Soup Club

This is one of the most beautiful recipe books i’ve ever seen!
Each recipe is accompanied by an amazing watercolor illustration of the soup. The book is also filled with beautiful pictures in black and white.
The recipes seem delicious and they are very specific (the author decided to give measurements about the salt as well). Some pages are even about baked goods like biscuits and at the end there are variations for the instant pot.
The story behind it is inspiring and I will definitely look for other recipes from the same author!

Soup has always been compared to taking delicious medicine and this book will help elevate the idea. The author, a cancer survivor, goes through her history with her words and personal photographs. She discusses her finding comfort and healing in making delicious soups. What was interesting about this cookbook was the photos of the soups were all illustrations. They were lovely to go through. I can't wait to try so many of these recipes.

This is a gorgeous book, full of amazing sounding soups that are made with very simple ingredients with influences from around the world. Beautiful photos and the soups themselves are shown through hand drawn art and look absolutely delectable. If you love soup, I can't recommend this book enough!

Working my way through this book full of beautiful soup recipes, photos and stories.

I love a cookbook that gives you a since of life, home and love and this does just that. The story of the soup club, the information about ingredients and the recipes all make for a great read and more fun and soul-warming meals for cold winter nights.

I have made a few of the soups so far and plan on making more over the coming weeks and months. YUM!

Favourites so far are Teddy's Black Bean Soup, Kinda Tortilla Soup, Cowboy Chili and Cream of Mushroom Soup (so far). This book brought back so many memories of my younger days, mum cooking soup and the smells that permeated our home.

Thank you and love it.

Soup Club is full of art! Various kinds of art which I’ll describe below.

Most cookbooks I look at are sort of boring. Recipes dictate a cup of this with two tablespoons of that. Photos. Blah.

But Soup Club! Love, love it. Some art examples:
Watercolor paintings of the soups.
Black and white photos around the house.
Haiku or word poems with each recipe.
Plus the author’s style of writing!
A background story on how the Soup Club came to be.
While she was battling cancer, soup was placed in a cooler on the porch. It was a magician’s box. Soup went in the box and hope came out.

Recipes give leeway according to your own preferences. There are suggestions on pleasing carnivore friends. She recommends a Dutch oven or stock pot, but also gives instructions if you prefer an instant pot. She doesn’t tell you to make stock or broth before you make the soup. This is great! When I was undergoing chemo last year, one of the cookbooks for those with cancer had a complicated recipe for stock before making various recipes themselves.

This cookbook is a gem because of the jewels in it. Thanks to Netgalley!

A bowl of soup is far more than just sustenance to this author. It's love, friendship, hope and more. It is obvious this book was threaded together with love and care. I appreciated the Soup Club Story very much. The watercolor pictures for the food was a different and lovely touch. While photos of the actual dish are more detailed, the watercolor art was specific enough that I feel anyone can create the dish as pictured. Actually the watercolor paintings were beautifully done. The Soup Lady Wisdom was extremely helpful to me, especially the about using filtered water. Why had I not thought to try that before?! None of the recipes require you to make or use broth because as the author states, "who wants to make... a pot of soup before making another pot of soup?" Each recipe is complex in flavor but simple in instruction. I appreciated having two methods for each soup, the slower stovetop method and the quicker pressure cooker method. The only thing I would change is to add each recipe to the table of contents and maybe put both methods of the recipe together, rather than having them separated.

I received this ARC for free from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

As the weather already starts to turn cool, this book is an inspiration. The soups sound delicious, with lots of diverse, fairly easy recipes (most with an instant pot equivalent). If you want to step it up a bit, there are also recipes for homemade spice mixes. There are a couple bead and salad recipes to help you finish the meal. Great resource for vegan or plant-based folks. Easy add on options for more carnivorous folks.

This is a lovely, quick read about the value of soup to Caroline Wright and community at large. The recipes are all plant based, and as a person who is generally pescatarian, this excites me!

There wasn’t a ton of writing in the book in general, just a quick snapshot of the author’s story and some of her tips. The recipes themselves were broken up by soups, a few breads, a great cookie, and a few salads. She also includes instant pot adaptations.

A few soups that stuck out to me: tomato and quinoa soup, Moroccan vegetable stew, split pea soup with roasted kale, and chunky garden vegetable.

This is a book that would be perfect for anyone interested in eating for healthfully! The recipes themselves would be perfect for a beginner cook.

If you want a book about soup, this is the one I would recommend. So much love and testing and dedication and varied recipes went into it. I was very impressed by the sheer number of things to find here, and The explanations as to how to do things and why it is done that way. I also liked there was a section on instant pots, tecopies tweaked to fit as an alternative short on time method, but most of all I loved that this book wasn’t calling in for stock all the time, because I do believe there is nothing as frustrating as having to make that before you can have a good soup. While I love the stock recipes using leftover carcasses and vegetable peels, I work full time and I have 2 small children, I don’t have time for this, nor the energy to make basically two soups. Great book, especially the vibe of it which is all about caring and sharing and eating good soulful dishes.

