Soup: Write 28 Days 02.08.2022

Dear readers and writers, pinch me!! Can’t believe I have been able to write 8 days in a row.  Who am I?  And today I am writing about one of my favorite subjects in all the world…food.  And one of my favorite foods…soup.  These words should spill right off my fingertips onto the keyboard and into this post without much work at all.

I have shared my love of soup here several times…mostly for Tasty Tuesday recipe swaps and blog hops.  Always, always in search of a new soup recipe to try.  And my crock pot is my BFF.  If I can find a soup recipe that is Weight Watcher friendly and can be prepared in the crock pot, I am in pig heaven.

Soup as a Writing Prompt

 

The journaling prompt offered by Maria at Krafty Planner for today was a question.  ‘What is your favorite comfort food when it’s cold out?’  Joyce at From this Side of the Pond posed a similar question for a recent edition of hodgepodge.  Or was that me asking the question in January’s 10 on the 10th post?  Whoever, whatever…hands down, my answer is soup.  No matter who is asking that question!!

Soup as a Food

 

Soup is like an edible hug.  A hug in a bowl.  Hug balanced on a spoon.  Soup embraces you from the inside out.  From the tip of the tongue all the way down to the toes.  I have a whole Pinterest board, here, devoted to soup – and its cousins stew and chili.  Are we Pinterest friends yet?

I have showcased soup here on my blog many times.  I’ve hosted a number of recipe swap and blog hop posts where our food of choice was…oh, you know it…soup!!  And lots of times in my Sentence a Day posts, I will mention what we ate for dinner.  Riveting stuff, I know.  Then link to an especially good recipe…most often soup.  You can check out a couple of those individual Tasty Tuesday posts by searching ‘soup’ on the side bar or visit the recipe swap posts by clicking here and here.

Soup as a Life Lesson

 

When I was still teaching (as a librarian), one of my favorite lessons revolved around making soup.  What??  Eating in a library??  Yup, I was (am) that crazy.

We would read versions of the internationally-renowned folktale Stone Soup.  Would usually start with Marcia Brown’s retelling, follow it with Stone Soup by Jon Muth and then throw in a fractured version like Bone Soup by Cambria Evans or Cactus Soup by Eric Kimmel.  We would compare and contrast the different renditions.

And then – horrors of horrors – we would actually prepare stone soup in the library.  This was a lesson I did with second grade – my very favorite grade level.  Each teacher would bring a crock pot and I would provide all the ingredients for the soup.  I brought smooth river rocks (washed, of course) from my yard that the teachers would add to their crock pots as the first (and most important) ingredient.  Then the children would come up one at a time to add the other ingredients to the pot.

The pots of soup would simmer all day in the library.  Mmmmm.  About 30 minutes before the children were dismissed to go home, I would take the crockpots, bowls, spoons, crackers and grated cheese down to the classrooms and the kids would eat their stone soup.  It was such fun.

The children would write out the recipe on a recipe card as a how-to or procedural text.  Lots of good lessons here.

Stone Soup Recipe

 

Here’s the recipe we used.

• 1 pound hamburger or ground turkey
• 2 c tomato juice or V8
• package taco seasoning
• package dry Ranch dressing mix
• can pinto beans
• can black beans
• can kidney beans
• 2 cans Rotel tomatoes with chilis

We cooked it on low all day – about 6 hours.  This was enough for each class of about 16 children to have a small bowl.  Almost all of them loved it and wanted more.

This recipe is one of PC’s favorites.  I probably need to mix up some this weekend.

My friend Penny at Penny’s Passion shared some unique soup bowls a few years ago during one of our recipe swap posts.  Always wanted to buy them but never did.  Guess what?  I pulled the plug today!!  Check them out.  We usually have cheese and crackers, grilled cheese or crusty bread with our soup.  These bowls will provide a place for those sides.

Wise Words about Soup

 

I am very proud of my little analogy of soup being like a hug.  It prompted me to research quotes about soup.  Lo and behold there is a whole post entitled “57 Comforting Soup Quotes to Warm the Soul” by the Greeting Card Poet.  These are a couple of my favorites.

“Bad news should be followed with soup. Then a nap.”
~Augusten Burroughs

“A home is a place where a pot of fresh soup simmers gently on the hob, filling the kitchen with soft aromas and filling your heart, and later your tummy, with joy.”
~Keith Floyd

And I just love this sentiment.

[source]

Apparently, I am not the only one who thinks soup is souper.  Glad I am not alone!!

Your Turn

 

How would you respond to this prompt?  Would soup make your top 10 list of favorite cold weather foods?  Hardly a week goes by over here that we don’t have soup of some sort.  Found a quick recipe using Hamburger Helper as a soup base that I am going to try this week.  Will let you know what we think about it.

Off to bed.  Met with my cardiologist and this ole ticker of mine is good to go.  Whatever was going on with it was a fluke or something, I guess.  Will keep an eye on my venous reflux but otherwise I don’t have to be seen for a year.  Yipppeee!!  Subbing tomorrow.  Hope the kinders will be kind.

Hugs and kisses,