest, The Australian Institute of Sport's cookbook. I was also a little cheeky because we don't have to pay for soup if we have it for lunch (or a snack if it's ready by morning break time), and it's just as good as a full breakfast, it has that much stuff packed into it!

The Sergeant saw me in the midst of making it, and said he was going to grab some for his lunch; he loved it. Awesome. I'm giving him a copy of the recipe, with notes of my bastardisations. I think if I keep on successfully muntifying other people's recipes based on the supplies available, I could probably write a little ghetto cookbook of my own. Sometimes when stocks are down, it's like the inverse Iron Chef - the secret ingredient is just whatever's left in the pantry/fridge, and we're called upon to do as much as possible with it!

Here's the recipe I yoinked:

Hearty Vegetable Soup (serves 4-6)

Ingredients:
Spray of canola or olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 carrots, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
300g peeled and chopped pumpkin
1 large zucchini (courgette), chopped
1 litre (4 cups) MAGGI® Vegetable Stock 400g can chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup macaroni
300g can butter beans, rinsed and drained
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Method:
Heat the oil in a large pan and cook the onion over medium heat for 3 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the carrot, celery, pumpkin and zucchini and stir into the onion mixture. Add the stock, tomatoes and oregano, and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 10 minutes. Add the pasta and cook a further 10 minutes or until the pasta and vegetables are tender. Stir in the butter beans and heat through. Just before serving, stir in the parsley.

Here's what I did with/to it:

Hardcore Chicken and Vegetable Soup (serves 60+, I'm not kidding!)
Ingredients:
Lashings of vegetable oil to get the party started
7 large onions, diced
1 bulb of garlic, finely chopped
20 smallish carrots, diced (our last vegie delivery didn't include the typical mutant sized carrots from Mars we usually get)
4 stalks celery, chopped (we were down to our last two bunches)
3kg roughly diced pumpkin (the chunks get small and soft by the time the soup's done)
7 large zucchini, cut into half-moons
14 litres (approximately) water
400g(?) leftover roma tomatoes (helped myself from the fridge!)
500g(?) tomato paste (again, it was an impulse steal)
50g(?) white sugar
1kg small spiral pasta
800g four bean mix, drained
1/2 bunch chopped fresh parsley
2kg(?) leftover chicken tenderloins and bits, cut into small pieces
Masterfoods Tuscan Spice mix (which I think is just salt, pepper, parsley and rosemary)

Method:
Acquire the biggest pot in the universe - we cook with these things called squarebashers; I think they can fit about 25 litres in them. Heat the oil and get the garlic and onion happening. Add all the other vegetables and stir whilst panicking about how large the soup is going to become. Deduce that most of the vegetables are what would be used to make a vegetable stock anyway, and seeing as AC/Ws aren't meant to be using boosters or stock powders, I might as well use water and see what happens. Pour in the water, bung in the tomatoes and tomato paste, chuck in the sugar and oregano for good measure. Leave it to do its magic and hopefully turn into a ghetto vegetable stock of its own! Meanwhile, toss the chicken bits through with some of the Tuscan Spice mix and stir fry so they are ready to add to the soup towards the end.
Throw in the pasta after the soup has had some time to boil, turn the heat down and let the bad boy settle. Add the chicken and beans once the pasta has cooked; garnish with parsley before serving. Eat for life.