The big enameled pot has been on the back burner every Sunday afternoon since the first weekend of November. Around 2 o'clock the kitchen windows start to steam, Biscuit comes in from wherever he's been sleeping to sit near the stove, and by 5 Greg is lifting the lid to ask if it's ready yet. It never is when he asks.
I started Soup Sundays for practical reasons. My bookkeeping days are Tuesday through Thursday mornings, and I wanted lunches I didn't have to think about. Greg gets home from his route by 1:30 and is usually starving. One pot, it turned out, covers Sunday dinner for both of us and four lunches during the week. Sometimes there's a little more, and that goes into a freezer bag.
The rotation
I've made ten pots so far, and these are the ones that stuck:
- Chicken noodle, with bone-in thighs and the noodles cooked separately
- Chili, beans and all, Greg's mild version
- Beef and barley
- Split pea with the ham bone from Christmas
- Potato soup with a little bacon on top
- White bean and sausage with a bag of chopped kale
I tried a creamy tomato basil once, and it was fine, but Greg ate it the way you'd eat a vitamin.
I kept the receipts, and these are the costs for a full pot that makes about eight bowls, at Aldi and Kroger prices this winter:
Chicken noodle came to $9.40, about $1.18 a bowl. Chili was $11.85 with a pound of ground beef at $5.49, so $1.48 a bowl. Beef and barley was the priciest at $13.20 because of the stew meat, $1.65 a bowl. Split pea was $4.10, the cheapest by far, since the ham bone was already paid for at Christmas, about 51 cents a bowl. Potato soup ran $6.75, or 84 cents. White bean and sausage was $8.90, about $1.11.
Averaged out, a bowl of homemade soup cost us about $1.13. A can of the hearty kind is $2.79 at Kroger and holds about two small bowls. Even counting the gas for the stove, I'm happy with that.
The one Greg asked for three weeks in a row
Beef and barley. I made it the second Sunday in December, and the next Saturday he said, "You could make that soup again." The Saturday after, while we were wrapping presents, he said, "That barley soup was good." The third time, he didn't even say anything. He just put a pound of stew meat in the Kroger cart and looked at me.
So we had beef and barley three weeks running, and I did not mind, because it's easy: brown a pound and a half of stew meat in batches, add an onion, two carrots, two celery ribs, a can of diced tomatoes, eight cups of beef broth and three-quarters of a cup of pearl barley, and let it go for about an hour and a half. The barley keeps soaking up broth in the fridge, so the leftovers turn into something closer to stew. Greg considers that a feature.
A few things I've learned
Noodles and pasta go in each bowl, not in the pot. If you store chicken noodle soup with the noodles in it, by Wednesday they've drunk all the broth.
Cool it fast. A full pot of hot soup takes too long to cool in the fridge on its own. I divide it into shallow containers and get it in the refrigerator within two hours. Then it keeps three to four days, which is why we eat the lunches by Thursday.
Anything we won't eat by Thursday goes into the freezer, flat in a quart bag. Most soups keep well for two to three months. Potato soup is the exception. It gets grainy when frozen, so I make a smaller pot of that one.
When the kids were home, soup was a side dish. Josh could eat three bowls and then ask what was for dinner. For two people, though, one pot is a whole week of lunches and one less thing to decide. It has turned out to be my favorite part of the weekend.
This Sunday is chicken noodle. Greg has already asked if next week could be barley.
