Quarantine Cooking!

Now that we're all doing our best to be house bound, this seemed like a the perfect time to revive our cooking blog to swap recipes. Last night we made a good, freezable, fridge-cleaning soup that we call date soup! Here's the (very flexible) recipe:

For the protein:
1 lb ground meat (preferably chicken or turkey) (Or no meat! Do beans instead)
Liberal amounts of garlic (like 8 cloves?)
Basil or parsley (dried or fresh is fine)
Salt or garlic salt or onion salt, or a mix of all three!
Pepper
Olive oil
Cut any of the above seasonings, or add others that you like (I'd add fennel seeds, but that's not popular with the wife).

Add meat, crushed garlic, and seasonings to a bowl, and squish together like you're making meatballs or sausage. Heat the olive oil in a soup pot, then add meat, and cook so it ends up in little bits, like you're making a bolognese sauce or taco meat.

For the rest of the soup:

Carrots
Onion
Zucchini
Yellow summer squash
Mushrooms
Spinach
Fresh basil
Omit any of the above vegetables, or add others that you like or need to get out of your fridge.

Cut up your vegetables into spoon-appropriate sized bits. Add the carrots and onions to the protein, stirring until they're a bit cooked, then add:

Canned tomatoes or a can of spaghetti sauce
Chicken or vegetable broth
Bay leaves
Other seasonings (Italian seasoning, etc)

Then add the rest of the vegetables, starting with the summer squashes, waiting a while, then adding mushrooms, waiting a while, and adding spinach and basil right before it's done.

As the soup is cooking, cook noodles (pasta shells are traditional for us) to eat it with, or eat it with bread. (Italian rustic is really good, and here's an easy recipe that's worked well for me. (NOT SO RIDICULOUS OF ME TO HAVE BOUGHT A FIFTY POUND BAG OF BREAD FLOUR, NOW, IS IT, STEVE??))
Parmesan or mozzarella are great on top of this soup!