Soup! 13 Winter Warmer Recipes

My four-year-old keeps asking me if it's almost spring. Here in Philly we get more slush than snow that lays nicely on hills for sledding or that clumps easily into snowmen. My daughter is also quite the little fashionista and much prefers the pastel colors and lighter fabric of her spring and summer wardrobes to her winter one.

I, on the other hand, love winter. Hot cocoa by a warm fire, fleece and flannel sheets, the stark, solemn beauty of snow-covered evergreens and skeletal deciduous trees against a clear, blue sky - I can't get enough.

How can to get my kiddo to better appreciate the coldest season?

Maybe the quickest way for winter to get to my daughter's heart is through her stomach. She might not be into playing in freezing temperatures in a bulky snowsuit, but she sure enjoys a bowl of hot soup.

I present 13 of my family's favorite soup recipes discovered online and tested in my kitchen. They are mostly vegetarian or vegan for health reasons, but the list felt incomplete without chicken soup and beef stew. Also, tastiness was of prime concern and easiness a close second.

I chose 13 because that's roughly the number of weeks of true winter that we in the north must endure, and because I'm a skeptic who enjoys scoffing at superstition.

1.) I'm a huge fan of the recipes found on Susan Voisin's blog, Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, and have included two of her soup recipes in this post. The first is my new favorite, Ridiculously Easy Cream of Broccoli Soup. It is exactly what its name describes - super easy to make and quite delicious. You can see my daughter scarfing it up in the photograph above. With six common ingredients (plus salt and pepper), and requiring only a pot and blender to make, you can't go wrong.

2.) Also from Susan Voisin's blog, I present Stormy Black Bean Soup. This has been a favorite of mine for at least a couple years. It's great as a one-pot meal that you can throw together after work. I usually dress mine up with some hot sauce and slices of avocado.

3.) The magazine Chop Chop is a pretty good source for family-friendly recipes. The ingredients are all familiar to many kids, and these are recipes that even small children can help prepare. I discovered two soups that our family enjoys. The first is Super Tomato Soup, which of course pairs wonderfully with a grilled cheese sandwich (or quesadilla.)

4.) The second soup from Chop Chop is Butternut Squash and Apple Soup. Butternut squash is a pain in the butt to peel and chop, but I've noticed a lot of grocery stores starting to offer packages of pre-cut squash, and this is a great use for them.

5.) Dr. John McDougall is a food guru who advocates a plant-based diet to promote health. He's known for his best-selling books full of easy-to-make, appealing recipes. I'm rather enthusiastic about parsnips, having discovered them in my early adulthood. Not everyone is familiar with them, but they are sort of like a pale, yellow carrot with a more subtle, sweet flavor. Parsnips are truly fantastic either steamed or roasted. On Dr. McDougall's website I found another use for them, this wonderful Potato and Parsnip Soup. There are several recipes on the page, so you have to scroll down to find that soup recipe.

6.) Kale is a big food celebrity among the health-conscious these days, so how could I not include a soup with kale? I love well-prepared kale, and so do my kids. It pairs wonderfully with potatoes, as I found with this recipe for Potato and Kale Soup, also from Dr. McDougall. (Again you must scroll down a bit on the page to find the soup recipe.)

7.) I had some difficulty choosing just one lentil soup recipes for this post, and finally landed on this Curried Red Lentil Soup by chef Linda Lantos. It is a little more elaborate than the preceding recipes, but it is worth the effort if you have the time and patience.

8.) I recently discovered the food blog Bev Cooks, and this winter tried a couple of her truly tasty and exotic soups. The first is Thai Coconut Corn and Mushroom Soup. I'm just crazy about anything with coconut milk and mushrooms, and Thai cuisine is something I feel my children must learn to appreciate.

9.) The second from Bev Cooks is Smoky Corn Chowder with Shrimp. Getting enough iron is always a concern with my petite, little girls who eat mostly vegetarian. Shrimp is high in iron, and more importantly, very yummy. The inclusion of this recipe also satisfies the obligatory bacon requirement.

10.) I've made Beaker's Vegetable Barley Soup probably over a dozen times over the past ten years. It is an unpretentious, satisfying soup to eat with fresh bread on bitter cold days. Even better to eat while reading a good short story with some soothing guitar music in the background. This is the sort of meal that inspires me to appreciate life a little bit more.

11.) A few years ago a friend of mine turned me on to Pumpkin Black Bean Soup with Curry. Whenever I've made it for guests it's always a big hit. I've never kept to one version of the recipe (there are many online, including one from Rachel Ray), but this link does the job. I should also mention that I have always replaced the whipping cream with coconut milk.

12.) Now we come to the absolutely must-have chicken noodle soup. The soup we Americans eat when we're sick or otherwise need comfort. My maternal grandmother's chicken noodle soup recipe was so well-loved that it was served as part of the meal during her funeral's reception. I have tried many different chicken noodle recipes over the years, and it was again difficult to choose just one to include here. I landed on Easy Chicken Noodle Soup from a Leftover Roasted Chicken Recipe because I found it to be a practical recipe for busy parents.

