"Good manners: The noise you don't make when you're eating soup."
--Bennett Cerf
With fall here, favorite soup recipes start living in my head. Some feature one super star ingredient like lentils, others fall in the comfort food category like tomato soup, a few are just great combinations of rainbow vegetables like minestrone soup. The fun thing about making soups is that you can always change up the recipe a little bit or a lot, depending on the ingredients on hand. Last night, for example, I decided to make red lentil soup but I had just run out of tomato paste. I did have some local heirloom tomatoes on the counter, so I switched up ingredients in the recipe and the soup was great!
My recommendation to parents? Make different soups on the quest to find your family’s favorites. Then keep those soups in regular menu rotation and the ingredients on hand in your pantry and fridge. Your kids will stay busy helping you prep veggies and getting all the ingredients on the counter (“mise en place”).
Trips to the local farmers market often make the decision about what soup to make an easy one. When local tomatoes are in season, you can bet we will be making classic tomato soup. When summer kale is being harvested, kale and white bean soup is on the stove. When butternut squash are at the markets, I make sure I have fresh curry powder and cans of full-fat coconut milk on hand.
Have fun making your favorite soups
with your family! When you make lentil
soup, I’ll be over for dinner!
With love and kindness,
Nancy Heinrich, MPH
Founder and Wellness Architect
