I do and I don't - sling it in, that is.
My mum's soup always tasted more or less the same, whatever she started out with, but I like soup and want variety
One of all-time favourites is carrot soup - or Potage Crecy as it's called in my carefully copied out recipe in my ancient book that started with school cookery lessons.
Carrot soup
1 onion
1 potato - med-large
1lb carrots
Butter & oil for frying
1 litre chicken stock (you can use veg but chicken tastes better)
Salt & black pepper
Parsley if you have it, chopped
Chop all veg and saute in the butter/oil with the lid on for about 5 mins. Stir in stock, add salt & pepper and most of the parsley, bring to boil then simmer, hal-covered, for about 25 mins (will depend on size of chopped veg).
Liquidise, return to pan, taste for seasoning; stir in a knob of butter and the rest of the parsley before serving.This becomes
carrot & coriander soup by adding 1 teaspoon ground coriander before adding the stock, or
spiced carrot soup by also adding 1/2 teasp ground cumin.
Substitute parsnips for carrot and you have
spiced parsnip soup.
Root veg soup - same recipe but mix of carrot, parsnip, swede, etc, plus mixed herbs - and liquidise or not, or half-liquidise so it's thicker but with bits in.
Swap white potato for sweet potato for a different taste.
Mixed veg soup - onion, carrot, potato, leek, peas, cut-up green beans. Chop small, don't liquidise, thicken with cornflour (or part-liquidise before adding peas and beans).
Add shredded cabbage and broken spaghetti, don't thicken, use tomatoes plus beef stock and it's
minestrone (especially if you add a parmesan rind while cooking)
Dare you to try celeriac, celery and fennel
Onion, plus any/all of those veg. Less stock but add milk as well; liquidise.
Or use tinned tomatoes instead of milk.