I make this soup at least 2 times a month for years. It became my classic recipe for soup. 

The initial recipe I posted here: Traditional chicken soup. I made this soup in all sorts of ways: in a traditional pressure cooker, in a regular big pot but since I've got my Instant Pot, it is the only way I do it.

The soup is so versatile, it can accept all types of vegetables that are left over in the fridge like an eggplant, a zucchini or more tomatoes/bell peppers. 

The advantage of the Instant Pot is that I can cook the chicken straight from the freezer, skipping the time to defrost them. I do not even need to cut them because, in the end, the meat simply falls out of the bones and you can break them with just a simple spatula.

There is a secret ingredient that for me is a must: the lovage. You might not be familiar with this herb but its flavour fits amazingly with the soup. During the summer I enjoy the fresh lovage leaves but during the winter I use the dried version of it. In case you do not have it available, use parsley.

I am not sure if I can "advertise" more this soup.

Below is the adapted recipe for the Instant Pot.

This year I made my first own grown pumpkins. Such an excitement! What a pleasure to check them every day to see if they became bigger. They filled my garden with life and colour.  When the autumn came, the leaves faded away and their beautiful orange aligned with the season colours. What to do with them? Oh, what to start with. First of all, we love pumpkins roasted in the oven and this is what we tried first. Then, I reserved a part for cakes and from another uncooked part I made a soup. This is the one. It is the food of the season and possibilities to cook with pumpkins are endless.

Here is a simple recipe but, oh..., this soup is so so delicious.

If you are not from the est part of Europe, I am pretty sure you have no idea what borsh is. I know it from Romania where it is very popular between for housewives. My mother used to buy borsh from a neighbor and she was using it to sour the soups. My grandmother was making it herself. When I was a child, lemons were a luxury fruit to destroy it to sour your soup, so everybody was counting on this miraculous yellowish liquid called borsh.

When I moved in another country I found it very difficult to match the taste of my soup with the one I knew from home. Although the quality of the vegetables ripen by the sun in Romania is incomparable to the ones you find here in the supermarket, I was missing the secret ingredient: borsh. There was nowhere to buy this fantastic liquid. 

My mother in law even brought me some starter (not sourdough based but yeast based) from Romania but unfortunately I was not very experienced to know how to keep it. I had then to through it away as it got a strange smell. 

Two years ago I got stubborn and wanted to do my own starter, not in the way is traditionally made in Romania but from sourdough. I had this wonderful bacteria fed for my bread baking and it should have been a way to make borsh from it. The challenge was to find a recipe over the web with sourdough and there were not many listed. Finally I found one, applied it and it worked partially. Why partially? Because although I got a very nice borsh, it was not sour enough. I continued with it and used it for months even without the expected strong sourness. 

But recently, I was stubborn again. It must have been a way to get your borsh from sourdough starter that actually gets really sour. I found more recipes around but many of them had no sense. This bacteria is the key to achieve this sourness. Recipes that calls to pour boiling liquid over the sourdough starter were just crap as the idea is to keep this bacteria alive to do its job, meaning to get your liquid sour. But I found one that looked more interesting, respecting this principle. I adapted it a bit and practice it. In 24 hours I've got the borsh of my dreams!

But before presenting you the recipe, let me tell you that there is more to know about this sour liquid. It is not used just to sour soups, it has much more properties and usages. From childhood, I also remember that people were using it to wake up from dizziness caused by alcohol or to avoid the next day symptoms after a big drinking night :)

This sour liquid is rich in vitamins B, C, D, H, minerals, enzymes, chrome and other amazing elements. It is used in diets before lunches as a purifying agent. A lot of people are drinking it as such because of its probiotic properties to fortify the imune system, to improve the digestive system and so on. 

But look, I am not a doctor to confirm all these and I am sure there are many articles regarding the healthy benefits of the borsh. I am here to tell you about its taste and how to make a good one yourself.

I usually use it for soups and from time to time, to taste it in the morning before breakfast.

