What can be used instead....

Last night was one of my most absent-minded moments. I went into the kitchen, ready to make Brazilian Soup from my new, graphically favorite, cookbook I Know How To Cook. Now, before I go to the grocery store, I find my self thumbing through all the various recipes I have bookmarked, added to my delicious or starred on my reader in the past weeks. This inevitably leads me to purchasing far too many ingredients for far too many meals...although miraculously I've gotten pretty good at using every last bit before they reach "beyond banana bread" if you will.

 
So I had purchased the ingredients for Brazilian Soup weeks ago, only to find out, an hour before dinner was meant to be ready, that I didn't have the following: (and what they had gone to)

• Onion (Salsa) - Replaced by shallots
• Tomatoes (Salsa) - Excluded
• Consomme (Actually I didn't even get ingredients for this in the first place for unknown reasons) - Replaced by veggie stock
• Butter (Everything...my roommate and I use a sick amount of butter) - Borrowed from the Stephensons
• Nearly carrots. They were reaching floppy but luckily I caught them just in time. - Used anyway. Ya.

To give up and cancel dinner or to make something out of what I have and hope it works?

Brazilian Soup
Adapted from I Know How to Cook
 
A bunch of carrots (about 6 medium sized), thinly sliced
2 leeks, thinly sliced
3 shallots, minced
5 turnips
3 celery stocks, thinly sliced
1 Cayenne or Santaka pepper, minced
5 Tbsp. Butter
1 1/2 cups long-grained rice
13 cups of water
Salt, pepper
A few drops of truffle oil
Dash of ginger powder
1 can of black beans
1 can of pinto beans
Vegetable stock

*The actual recipe had very exact amounts in ounces and I do not attempt to claim that my amounts are best or different really or anything of the sort. I figure with soup, it's all the same.*

1. Boil 13 cups of water. When it reaches a rapid boil, add the rice and stir once. Let cook for 10-12 minutes or until it tastes cooked to the proper softness. 
2. Drain the rice in a collander and rinse with cold water. 
3. Melt 2 heaping tablespoons of butter in pan. Once melted, add the rice and reheat on low-medium, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking to the pan and to coat with butter.
4. While the rice is cooking, melt 3 Tbsp. of butter in a large pan. Add the carrots, leeks, shallots, celery, turnips, and cayenne or santaka pepper. Cover and let cook stirring occasionally for 30 minutes.
5. Add salt, pepper, truffle oil and ginger powder to the vegetables to taste.
6. Puree the beans in a blender or food processor. 
7. After 30 minutes, add the vegetable stock (about 4 cups) to the vegetables. If you want to thicken the soup, add some corn starch mixed into a bit of cold water. Let simmer for 10 minutes.
8. Add the bean puree.
9. Serve by pouring the soup over rice in a bowl. I also buttered some onion hamburger buns, topped them with fresh grated parmesan and toasted them in over for 5 minutes or so.