Since the Christmas-time feasting, we have been restoring eating sanity in our house with some good old-fashioned SOUP.  Much more nutritious than breakfast cereal, toast, or even coconut flour pancakes–we’ve been eating it for breakfast and leftovers for supper or lunch!  Crazy, eh!?  After a few days of it at breakfast time, my kids stopped fussing and just ate it.  I mean, really, why can’t vegetables or casseroles be eaten for breakfast?  Waffles for supper?  Why not?!  Why do socks have to match?   Does your bed really have to be made?  Why do females wear such high heels?  Why do you have to color your gray hair?  Huh?  Why do ya’?  Ya’ don’t.  My take is this: soup for breakfast teaches my kids to think outside the box.  To expand horizons.  To challenge status quos.  Break paradigms.  Yep.  That’s what I think–I mean–over think about serving soup for breakfast.

Soup 1:  Pease Porridge in the Pot  (aka, Pea Soup)

Ingredients:

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 large cloves of garlic, minced
•  2-3 tablespoonsful of olive oil
• 1/4-1/2 inch nub of peeled, fresh ginger, chopped (I erred on lesser side as one daughter doesn’t like ginger much)
•  1 to 1 and 1/2 teaspoonsful ground cumin
• 1/2-1 teaspoonful of ground coriander
•  1-2 teaspoonsful of salt
•  1/2-1 teaspoonful of ground black pepper
• 1 cup of tomato sauce or juice (mine was homemade “juicy sauce”-ha!)
• 1 and 1/2 to 2 quarts of broth (I used homemade chicken broth)
• 5 cups of frozen peas
• Optional:  coconut milk

1.  Saute onion and garlic together in olive oil until soft and lightly browned.
2.  Add salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, and ginger to onion/garlic mixture and saute a bit longer (maybe 3-5 minutes or so).
3.  Here, I transferred the mixture to a soup pot (because I sauteed in a frying pan, but you probably planned ahead and used a Dutch oven or soup pot).  Add 2 cups of broth, the 1 cup of tomato sauce, and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to simmer and allow to simmer 10-15 minutes for flavors to meld.
4.  Add rest of broth and frozen peas.  Allow to simmer another 10-15 minutes for peas to cook and soften.
5.  Use immersion blender to blend soup smooth.
6.  You could mix in a bit of coconut milk if you please.  I thought the taste was great just the way it was!

Family “gustar” report:

• 3 people:  “I like it.  Give me seconds.”
• 2 people:  “I like it.”  And they ate their first bowls without a complaint.
  I thought the soup was great.  I like mine a bit more peppery so I added crushed pepper.  The soup was smooth and creamy yet the peels of the peas gave it a great contrasting texture.

Things I had to look up to write this post:
1.  What needs capitalized in “Dutch oven”? http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/dictnotes/caps.htm but  http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/when-do-you-capitalize-geographic-terms.html and http://www.readablewriter.com/Capitalization.pdf
2.  What’s the capitalization rule following a colon? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colon_(punctuation)
3.  Regarding “teaspoonsful” and “tablespoonsful”–in pharmacy school this was exactly how it had to be typed (and yes, we still had to use a typewriter) or the teacher counted points off.  She strongly felt that “teaspoonfuls” and “tablespoonfuls” was WRONG.  I looked that up, too.  It can be either.  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/teaspoonful

So, again I ask, why do ya’?

Soups to come, not necessarily in this particular order:  white bean chili, one-pot chili,  butternut squash chicken soup, broccoli soup, squash soup.