Soup making

On a bright sunny morning with a good thirty centimetres of snow on the ground, we went outside to play in the snow.  We went cross-country skiing, built snow castles with a little sand pail, played on the swings and tobogganed down the small mountain we built off the edge of our back porch.  While Dad and the kids finished having fun outside, I came in to make a pot of soup.

On this day, I simply opened a can of tomato soup from our pantry and added a bit of leftover rice from last night’s dinner and a can of reconstituted powdered milk, then heated it up on the stovetop.  Soup can be simple, but it’s appreciated when everyone comes in from the cold.  But my favourite soups are ones I make from scratch that simmer on the stove for about an hour.

Last week I made turkey soup using up some leftover turkey broth and meat.  After Christmas or any big family feast, we put the turkey bones into a big soup kettle and cover them with cold water.  I usually add herbs such as thyme, rosemary, sage and bay leaf, and sometimes a few vegetables such as onions, garlic and carrots.  I simmer the bones for a couple of hours, strain the broth, and pick off the meat and add it back to the broth.  I freeze the broth in recycled yoghurt containers, labelled with the name and date.  When I’m ready to make soup, I bring out two containers to begin thawing.  I’ll sauté some onions and garlic first and then add whatever vegetables I choose – usually carrots and celery, maybe parsnips and potato or sweet potato, and often some dried kale or nettle from our garden.  I’ll add a few more herbs with the broth and then some turmeric to give it a nice yellow colour.  Finally I’ll add some egg noodles or small pasta, or for a special treat, homemade dumplings.

Last summer on our camping trip with extended family, I was scheduled to make dinner for everyone.  My plan was to make a chicken vegetable stew with dumplings in a dutch oven on the camp stove.  After consulting with family members about their food preferences and allergies, I had requests for no chicken, no vegetables, no dumplings, and no salt.  I was tempted to just give everyone a mug of boiled water.  I ended up cooking the vegetables in salt-free broth, cooking the chicken separately, ladling out one bowl of stew before adding the dumplings for the gluten intolerant, then cooking the dumplings in the rest of the stew and serving that over the cooked chicken for everyone but the vegetarian in the group, who went sans chicken.  I let each person add salt and pepper separately in their bowls to their own taste.  And my Dad just suffered through eating his vegetables.  However, it was a great success.  Everyone raved about how delicious it was, and even the neighbouring campers sniffed the air and came to enquire, “What’s for dinner?”

While stew with dumplings on a camping trip feels elaborate, soup is a basic staple that has seen a lot of people through difficult times.  Homeless shelters run soup kitchens for those who need a helping hand.  One time when I served at a soup kitchen as a teenager, the manager gave me the sage advice to make sure I was always on the serving side of the counter.  February coincides with the Hunger Moon, so it seems fitting that our local youth shelter runs a Soupfest this month to raise funds for its programs.  Soup can be made from dried vegetables, split peas, lentils and/or grains, so there’s really no excuse not to make soup in February in Canada; so long as you have a few basic ingredients in your pantry, it doesn’t matter if you’re snowed in and out of fresh vegetables.  When my husband and I visited Newfoundland and Labrador for our honeymoon, we realized soup was a staple that had helped to nourish the inhabitants there for many years.  They had perfected the art of soup-making in some places, and at a roadside doughnut shop, we enjoyed the best seafood chowder I’ve ever tasted.

If you’re feeling down from the limitations imposed by the pandemic or you’ve got the winter blues, why not try making a steaming pot of delicious homemade soup?  Let it lift your spirits and nourish yourself and those you love.