Creating Healthy Harvest Soups Kids Will Love

Digging into a big pot of hearty vegetable soup might seem like the perfect meal to end a busy day, but not necessarily of you're a kid. It seems a kid's taste in soup is often limited to chicken noodle soup out of a can. When it comes to serving healthier soups, kids don't always appreciate your delicious creations.

Feeding kids a healthier bowl of soup can be tricky since most nutritious soups have a fair amount of vegetables in them. And kids tend to turn their noses up at vegetables, so it's pretty hard to get them to even try a bowl of soup that contains more than broth and noodles. Let's take a look at a few tricks to create a nutritious soup loaded with nutrients that even the fussiest kids will try.

Ranch Style Soup

As most parents know, dipping vegetables in creamy Ranch style dressing usually results in the kids ingesting at least some nutrition. Why not use this trick to serve a whole bowl of soup filled with vegetables? Cook up a batch of broccoli, for instance, then throw it in the blender and puree it until smooth. Now, sprinkle in a little bit of dry Ranch style dip seasoning and some milk, and puree again. Crush some whole wheat crackers into the bowl for a bit of crunch.

Your kid may think they are eating a whole bowl of Ranch style dressing, but you know better. This trick works with any vegetable you can puree. However, if you prefer a chunky soup, just simmer chopped vegetables in broth until tender, then add Ranch style seasoning, milk, and stir. It's the flavor of the seasoning that will grab, and keep, a kid's attention.

Sweet Surprise Soup

Take a dessert or sweet side dish and turn it into soup. Pumpkin is a good example of a vegetable that most kids equate with dessert. Use plain canned pumpkin and flavor with spices and a pinch of sugar to taste. Or, you can dice a cooking (sugar) pumpkin and simmer until tender, then puree until smooth. Add a swirl of heavy cream to the top of the bowl for a pretty soup presentation, and sprinkle with cinnamon or allspice.

You can also use sweet potatoes in the same way, mimicking a sweet potato casserole. Add a generous sprinkling of crushed pecans to complete this nutritious soup that also happens to be just sweet enough to please a picky eater.

Vegetable Noodle Soup

If chicken noodle soup out of a can is the only soup your child will even consider eating, why not give in – sort of.  To make the leap to a more nutritious option, begin by making broth at home with lots of fresh garden vegetables. Simmer a variety of vegetables to get the most nutrients you can right in the broth itself.

Use carrots, celery, onion, parsnips, kale, turnips, collard greens, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, zucchini, yellow squash, beans, corn, sweet potatoes, and anything else you can pull or dig out of the garden. Simmer these vegetables until they are completely soft, then strain and set the solids aside to puree later for another soup.

Use the super-vegetable broth to make a more nutritious noodle soup. Add even more nutrition by choosing whole wheat, spinach, or sun-dried tomato noodles. Your child gets the beloved noodle soup, and you get the satisfaction of knowing it's loaded with nutrition.

Look at your kids' eating habits right now. No matter what they like to eat, you can usually find a way to re-create those eating habits into new healthier habits. It takes a bit of imagination and, let's admit it, a bit of trickery, but it's all worth it. Soon you'll be feeding your kids healthy soups they will actually eat, and enjoy!

Making Healthy Soups With Your Kids

Teach Your Kids Kitchen Skills By Making Harvest Soups Together

We know that kids who cook meals eat healthier. There is something about getting involved in the kitchen that seems to get kids interested in what they are actually eating. And, when kids are aware of what they are eating, they want to learn more, and more, and more.

Involving your kids in the kitchen can start at any age and learning level. Let's take a look at a few ways kids can dig in and enjoy the cooking process by making simple soups.

Washing Produce

Even toddlers can help clean vegetables and fruit. Get out a bucket or tub and set it on a towel on the floor, then put a couple inches of fresh water in it. Trim the produce as needed then put them in the bucket. Give your toddler a clean brush, sponge, or cloth and watch the action! This is good fun for your youngster and gets the carrots clean in the process.

Toddlers are at the age where they should be able to pick the produce out of the bucket and put them into another. Anything that needs to be washed can go into the bucket with the clean water. Don't be surprised if a few carrots get nibbled on in the process, but that's half the fun and a big part of learning.

Measuring Ingredients

At the next level, you can start having your child measure ingredients. Start with the simplest measurements, such as one cup of berries. You can dice the vegetables for the soup and throw them into a bowl, then ask your child to use a measuring cup to fill the pot and tell you how many cups they put in. It's all about learning some basics and staying involved in the cooking process. Accuracy isn't as important as involvement at this point, so relax and enjoy.

Chopping Produce

At what age a child can handle a knife depends on the child. Many older children can handle a small knife properly, but it takes practice and patience. In order to learn this skill, parents often buy a knife 'glove' to help protect their child from accidental cuts. This is a good idea, but the parent still has to teach the skill, then observe closely. You don't want the glove to give your child a false sense of security, or cockiness.

Spend a good amount of time with your older child teaching him or her how to properly use a knife. You want your older child to have a healthy respect for the knife, but not be scared of it, either. Chopping vegetables for a harvest soup will give your child plenty of opportunity to learn this valuable skill.

