Soup rocks!

The following picture only slightly relates to food since the two painted pebbles on the left are of a chilli and a cupcake. This was a craft project I did several years ago for a Malaysian home and interiors magazine article.

Pet rocks

I was reminded of these pebbles when I was reading about "rock soup". The name of the dish comes from the fable about a returning soldier and how he managed to get all the villagers to contribute their few bits of ingredients to make a big pot of soup that fed everyone. Nice story: here's one version.

The dish may have got its name from that fable and is a soup where you just put in anything ­­– there's no real recipe. I saw some pictures of it and they looked so delicious, I couldn't wait to make a pot for myself – and believe me, when it comes to soups, I can finish a whole pot on my own!

Is it a soup, is it a stew, is it a chilli? You decide.

My stone soup is basically cobbled together from leftovers. 

First, there's a little bit of meatloaf I had made for sandwiches. In it was minced beef, rolled oats, carrots and onions held together with eggs. There was also heat to it since there was some cayenne pepper in it.

There had to be some protein and fibre in the soup so the night before, I soaked some adzuki beans. No homemade broth, so it was just water and a beef stock cube. I had a single potato left in the vegetable basket so that was cubed and thrown into the pot.

Finally, as the soup came to the boil, I added dried rigatoni directly to the pot. The starch from the pasta helped to thicken it.

There was enough for two, but I didn't share.