Vegetable Soup

Since we are on Thanksgiving week, I thought I would post an easy and delicious recipe you can cook to share with your family. This vegetable soup is the ideal appetizer for Thanksgiving dinner. It is tasty yet light so you don't lose your appetite for the main course.

Although we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Paraguay, I wanted to share this recipe since it reminds me of my family. Growing up, I ate this soup almost every day as an appetizer before lunch. Since I moved out of my parents’ house, I try to make the soup at least once a year. Now, every time I eat it, it transports me back in time to my childhood and teenage years like in the movie Ratatouille, remember? It only took one bite of ratatouille for Anton Ego, the restaurant critic, to be transported back to his childhood when his own mother made the stew for him. It feels nice to be able to taste, once in a while, those flavors that remind us of special times in our life.  HAPPY THANKSGIVING! 

Note: this recipe serves 4. If you want to cook for more people, use more vegetables and water.
Ingredients 
1 piece of squash
1 tomato
2 carrots
1 green bell pepper *
1 onion **
parsley
fresh parmesan cheese

* since I only wanted to make 4 servings, I used a small piece of pepper but you would normally use 1 whole bell pepper if you are cooking for more people.
** I did not have onion when I made this soup but I will normally use 1/2 or 1 whole depending on the number of servings. You could also use green onions instead.

On a pan, boil the vegetables on 2 cups of water. When the hard vegetables (carrots and squash) are soft, turn the heat off and let it cool down. Next, pour the vegetables and the water in a blender and blend everything until it looks just like in the picture.

Pour your soup back in the pan and bring it to a boil. You can add more water to the soup depending on how thick you like it.

Finally, add fresh grated cheese and enjoy!