DIY gourmet soups for rainy days

Make comforting, hearty soups from scratch with freezer staples and simple kitchen tricks—perfect for cozy, rainy-day meals

- TIMPLA'T TIKIM SOL VANZI

At long last, the sweltering days of summer are gone. It is time for tummy-filling, heart-warming soups which we can never get enough of.

There are minestrone, goulash, and gumbo—thick, hearty, filling meals in themselves. And then there are soups that are soups, like French onion soup and Chinese egg drop soup. These, and more, are easy to make from scratch without spending a fortune on ingredients.

Freezer tricks

My freezer always has two soup bags; one for bones and another for vegetable odds and ends. The family keeps chicken wing tips, pork and beef bones, skin and scraps in the first; vegetables (carrots, onions, green and red bell peppers, green beans, celery stalks and leaves) share the second bag. We save these daily as we prepare lunch and dinner, scheduling our soup day as the bags fill up.