Here is my adapted recipe:

What I hate the most in making a tomato soup is peeling the tomatoes. After the boiling, tomatoes are hot and waiting until they are enough cool to touch them is simply a waste of time. I even tried to not peel the tomatoes but even after blending there are small unappealing tomato skins in my soup. I like the tomato soup to be clean so I needed to find a way to remove the skin without spending to much time and without burning constantly my fingers when removing the skin. What I found useful was to cut the tomatoes in 4. In this way they are easier to be removed. Then, the best is not to touch them directly with your fingers. For this soup I used just 2 chopped sticks. With a fork it would be easy also.
This trick saved me, as tomato soup is one of my favorite, if not, my most favorite soup.
Tomato soup combined with pasta and lovage is an incredible combination. Lovage is another favorite of mine in terms of flavoring the savory food. I brought it back from Romania and I have it in my garden since few years. It dries during the winter but grows back in the early spring. It is not demanding at all and offers you so many tasty pleasures.
This tomato and pepper soup looks more like a classic tomato soup. However, adding some other vegetables enrich the dish quite a lot in terms of nutrition. It does not change the taste too much, although the pepper is very delicately felt.

Although I repeat quite often the same soup recipe I make, sometimes I like to test something new. This pea soup was an alternative to my regular Traditional chicken soup.
Easy to do and with a particular taste given by the peas, it is for sure a good treat or aperitive.
Being of color green I was wondering if my kids would like it. It looked like the color was not a problem for them and despite my initial doubts the taste was well appreciated.
This is a healthy soup. If you are vegetarian, skip the bacon that, in my opinion gives the sparkle of this dish.

I don't think I ate pumpkin soup before arriving to Belgium. It was simply not very common in my family and probably in Romania either. We were eating instead big slices of roasted pumpkins. Their taste and sweetness was enough to not feel the need of adding more sugar. At least these are my childhood memories. Nowadays I have difficulties finding tasty pumpkins in both countries. Even cooked in a fire wood oven they taste like cucumbers. Sorry but this is the bare truth. Sometimes, I am lucky and I find a tasty one and then there is fight on it in my family.
Tasty or not, it is a matter of preferences. However, they can be turned into other dishes like soup. Their benefits to a healthy lifestyle cannot be ignored. It is said that pumpkin improves your vision,  your heart and your sleep. They are rich in fiber, anti-oxidants, minerals and vitamins. So, if the taste doesn't convince you, maybe their nutritional values.

Let's do a pumpkin soup that has been assorted with smoke lard and fresh cream. If you prefer the vegetarian option, ignore these 2 and enjoy it as it is.

I would rarely do a soup out of grilled peppers and this is not because I do not like it but because the grilled pepper would not survive, being eaten first in a recipe like Roasted pepper salad.
When I was in Romania I brought some frozen homemade grilled peppers. As they were a lot, I picked a soup recipe with grilled peppers that I would not do myself from the start. It was then the perfect occasion to try it.

The taste of grilled peppers is persistent in the soup and this makes this soup a very special one. It is a rich tasty soup and the combination with mascarpone and basil makes it outstanding.

During the summer, it is a light soup that I like to eat. Vegetable soups are perfect for the hot days, so why not to try a delicious spiced carrot soup.
There is no wonder that so far I tried different recipes for the carrot soups like  Carrot soup or Spicy carrot-zucchini soup with lovage. Which one I like the most ? Well ... all of them are great and it is difficult to chose.

From all the puréed soups, the tomato one is my favorite. Each time I try a different recipe and every time I can say that the last one is the best. Each time I want to make it more simple and more tasty. The addition of bell peppers add something special to the taste. It has some Mediterranean flavor in it. Here is the simplest one I've done so far...

After a week spent in a delicious location like Sicily is difficult to come back and cook something that will beat the flavours of the previous holiday. There is however something that I haven't eat so much in this last escape of mine, and this was of course soup. I've done soups before of many colors but not white. And, as I had a big celery in my fridge the idea came straight forward.
I then put my hand on a very old book from 1985, full of traditional Romanian recipes. Of course I changed it a bit (like I always do) but the result was surprisingly tastier than the expected one. I was expecting a fade taste but it wasn't like that at all.

A quick soup, full of vegetables with spicy accents. Healthy and full of vitamins. Take it with a slice or two of sourdough bread and with a secret ingredient ...

