One Soup: one onion, one carrot, one rib of celery, one quart of chicken stock, and one teaspoon salt. Sauté your veggies, add your salt and stock, and you have a basic soup. Now you can add tons of other stuff to that base: can of tomatoes, garlic, some cream, chicken, tortellini, beans…experiment. New cooks should learn that foundation and then build on it.