Seafood soup

So what better way to kick off the blog than with some seafood soup?

With a day off from work and plenty of time to prepare, I decided to head to University Seafood with dj seifi and pick up some salmon and shrimp! Paired up with just about any vegetables you have in the fridge, you've got your seafood soup for the evening. Here's what I used this time around:

 - 1 zucchini
 - 1 carrot
 - 3/4 onion
 - 1 celery
 - 1 white potato

 - 1/2 tsp pepper
 - 1/4 tsp salt
 - 1/4 tsp oregano
 - 1/2 tsp basil
 - 1/4 cup chopped parsley (save some for garnish)
 - 1 tsp minced garlic

 - 1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes
 - 1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
 - 1 cup chicken broth
 - 1/2 cup water
 - 2 tbsp olive oil

After chopping up your veggies to your desired size, warm up the olive oil in your pot at medium heat. Toss in the garlic and onions and cook for 2-3 minutes until the onions start getting transparent. After that you'll want to put the rest of the vegetables and the parsley in the pot and stir for a few minutes.

Now take all of your liquids and mix them into your veggie pot. After you've got the liquids mixed in, throw in your spices as well.
Turn the heat up so the soup comes to a boil and after a little bit of stirring, cover the pot and turn the heat down to LOW. Let that baby simmer for about 40 minutes. It's around this time I like to either:

a) prepare another part of dinner
or
b) sit on the couch and watch some sports

Once there's about ten minutes left on the timer, pull out your selected seafood (in this case, shrimp and salmon) and prepare them for entry into the hot bath of soup on the stove. I sliced up the salmon into 1 inch cubes and plopped them into the soup along with the shrimp. You'll want to put the cover back onto the pot and let it cook for about ten more minutes until the salmon is flaky and pink.

Once the seafood is all cooked up, you've got your soup! Spoon it into your serving bowls and throw on some of your leftover parsley as a garnish.

After preparing this, I've come to realize that it's got a nice balance of veggies and seafood, but you could easily add some clams or scallops and turn this into a full blown aquatic dish. While enjoying my second bowl, I threw in some hot sauce and found out that worked really well too. You can basically do whatever you want with it and it should turn out beautifully!