I have to be honest and recognise that when I was a child I simply hated any additional herbs in my food. With time, this has changed and more specifically when I arrived in Belgium where the supermarket food didn't have the same smell and taste as the one picked from my grandmother's garden. I turned then to herbs to increase the taste and flavor. Step by step, I learned to recognise all herbs and their translation in French. Although not a herb, I remember that in my process of learning the translations in French, the most funny was the celery (root). I was used with a celery full of dirt, no bigger than an apple and with a strong smell. I went several times to the supermarket and couldn't recognise it. I spotted a root vegetable, big as a cabbage, white and very clean and with almost no smell. To be sure, I made a photo and send it to my mother to confirm. I also checked the wiki as I thought maybe it was another specie. But no, it was the Belgian supermarket celery.
Coming back to my herbs identification, there was one that I didn't find it at all. I had its strong smell and taste in my mind but it was impossible to buy it here. One day, a friend brought me a small pot with some little plants. Immediately, I have recognised it and he confirmed that he had brought the seeds from Romania. It was lovage, and this was the herb that I was talking about. I took great care of it, I have planted in the greenhouse but unfortunately, when I have left in a 2 week holiday, the plant has died. Since then, I had in mind to bring this plant from Romania myself. My mother gave me some plants, root included and I have transported back to my house. I planted them in pots and let them in my greenhouse. Now, they are well raised and I had the great pleasure to use them for the first time with a soup. Here they are. Lovage. My secret ingredient for seasoning.

I'm in the mood of a healthy and delicious soup. This has oriental influences and the addition of the coconut milk makes it fantastic.  I am simply in love with this easy and amazing recipe! It is so tasty... I simply cannot stop eating it ...

The soup that I made is a beet one, complemented with some other vegetables. I recognise that I took advantage of its colour to "sell" it to my daughter. And it worked, at least the first time.

It is not very traditional in Romania to have creamed soups and when I have joined Belgium I had a shock to discover that almost all soups were unclear. I was used to see what ingredients are in my soup, while here it was just a cream, I was staying away from any kind of soup that was pureed. My biggest fear was that those soups were made from powdered soup.
One day I took the courage to make a pureed myself. I was pleasantly surprised to see that was not that bad. And since then I try all the colors for my soups... of course with fresh ingredients. This one is a yellow one.
Let's try it ...

Near the chicken soup, the tomato soup is one of my favorite. That sour - sweet taste in your mouth when tasting a tomato soup is just crazy. And if you eat it with croutons, then is total craziness.

This version of tomato soup is also enhanced with some carrots and celery and I may consider it better than my previous version.

When I have seen this recipe in a cookbook, my mind flew back to a spring cold evening that I spent in Greece some years ago. A good friend of mine took me to a traditional restaurant. It was my first contact with a real Greek cuisine and I had no idea what to take. My friend recommended me something and I have followed his advice. To be honest, I do not remember what was my choice then but I know it was the moment I fall in love with their traditional cooking. When I have seen this recipe, my mind was bringing me back of that evening. Thank you very much my dear friend for that beautiful holiday when you have introduced me your amazing country. I keep very nice memories since then, even if it was more than 10 years ago. I dedicate this post to you ...

My mother knows that from all the meets, I am a fan of chicken. This is why, one of the first cook books she passed me was about how to prepare chicken. This book is no bigger than a pocket and somehow I put it in the back of my shelf, for the simple reason that it has no picture in it. Nowadays, is difficult to find a cookbook without photos inside. I actually believe that photos are selling the cookbook because the reader wants to know how it looks. Nevertheless, coming back to my little chicken cookbook, I took it out from the shelf and look for some interesting recipes. This is the first one I have selected...

I am not a big fan of cream soup but I have decided to vary from my classical soups. Also, I am not a big fan either of zucchini and I do not use them so often in my dishes. More, when I hove told my dear husband that I was intending to do a zucchini cream soup he snorted a bit and I was wandering if finally my soup would be eaten. But I persisted in my trial and I gave a chance to this soup.

So, I followed the original recipe with very few changes. It turn out to be a green liquid with no appetite for it. I filled one bowl, took a spoon and tried it. Mmmm, but it wasn't so bad at all! Much better than any soup I eat every day at the office cantine. Turned out to be flavored and with a reach taste for just a simple vegetables soup.
Next test was clearly for my husband to taste it. And I saw his face changed into an amazed one: "mmm, but this is quite good!" It was clear then that my soup was a success. The only person I couldn't convince to try it was my daughter, but well ... I understood her because she preferred another dish that she loves.

I am not a big fan of cream soups but I wanted to try some variations.