Stirring the Pot

Once the soup is on the stove, your older child can certainly help stir and watch the pot. This level will help your child learn about what boiling and simmering looks like and how they differ. You can even help your older child understand how vegetables cook at different rates by adding the denser produce first, then adding more delicate vegetables to the pot, and so on. As your child stirs the pot after each addition, he or she will see how timing a recipe is as important as what ingredients are in the soup.

Serving

Young children can help serve by putting the crackers or bread on the table, while older children can handle the utensils and actually ladling the soup into the bowls. Again, the age will dictate which tasks go to which child, but no matter what age, each child can have a duty to perform.

Clean Up

Putting the leftovers away and clearing the table are tasks that older children can help with. However, even the youngest child can help by getting out the plastic food containers. Store them all in one easy to reach drawer or box and let your toddler dig in and hand you what you need. Take whatever they give you and, if you need more, ask your older child to help. This way, everyone gets involved and you have a free hand to finish what needs to be done.

Making a big pot of harvest soup together is the perfect way to learn lots of kitchen skills. From washing and chopping the vegetables, to measuring ingredients and stirring the pot, there are any number of tasks that you can assign to your children. You're not asking your kids to prepare the soup so you can bow out; you are asking your kids to join you in the kitchen and learn skills that will last a lifetime. But, most importantly, you are asking your kids to have fun with you as you cook together. Now, that's what makes everything worthwhile!

Quick Tips For Creating Healthy Harvest Soups

Stock Your Kitchen With These Staples To Create Your Healthy Harvest Soups

Have you ever had a quick and easy soup recipe become slow and difficult? It's usually not that the recipe is more complicated than you thought, but that the kitchen is missing a few ingredients. Yes, those simple soup recipes are often written by folks who assume the cook has prepared their kitchen with the basics. But, many of us have not.

In order to make simple recipes work, there are some ingredients you'll need to keep in your kitchen. Let's take a look at kitchen staples that will help you speed through any simple soup  recipe and make it even simpler.

Broth

This ingredient seems almost like a given, but some cooks still have not gotten used to having chicken, vegetable, or beef broth on hand at all times. You can, of course, get by with water as a base for your simple soup recipe, but broth adds so much flavor it would be a shame not to take advantage of this kitchen staple.

You can buy canned or boxed broth, but you may want to make your own to save money. Plan a day to simmer chicken, vegetables, or a beef bone for hours and you'll have a rich broth ready when you are. If standing over a pot doesn't thrill you, just throw the ingredients in your crockpot and let it cook all day. Either way, creating big quantities of broth and having it in the freezer is a big help when it comes time to make your quick soups and stews.

Chopped Vegetables

Soup making time can be cut drastically when you prepare at least some of the vegetables ahead of time and store them. These vegetables would include the ones we use most often as the basis for any soup – onion, celery, carrots, etc. As soon as you get home from the grocery store, wash and dice these vegetables, then store separately in zipper food bags either in the refrigerator or in the freezer.

Then, when the recipe calls for the standard “saute onion, celery, and carrots” step, you are ahead of the game. Stopping to chop these basic vegetables takes time, which is something we are trying to avoid by making simple soups to begin with. This is a kitchen staple everyone needs to keep on hand.

Seasoning Blends

It doesn't matter what the blend is, having a favorite pre-mixed seasoning blend of any kind or flavor helps the busy cook with the creative process. Instead of stopping to search, measure, or think about substitutions, grab a seasoning blend you like and sprinkle it in the soup. It's like decorating a house; if you buy the styles you like, the house will look nicely decorated. That's because we all tend to lean toward the same styles over and over, making the house unified and pleasing to your taste.

Likes and dislikes in flavors and seasonings are the same. Use seasonings you find tasty and your soup will please you, too. Once you find a seasoning blend you like, or several blends you like, stock up. Now when you are following a recipe that has a list of spices as long as your arm, you can skip the frustration and grab your favorite seasoning blend and move on.

Any Starch

A quick and easy soup recipe can sometimes be on the watery side. Part of this may be because there just isn't a lot of cooking time involved, or a lot of ingredients, or both. Some recipes solve this by turning the soup into a blender to puree. This works just fine, but there are soup recipes you might want to serve chunky.

 Keep potatoes, pasta, and rice on hand to add body to your soup. These starches will thicken the broth without adding a lot of extra work. You can even keep dried potato flakes in your pantry and simply sprinkle into the soup if you don't want to bother peeling potatoes and waiting for them to cook. Both pasta and rice can be added to the soup raw or cooked, but raw will provide a little more thickening power.

These kitchen staples are particularly helpful when making simple soup recipes. Be sure to have the basics on hand in your pantry, refrigerator, or freezer and you can have your soup on the table quickly and easily, just like the recipe says!

Make Classic Soups Classy With These Simple Cooking Tricks

We all enjoy a good classic soup recipe, right? It's comforting to dig into a favorite soup with all the ingredients we know and have grown to love. But, sometimes it would be nice to kick up these classics and make them a little classier. Perhaps you'd like to serve soup as a starter for a special dinner, and that soup needs to stand out. Or maybe the soup is the star of the meal and needs to stand out even more.
Let's take a look at a few classic soup recipes and see what you can do to turn up the class a little.

