— Robert Kerr

So, you know, one that comes to mind for me would be a minestrone. Uh, or certainly something that is, um, you know, ministrone inspired. And, you know, Minestrone can take uh, the many different guises. And think about a legume that goes in there. Um, if there's anything left over in that walk in, Then grab it, it could be garbanzo's, it could be pintos, right? It could be kidney beans. Um, you know, brown lentils. And if there's nothing already cooked up and left over, then look for something like brown lentils, which cook very quickly. And they've got their skin on them so that they, um, you can cook them gently and they'll maintain their shape. And I would uh, recommend cooking them separately. So that you can control the doneness on those brown lentils in that case. As you shift over to the base, right, of the minestrone soup. And you're going to get some root vegetables. You think about Mirepois 1st. So you've got your onions and celery in carrots, maybe the addition of some potato or any, really anything else. If the, uh, if the walk-in or the reach-in refrigerator has got some celery act or turnips or rutabagas, uh, or parsnips, you can bring in any of those things, fennel root, uh, works well as well. And then, uh, you know, a tomato product, um, added to the the base, um, it can be in any form. It could be tomato juice, tomato puree, um, a puree or chop of fresh tomatoes. It could be tomato paste. It can be in any market form. Could be fresh, could be canned, could be frozen. Bring some tomatoes for its acidity, and for its sweetness very often. And then also its overall flavor that it'll bring to the body of that soup. Think about some a real basic spices and, you know, certainly uh, black pepper, uh, goes very nicely within this mix. Maybe some cumin and coriander, and then try out some herbs either dried or fresh, you know, things like uh, thyme and oregano, uh, work very nicely. Uh, be cautious with rosemary, if you use it, go very, very easy because it will impart a very strong flavor that will easily create imbalance in the finished soup. Okay? Once that base has simmered and you've got some nice flavor development where you can pick up some of the spice and some of the herbs and that tomato comes through nicely. Um, you got some nice texture. Then for at service, you can bring that together with those lentils or other legumes that you prepared, that are just nicely done, maintaining their texture and their visual appeal. Okay? That's a pretty easy approach. Okay, to do something like that. You know, another suggestion, uh, would be a cream of soup, what we call a cream of soup, and you can make, uh, very easily a base from bechamel. So you've got milk, you're going to thicken it with a white roux. You're going to season that with some salt and white pepper, choose white pepper, to maintain a nice clean visual appearance. And then you can bring in whatever is available. It could be, you know, broccoli, it could be mushrooms, and, um, you know, you, uh, can cut those into a size that's going to be appropriate for, um, you know, what it is that you're preparing. You can saute those separately. Uh, to soften them and to, um, um, you know, get them past that raw state, and then you can then combine them, and then finish that simmering process in the bechamel base, bringing all those flavors together, and then do a final, uh, flavor, uh, or seasoning adjustment. Um, and then always noting the the flavored development along the way, right? A cream of broccoli soup should taste like broccoli, a cream of, um, mushroom soup should taste definitively of mushroom. And another approach to this is to use velite as a base. So you take a white stock, you're gonna thicken that with a blonde roux. And then you can add these, um, items in as I just mentioned. And then you can finish that with some cream. Uh, to give it some mouth feel, to lighten up the color, which gives it a very nice um, appearance in the bowl, and then think about uh, a delicate, uh, garnish. And that garnish could be an herb, maybe something that you incorporated in the soup itself, in a fresh form. Don't use dry herbs as a garnish. Or you can do perhaps a some sort of a crispy component. You know, maybe it's a crouton. Maybe it's a little pinch of, uh, fried onion, uh, which would certainly could be justified as a tie into the onion in the mirepoix that you used in the soup. But generally speaking, as garnishes. We try to make a connection with um, the same item, um, that's in that soup already in some fashion. Okay? And so those are 3 examples for you, Robert. And, you know, hopefully that makes sense to you.