Monday, January 27, 2014

A Twist on the Traditional Sunday Soup

I grew up having soup for supper on Sundays.

I don't know if it's a dutch thing (my parents emigrated from Holland with their parents in the 50's) or a practical thing but Sundays always meant soup for the hot meal.

Everyone I knew had soup on Sundays, visit a friend and Sunday soup was on the menu. Go to Oma and Opa's after church in the afternoon and you knew what supper would be. Sunday soup.

That's what we called it too. Sunday Soup.

Chicken noodle soup packages (or dutch soup packages) carrots, celery, green onions and meatballs was the soup most commonly found. Some ladies made red soup once in a while for variety (my mother in-law made both each Sunday to appease her 10 kids) and every so often you would be served soup that had actual chicken in it.

Sunday soup.

I didn't even know other types of soup existed until my late teens when I discovered cream soups. Cream of broccoli, cream of cauliflower, leek and potato . . . yum.

When my kids were small I served soup on Sundays. With a morning and afternoon service it just made sense.

As they grew older soup showed up less and less often. Green or Red soup fell out of favour and I began trying to cook the large 'Sunday Dinners' it seemed the rest of the world preferred.

Last week I finally threw in the towel.

Cooking a full meal with roast beef or roast chicken just wasn't working. By the time we got home from church in the afternoon it was 4:30 and the last thing I felt like doing was preparing a large meal.

Sunday dinners became sad and pathetic 'help yourself'' affairs. Something had to change.

I decided to bring back Sunday Soup but it was going to be Sunday Soup with a twist.

No more Red or Green soup (or . . . very little). From now on Sunday Soup at our house is going to be an opportunity to try out something new. Fragrant, exotic soups, hearty comforting soups or spicy, burn the top of your mouth soups will be taking their place.

Yesterday was our first soup adventure. Italian Wedding Soup. Both Holly and Jesse had had it a restaurants and loved it so we figured it was a good place to start. (Plus it has meatballs so we still had a bit of the familiar. . .)

I did a Google search and found quite a variety when it came to recipes but in the end we went with this one. . .

Italian Wedding soup from theKitchn 


People . . . try new soups!  It was delicious! We did tinker with it a bit because both kids had had orzo in their versions so I added 3/4 of a cup to this one and used spinach for the greens rather than escarole. there was a a bit too much  orzo though, so next time I'll only add a 1'2 cup.

I would have taken a picture but by the time I thought of it the soup was gone.

Time to search for something  new to try this Sunday.

What about you? What does your family eat for Sunday Supper? Do you have any favorite soup recipes I should try??



8 comments:

Sigrun said...

One of our favorites is this one. We have it less often now because of the ham (trying to reduce processed meats). I think it might be good with chicken, though--haven't tried it that way.
http://www.canadianliving.com/food/kale_and_chickpea_soup.php

Denise B. said...

Our Sunday suppers are whatever leftovers we can find in the fridge, or grilled cheese, or Kraft Dinner with hotdogs... whatever is Easy and lets us enjoy the rest of the day together without a lot of cooking or cleanup time! And usually the dishes sit until Monday morning too... Some Saturdays I get my soup on for Sunday, but it's usually eaten in between services. But I want to do things with my family on Saturdays too, so... yah, I keep it easy for Sundays. :) Try some Vietnamese Satay Soup one day! My favorite non-dutch soup!

Rosa said...

Thanks for the link Sigrun. :)
Denise: My dishes often sit until Monday morning as well. Not a big deal for a quick meal but a real bummer on Monday morning if I've done a meat and potato meal. . . ;D Thanks for the soup suggestion! :)

Evelyn in Canada said...

I almost made a kale and chickpea soup last night, but there was no fresh kale in the grocery store. I ended up making a double batch of polenta and creamed vegetables with ham and chicken bits. The kids said "Write down that recipe!", but I rarely use a recipe so it may not be repeatable.

I grew up on Sunday soup too, because it was easy to put it all in the pressure cooker before church, leave it simmering and then return home to it. Mom cooked like I do though, and there was never really a recipe. From week to week it varied slightly, but I remember it being chicken-stock based.

Rosa said...

Ev : Just googled kale and chickpea soup. It looks pretty good . . . now if I can just sneak the chickpeas by everyone. ;)

Evelyn Veldkamp said...

We love different sops. I have been meaning to try Italian Wedding Soup, perhaps I will give this one a try. My Sunday soup is always different. Tomato, Cream of Sundried Tomato (no meat), Chicken, Minestrone, Homemade Mushroom (kids love it), even French Onion once in a blue moon. But I do have the old stand by of making meatballs ahead of time and veggie packets for a quick throw in the crockpot and having soup ready when we get home from church.

Nancy-Mom said...

Uncle Ben makes chicken or meat ball soup every Sunday if Lindsey & Art & kids come over between services. If we're just with the two of us it's a can of tomato soup. He does the cooking every day so I don't mind. Lately, during the week, he's actualy experimenting with different things for suppers. He's quite enjoying it. This man is incredible. Besides doing everything for me plus all the housework (he' veeerrry fusy:-) he still likes to cook!!

Rosa said...

Evelyn: I have had soup packages in the freezer before as well. They are very handy!
Aunty Nancy: It can sure be fun to experiment with food! :)

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