Last night, at Erik's GoodMeet, I made "Soup for 40." The title of the soup is of course partially based on the quantity of people the soup can serve. While we were all eating it though, the building manager for the building that SALT artspace is in pointed out that the name also references what a soup for 40 implies - a communal meal, for a gathering of friends or like-minded folks.

It is kind of ridiculous to offer this 'recipe' since I think the true idea is to dump a bunch of fresh deliciousness into a pot, and make sure you cook it as part of the event. But in case, or if you just want to think about quantities...

How to make a Soup for 40:

Equipment:
• HUGE pot
• electric burner
• metal ladle

Soup:
• 1 quart carrots (1 bag)
• 1 quart celery (1 bag)
• 2 quarts onions (1 bag)
• head of garlic, cut 2 days earlier, cured in 1/3-1/2 cup of olive oil in the meantime
• 1 bunch parsley
• several twigs of rosemary (1/2 small box)
• 5 lb bag of potatoes (minus a few!)
• 2 cups soy milk (1/2 box)
• 2 pitchers water
• 2 cups nutritional yeast (or so)
• 1/3-1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• one box mild veggie bullion
• a few tbs salt
• spices like pepper, thyme, and paprika to taste. lemon rind or bay leaves might be nice!!
• 2 big cans diced tomatoes
• 2 big cans of pinto beans
• 2 big cans of kidney beans

Directions:
Sautee garlic and oil with some salt, lightly. Add carrot, celery and onion and some more salt. Put lid on and let it sweat. Add rosemary and parsley. Mix in. Add rest of salt. Let it sweat some more. Box of bullion + 2 pitchers of water + vinegar. Mix and add potatoes and mix again. Put the lid on and let it simmer while you drain the beans. Add the beans and stir. Dump in the soy milk and nutritional yeast. More stirring. Add tomatoes and other spices. Simmer until potatoes are cooked.

Serve over cornbread.
(I made 4 well-received trays of this recipe: http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=39)