Last week I learned three things about cooking:

1. The “cook with a wine you would drink” principle, i.e., good ingredients make good food
2. If you mix too many ingredients the flavors will just cancel each other out
3. Don’t trust everything you hear on the Food Network, especially not from Rachel Ray

To start with the last point first - the road to my soup disaster started while flipping channels and seeing Rachel Ray cooking asparagus. She snapped off the fibrous ends of her asparagus spears, and chirpily announced that she would save the ends to make a wonderful asparagus soup. Aha, I thought, that’s a great idea, I always feel bad about throwing the asparagus ends away.

The next time I was cooking asparagus I made sure to save the ends. This is where it should have stopped. But no, I also applied the same theory to broccoli. Finally a few days later I decided to make soup, and started off with sautéing carrot, onion, garlic, and thyme. So far so good. Then I added the asparagus ends and broccoli stems, filled the pot with hot water and a teaspoon or two of Marigold bouillon powder. Hm, I thought, in the spirit of economical cooking, why not throw in some other stuff that’s just sitting in the fridge? In went a few potatoes, some spinach, a bit of fresh sage, and some half-wilted parsley leaves. Sounds good, right?

Let’s just say the result would be suitable only for pandas and other creatures used to eating bamboo and other stalks. Even after simmering for 45 minutes, and three rounds in the blender, the soup was still full of asparagus fibers and tasted like vegetable mush (which it was). With so many vegetables pureed together you couldn’t make out any distinct flavors, and even if you got past the taste there was still the fibers to deal with.

For obvious reasons I’m not providing the recipe for this soup. I’m only providing this information for the benefit of others who might have heard the same tip about saving asparagus ends. If you want to make asparagus soup, stick to the good part of the stalk and don’t add half the vegetable drawer in your fridge.

 Let me know if you find a good recipe.