My kids haven't really had any choice but to love soup: I've fed them buckets of it since they were tots. This is because I adore soup in every form, and also because I reckon there are few family dishes more comforting, nourishing and economical.
Children who don't like soup must sneakily be persuaded to appreciate it, in my opinion, and it's worth persisting in your efforts: eventually they
will succumb. This might take a few years, but there will come a time when they beg for soup and thick slices of buttered bread whenever they're feeling cold, tired or miserable.
I make soup about three times a week in winter. When I have time, I use a
good home-made stock as a base (see below for my tips for making and freezing stocks).
I also have a repertoire of quick soups made using tins from the cupboard and a few fresh veggies (you'll find links to these recipes below).
I know it may seem like a pain in the neck to make chicken stock from scratch, but it needn't be, because it doesn't take more than 5 minutes to throw a good stock together. After that, you can let it burble on the hob for an hour or two while you go about your business.
Don't throw away the bones of home-roasted birds or ready-roasted supermarket chickens: rather collect the carcasses and any gravy left-overs or vegetable trimmings during the course of the week, put them in a big plastic bag or lidded container, and stick the lot in the freezer. Add any suitable stock ingredients to the bag as you go along - onion peels and trimmings, celery tops, parsley stalks, garlic remainders, the heel of a Parmesan wedge, and so on. When you have some time over a weekend to relax and cook, retrieve your stock bag from the freezer, plop everything (still frozen) into a big pot and continue with your stock recipe.
Any left-over stock can be frozen. Let the stock cool overnight in the fridge. The next day, lift off any fat, pour it into a big pot and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and let it simmer for 30 minutes to concentrate the flavours. When the stock has cooled, strain it through a fine sieve into ice-cube trays, rinsed-out yoghurt tubs or zip-lock bags, and freeze overnight. Pop the frozen stock cubes out of their moulds, place them in a big plastic bag or lidded tub and put them back in the freezer for use in future soups, sauces and stews. I always date-mark my stash of home-made stock using strips of masking tape and a thick black marker pen.
Here are my
top ten tips for making memorable soups.
Here's a list of other soup recipes on this blog:
Soups Index
And here are nine of my family's favourite soups; the tenth is at the top of this page:
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