13.) The final must-have (in my opinion) in any list of winter warmers is beef stew. My mother-in-law has several times made beef vegetable stew to serve us as soon as we arrive after the 9+ hour drive home for the holidays, and I consider it to be one of the most satisfying and comforting meals. I've tried a whole lot of those over the years, some more successful than others. This Beef Stew with Carrots and Potatoes found at Once Upon A Chef is the best I've found in recent memory.

Just a few more weeks of winter left. Stay warm!

Picture Books to Introduce the Young Naturalist to Winter

Back in December I read this article by Sara St. Antoine at The New Nature Movement, which discusses books as a powerful way of connecting children to nature and the outdoors. 

This passage especially caught my attention: 

This topic hit the news recently with the release of a study led by J. Allen Williams, Jr. of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He and his research team looked at 296 children’s books—all Caldecott award winners from 1938 to 2008—and found a significant decline in representations of natural places and animals over the last two decades. They concluded, “These findings suggest that today’s generation of children are not being socialized, at least through this source, toward an understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the place of humans within it." 

Last winter my children were given The Big Snow by Berta and Elmer Hader, winner of the 1949 Caldecott Award. The delicate illustrations of animals indigenous to the American Northeast seem to come right out of a nature journal. 

The first half of the text is more educational than driven by narrative, as all the various animals prepare for winter by either migrating south, gathering food, or hunkering down in burrows. 

A story does start to form when a big snowstorm hits, and afterward all the resident animals who forage for food all winter are hungry and cut off from their natural food supply. It is then that an elderly couple come out of their warm home to toss out feed for the animals. 

Though 64 years old, this book remains a clear explanation of various strategies animals apply to survive winter, and a poignant example of how humans can act with empathy toward our fellow creatures. 

Recently I discovered another Caldecott winning book that teaches about a different aspect of winter as a natural phenomena: Snowflake Bentley, written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, and illustrated by Mary Azarian, and published in 1998. 

The book tells the story of Wilson Bentley, a Vermont farmer whose obsession with snow drove him to become a self-taught snow expert and the first to capture the exquisite and short-lived beauty of snowflakes on film. The text includes sidebars with additional facts about Bentley's work, while Azarian's hand-colored, folksy woodcuts boldly bring the story to life. 

Both of these books more than fit the bill for what Sara St. Antoine is calling for in her article. Specifically, she longs for "stories that delve deep into a natural kingdom and show ordinary people making their way there" to "get kids excited about actual nature." 

I'm very fond of fantasy, science fiction, and superheroes. But I also see St. Antoine's concern if there's little-to-no children's literature that invites us to experience the natural world in a more direct and down to earth manner. 

In addition to The Big Snow and Snowflake Bentley, I encourage parents to check out St. Antoine's extensive list of books about nature and the outdoors, categorized by age group, and found at the end of her article. 

And for more recommendations and reviews of picture books specific to winter, check out these lists: 

Children's Picture Books for Winter, 2013 by Caryn at Three Books A Night 

Little Lions: Best Kids' Books About Winter from the New York Public Library on Mommy Poppins

Best Children's Picture Books About Winter and Snow by Elizabeth Kennedy on About.com

Books That Inspire A Little Snow Adventure by Keryn Means on Walking On Travels 

Risking Life and Limb to Birdwatch

The last thing the AAA guy said was, "I have no idea how you're going to get your car out of there." 

Let me back up. This past Saturday I attempted something very foolish for the sake of my child. I tried to drive my 2-wheel drive sedan up a quarter mile, curvy drive that was covered in a sheet of ice. Why did I do something so stupid? Because at the top of the drive was a local environmental center offering a free children's program about snow. 

The center had sent out an email that morning warning that the drive was icy, but that cars were making it up driving in low gear with a bit of speed. I figured if I didn't make it all the way up, I could always just back down in reverse. I made it most of the way up, but then slowed to a stop. In my attempt to go in reverse back down a sharp curve, I slipped and backed right into a giant rock and tree. 

Now the problem when my car is stuck nearly a quarter mile up a steep, icy drive was that no vehicle which could tow my car out could get up there and pull without the risk of sliding right into my car. Which is why two days and two AAA guys later my car was still stuck. 

Thankfully, Monday morning (after two more cars got stuck on the same drive) the city sent out a salt truck. A couple of city employees dug my car out, and I was able to get a tow to pull me out. The total cost was mostly a lot of worry, a day off work for my husband to watch the kids, and a backache and sore leg muscles from me shoveling and walking up and down an icy drive. Could have been much, much worse. 

Oh, the dumb things we do for our kids. 

After I first got stuck, while I was calling AAA and fretting about what to do about my car, my daughter was cutting out paper snowflakes, dropping salt and food coloring into blocks of ice for sun-catchers, and making maple icecream. Being only four years old, she had no concerns over the car or my anxiety. She was simply having a lovely time learning about snow. 

When she finished her suncatcher, we took it outside to hang up. An array of resident birds such as chickadees and cardinals congregated around bird feeders next to the environmental center. My daughter and I watched them flutter, hop, and peck with shared delight. I looked down at her wondrous expression, and said, "Even though the car got stuck, I'm glad we came." 