Tomato Soup

This basic soup is well know on lunch menus everywhere. It's an easy soup to make and very comforting, especially when served with a grilled cheese sandwich, right? What if you took those flavors and combined them into one glorious, cheesy soup?

Start by roasting the diced tomatoes to bring out the garden fresh sweet flavor, adding onion and garlic to the roasting pan if you wish. Then, once the tomatoes are roasted, pour into a soup pot along with the broth, and simmer slowly.

Want more magic? Create a cheesy, creamy soup by stirring Bleu cheese or goat cheese or any soft, rich cheese into the tomato soup. Then toast some bread cubes with a little butter and garlic, and sprinkle the croutons on top of the cheesy roasted tomato soup. Add a pinch of freshly chopped basil and the meal is complete, and in grand fashion, too!

French Onion Soup

Even though we sometimes want our soup fast and easy, in order to turn this classic soup into a classy soup, you'll need time. The trick for getting this soup 'ready for the runway' is caramelizing the onions. This is the process of very slowly cooking onions until the sugars develop and the onions turn a light golden brown and become quite sweet.

Slice the onions thinly and cook them in a big heavy pot over very low heat with some butter, but no salt, for a good twenty minutes or more. Once they are soft and sweet, you will be adding some very classy ingredients – red wine and balsamic vinegar – before you add your vegetable or chicken stock. Simmer this slowly until fragrant and you are ready for the classy finish.

Ladle the soup into broiler proof bowls, then top each with a piece of cocktail rye bread and a good amount of Gruyere or other very rich cheese. Finish the soup under the broiler just long enough for the cheese to melt, then sprinkle fresh thyme leaves over the cheese and serve hot. By just slowing down the onion cooking process, and bumping up the level of ingredients, you have moved from ordinary to extraordinary with this formerly simple soup.

Cheesy Cauliflower Soup

For this classic favorite you only need to add one ingredient – curry. The classic soup stands on its own quite well, but the addition of curry makes the soup more substantial and noteworthy. You may want to use a stronger Cheddar cheese in order to complement the curry, and use cream instead of milk when you puree the cooked cauliflower. Serve with a dollop of Greek yogurt and a sprinkle of chopped chives for a pretty, and delicious, classy soup.

Soup can be a classic, even humble meal. Or, you can tweak the preparation and ingredients and turn just about any simple soup into something quite classy. Try these ideas, and the next time you call “soup's on,” watch the surprise, and delight, on the faces around your table!

Great Ideas For Using Fruit In Your Soup Recipes

Create Soup From The Sweet Side Of The Harvest Basket

If visions of big bowls of hearty vegetable soup have you headed to the farmers market soon, don't forget to take a moment to admire the produce on the other side of the aisle - the fruit and berries.

Soup in all forms has been a staple food for as long as we've been trying to feed ourselves. It only makes sense that during ancient times we used whatever harvest we could find - sweet, savory, or anywhere in between. Since fruits and berries form a large part of our planet's produce, let's consider some of the options when it comes time to harvest this plentiful crop.

Strawberries

When picked at the height of ripeness, this berry is extremely sweet and juicy. With just a few whirls of the blender or food processor, you will end up with a lot of 'soup' for your money. Mix blended strawberries with other fruit or berries to reduce the sweetness if you like. Lime, lemon, and even grapefruit will help build acidity to a level to make the balance between sweet and tangy perfect. Stir in icy cold white wine and top with a sprig of mint or even cilantro or dill for a very different soup that refreshes and intrigues the taste buds.

Blueberries

Even though blueberries can be blended and served as a soup without too many other ingredients, they are not truly juicy enough to stand alone. Mix blueberries with honeydew melon, for instance, for a delicate flavor and powerful color that will definitely please the palate. Mint is a very nice addition, but so is ginger. Since blueberries are not as sweet as other berries, drizzle in a little honey to bring out the natural flavor.

Pineapple

You can certainly throw pineapple in a blender to puree it, but I find it easier to buy natural pineapple juice, especially if you want soup in minutes. Pineapple juice actually makes a nice base for both chunky soup and pureed soup. Add lightly mashed berries to pineapple juice and crushed pineapple pieces and chill. You can give this a whirl in the blender if you want it less chunky. Either way, serve it very cold with a dollop of unsweetened whipped cream on top and a curl of lemon peel.

Cantaloupe

If you like intense flavor, ripe cantaloupe will give you that. You can even blend the cantaloupe with a little cucumber if you want your soup to have more layers of flavor. Ginger is a must in this soup, but another surprising addition is fresh basil. Just add a leaf, blend, then taste. You just want the basil to be a mystery in the background, not overpowering the sweetness but complementing it. You can even drop a tiny bit of very soft cheese on top before serving.

These are just a few ideas for adding fruit and berries into your soup recipe file. Mix and match a sweet harvest with a savory harvest and see what interesting cold soups you can come up with. I guarantee any of these soups will be a surprise and a delight on your family's dinner table.