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This is not a recipe. Soup requires no recipe. Soup is soup. All you must remember is that food is love and food is for sharing. Now onto the recipe.
Whenever you prepare soup, you must tend to it. Unwatched stoves are the most common cause of housefires. What? Did you expect me to speak of the loneliness of unattended soup? I need not speak of unattended soup. You know what happens when you leave soup unattended. You will not like what happens when you leave soup unattended.
That's right - possibly a housefire.
Start with liquid - stock or water will do. If you are adding cream to the soup, do not add it yet, it does not do well with extended boiling. Next, find your meat, if you consume it. The bones are the best, and a chicken carcass is my favourite to start with, although lamb will always work wonderfully after hours of boiling and skimming off fat repeatedly. Here, you must extract all the flavour from the bones and leave them hollow like an old tree where you might find fairies - or a possum - there is no difference really. The meat should fall of the bones and swim in the water. Now, you add the chopped-up root vegetables. Carrots, potatoes, swede - whatever takes long to cook. Do not forget your grains - barley and rice are delicious additions to any soup, soaked for hours to absorb flavour. Heat this on a low heat with the lid on for a long time; it will not overflow. Turn off the heat and go to bed now. The soup and you both need rest. Continue to heat it the next morning. Add whatever else you wish (now or earlier even) - salt, pepper, leak, onion, garlic, basil, sage, thyme - it matters not to the hungry soup.
Serve the soup and share the soup. A soup ladle is designed to cradle the soup like you should cradle the ones you share the soup with. Gently.
Some may try to tell you that the soup is bland. That it has no substance and is not a meal worth treasuring or even cooking. Pay this no mind. There are many places, many times, many families, where not much was to be had. Tough meat and tougher vegetables were made soft and spread further with the love and time taken to craft them into soup. Whatever you have, it has always been worth taking pride in the dinner you serve. To sleep with quietened bellies is to sleep full of love.
To eat soup is to find comfort in whatever you have in the pantry or fridge or garden. To share soup is to find comfort in those around you.