(Okay, I must admit, I wish we'd just parked at the bottom of the hill and walked up. Had things gone any worse, I'd really be kicking myself.) 

I'm glad for the mindset and habits I've developed as a parent regarding my kids' education and exposure to nature. With modern conveniences, and especially living in a city, it's easy to forget where we come from, and the environment that we're dependent on, ecologically speaking. 

Winter is the season that reminds us that nature is still in charge. It is the most inconvenient and violent of seasons. School is canceled. Colds and even life-threatening flu and pneumonia become more common. People break bones slipping on ice. Trees fall, weighted down by snow, damaging property. In these modern times it is still relatively easy to ignore the harshness of winter by staying indoors. But then the heating bill arrives. 

Garrison Keillor is known for the colorful stories about harsh winters in Minnesota he tells on his radio show A Prairie Home Companion. On one episode he remarked: 

Growing up in a place that has winter, you learn to avoid self-pity. Winter is not a personal experience, everybody else is as cold as you, so you shouldn't complain about it too much. You learn this as a kid, coming home crying from the cold, and Mother looks down and says, “It’s only a little frostbite. You’re okay.” And thus you learn to be okay. What’s done is done. Get over it. Drink your coffee. It’s not the best you’ll ever get but it’s good enough. 

I don't want to worship or idealize nature. The biosphere is neither good nor bad, but awe-inspiring in its complexity, and humbling in its enormity and power.

I hope to get my children interested in the scientific investigation and understanding of nature. I also hope to instill in them an appreciation for nature as it is experienced through both first-hand experience and artistic expression. This is no simple task, as I live in the developed world in the year 2014. My children could easily go their entire childhoods without ever seeing a forest or farm. 

This week we bought some bird seed, gathered a few pine-cones, and are making bird feeders in the hopes of attracting some resident birds to our own front yard. 

Nature education must be an educational priority, just like reading and math, history and science, art and movement. That's why I drove up a treacherous, ice-covered hill, so my kid could cut paper and play with ice, salt, and food dye.  

Addendum I: Here's a wonderfully informative website about snowflakes. 

Addendum II: Since I'm on the topic of nature education, Happy Darwin Day 2014! 

A More Grounded Winter Holiday

I didn't get around to doing (secular) Christmas cards in December. I was too overwhelmed with work and other holiday season activities. But I absolutely love the tradition of sending cards every year. It's a small but meaningful gesture to friends and family that says, you're important to us.

Cards are physical, and just as a hand-written letter tends to carry more meaning than an email, a card, even a simple photo card, tends to carry more weight than e-cards. Cards are more time consuming and costly than electronic gestures, so I understand why so many people have given it up.

I, however, refuse to totally surrender to the hectic nature of the holiday season, and so instead of just dropping the cards altogether, I pushed them back six weeks and am sending out Groundhog Day cards. Since I had now ample time and I'm a woodcut print-maker, I even made my own cards, one of which you see pictured here, and had my daughter help hand-color a bunch of them. (Inside the cards I'll include the obligatory cute pic of my kids.)

I love this idea, and plan to adopt it as a new family tradition. It's so secular humanist! Here's a fun, cute holiday explicitly connected to nature and the seasons. There are no religious or spiritual trappings. And who couldn't use a pick-me-up in mid-winter after the excess and vacation days of the holiday season are long gone?

Although Groundhog Day has its origins in mild superstition, few people literally believe that groundhogs possess supernatural powers to forecast the weather. There will be no billboards erected by the faithful, urging us to be more pious in our observations of this holiday. Just contradictions between the predictions of Punxatawney Phil and all the other furry prognosticators (Buckeye Chuck, Holtsville Hal, Malverne Mel, Wiarton Willie, etc.) Such disagreements only emphasizes the playful and democratic nature of the holiday. 

Modern Groundhog Day has its origins in my adopted state of Pennsylvania. However, its cultural evolution goes much farther back and across the Atlantic. German settlers originally celebrated February 2nd as Candlemas Day. Like Christmas, that's a Christian holiday, but which marks the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Also like Christmas, it's clearly a Christianization of earlier, Pagan celebrations, specifically having striking similarities in its date and associated customs to the Celtic holiday Imbolc. 

Groundhog Day shares a parallel history to "Christmas", with the one exception being that it has a distinctly secular name. The term "Christmas" is stuck in a sort of linguistic limbo where it has both a Christian and secular meaning, depending on who uses (and celebrates) it.

In addition to cards, our family celebrated Groundhog Day by attending two winter festivals. On Saturday we went to the Wagner Free Institute for Science's Winter Wonderland, and heard a storyteller talk and sing about how animals cope with the coldest season. Today we attended the Briar Bush Nature Center's Winterfest, where we met many live animals, made groundhog stick puppets, and shadow puppets of local fauna.

In final praise of Groundhog Day, while I loved Bill Murray in Scrooged (actually I love Bill Murray in anything), his performance in Groundhog Day brought this once exclusively North American holiday to the world's attention.

All and all, Groundhog Day is pretty darn cool.