"Karen AKA Kajikit" > wrote in message
...
> Yesterday the weather was just miserable... blowing a gale and
> threatening to storm all day... most un-Floridalike (there was even a
> tornado watch all day!) So I made a pot of vegetable and rice soup for
> dinner. It was a little bland but nice and comforting with some fresh
> bread and ham...
> I thought I had plenty of liquid in it, but tonight I went to grab a
> bowl of the leftovers, and it had thickened up so much in the fridge
> that it was vegetable stew!
>
> The question now is what can I do to revive it or make it more
> appealing to DH so I'm not stuck eating it for the rest of the week...
> he was happy to eat the soup but he refused the stew point-blank.

When ever you have a "bland" mixture of a savory dish like your soup there are 3
tricks I use.

First: Make sure to adjust the salt and pepper as you have diluted the original
ratio.

Second: a small amount (few tablespoons) of vinegar will perk up a soup, you
just want enough for the "sour" flavor to be in the background.

Third: a small amount of soy sauce will perk up any stew, soup, or dish of that
nature. Soy sauce contains a natural amount of glutamate as in MSG. Some
scientests believe humans have a 5th taste sensors and the glutimate is the
beefy taste the Japanese call umami.

http://www.cf.ac.uk/biosi/staff/jaco...ory/taste.html

"Umami taste"
Umami is the taste of certain amino acids (e.g. glutamate, aspartate and related
compounds). It was first identified by Kikunae Ikeda at the Imperial University
of Tokyo in 1909. It was originally shown2,3 that the metabotropic glutamate
receptor (mGluR4) mediated umami taste. Binding to the receptor activates a
G-protein and this may elevate intracellular Ca2+. More recently it has been
found that the T1R1 + T1R3 receptors mediate umami taste4 . (Go to top)
Monosodium glutamate, added to many foods to enhance their taste (and the main
ingredient of Soy sauce), may stimulate the umami receptors. But, in addition,
there are ionotropic glutamate receptors (linked to ion channels), i.e. the
NMDA-receptor, on the tongue. When activated by these umami compounds or soy
sauce, non-selective cation channels open, thereby depolarizing the cell.
Calcium enters, causing transmitter release and increased firing in the primary
afferent nerve

Dimitri