I thought this book was going to be all about and only about soup! So imagine my surprise when scrolling and then “Wait! There’s bread!?!?!” Only to continue on and go “Wait, is that A COOKIE RECIPE?!?!?!?” Followed by ‘SALAD?!?!?!” Absolutely lovely. I may not be the biggest soup fan, but you can bet your bottom that I copied several of these recipes out to try!

Now you know you are dealing with an American cookbook (ignoring the fact that she tells you right off the bat she’s from Seattle…) when cooking by weight gets involved… fortunately she puts the rough equivalent in cups and vice versa depending on how she is measuring things out, making it relatively easy for anyone to follow the recipe without too much hassle.

Most soups are not overly complicated with recognizable ingredients you can pick up at your local grocery store. Most. There are a few items in there you might not be able to find on a regular basis if you are from a smaller demographic area in the middle of nowhere. You should be able to find substitutes for almost all of these less known ingredients...I think.

Also note that this book has a bit of a story and a journey to it. There are several chunks of book that are just a few pages of black & white photos of what I am assuming is every day life with the author, her family and her friends. If that's not to your likening, feel free just to skip those pages.

ALSO, these are all plant based soups and stews. Says so right in the title...

The Soups & Stews
Some of her staple ingredients are Beans, Onions, Water (obviously), various types pf peas, and nutritional yeast.

I do enjoy that all of her recipes are right from scratch. Yes, they do take longer to make as a result BUT as she puts it “you don’t feel like you are having to make a soup before making a soup” by having to cook up a broth first. It’s all built right in. Or however she said it. Point being, you don’t have to mass make broth and then freeze it or buy the cr*ppy store bought stuff in order to make these soups. You literally only need what the recipe calls for. And the majority call for onions. So stock up on onions…and beans. Beans are pretty popular too.

A lot of these recipes are vegetarian (obviously) and I bet a lot can even be made vegan if they aren’t already (I think they are? Depends how seriously vegan you are cause everyone know a tomato plant likes a good dead fly now and then). Very few have any sort of meat in them, though a few recipes note what kind of meat you could put in it should you want to. Not many though. These are veggie and bean based soups, in case the title or everything above didn't already make that clear enough.

The Breads & Cookie
There aren’t a lot of these recipes. I think there were...3(?) bread recipes and one cookie recipe. Be warned, these recipes make a lot of dough. The bread calls for some interesting equipment, such as a spicy grinder and a jar blender. I’m sure you can find a reasonable alternative if you tired. I, for one, might break out my mini food processor and try that in order to make the dinner bread!

Salad
Okay, these salads are…involved. Far too much washing and drying and chopping/tearing for some lazy soul like me to do on a regular basis. BUT they would probably be great for a fancier dinner, like a family get together or a friend potluck or something where you decide to be the dude who shows up with salad…this won’t be a disappointing salad if you use one of these babies!! Heck, I had to look up what tahini was! Do keep in mind I live in hickville. Please, don’t judge me. Lol

Instant Pot Variations
Some of the same long recipes, but for insta-pot, which obviously cuts down the cook time by quite a bit! They do seem very involved though. You really have to know how to work your insta-pot. I have a cheaper knock off that doesn’t have some the required features so I kind of just scrolled from recipe I wanted to try to recipe I wanted to try to see if any of them were appliable to what I have.

Pantry Items
These are just ingredients needed for some of her recipes that you can make at home. Most have store bought equivalents available.

Conclusion
If you love vegetable and/or bean soups, this book will be right up your alley! Fairly simple, and made from scratch.

I have always been a huge fan of soups. I am that person who can eat soup in any season. So I like to have a soup recipe on go every time. This book gave me new recipes to try everyday and I kind of liked few.


Thank you NetGalley for the ebook copy.

This is a healthy and varied recipe book full of heart and health. It was so fascinating to read about how Caroline came to create the book and the recipes within it. It contains a wealth of healthy. vibrant and colourful soups to suit all dietary requirments and tastes.

This book is the cutest book I've seen this year! There are so many great recipes and, among them, there are pictures of the author's family in black and white. The illustrations of the recipes are simply magnificent, and very well idealised. The book overall is very minimalist, and it's simply perfect. The recipes are very well explained and I'll definitively try out some of those, they are super interesting! I definitively recommend this book to any soup lover. Rating: a big 5/5 stars.

This was a beautifully written story. As someone who lost a loved one to cancer, it’s interesting to read about those who have suffered the same face or have been diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. This was eye opening but the author herself made many different aspects of this story come to life, her hope, her integrity and her character. But of course, soup is universally loved, one of the best food items to exist? Of course! This was eye opening and a beautiful insight. And I’ll definitely be trying out these soup recipes inside. This was amazing and one of the best books from 2021. 5 out of 5 stars!

This a beautiful and fun cookbook! It's soup season so the title caught my attention. The photographs throughout the book are beautiful and artistic and I have several soups I want to try starting with the thanksgiving soup!!