I don’t write often about my offspring (their lives; their choice if it gets plastered over the web) but one, the younger one, (let’s call him Dreamer) has provoked some thinking.
I served up an interesting dinner the other night. (No photos. It just wouldn’t pass the visual test.)
Dreamer said, “This looks like all the dinners we had this week.”
“Well spotted. It is.”
Rice, vegetable and chick pea curry, a sort of boiled chicken and veg stew thing. Mmm, appetising.
The chicken thing came from the chicken soup I had made the day before. I scooped out the chicken and veggies, leaving the broth for my lunch.
While Mr S and I tucked into the dinner with gusto, Dreamer pushed his fork around his bowl.
Dreamer looked up and made a pronouncement.
“Brother and I came to a ruling last night at the pub. Soup is not dinner. And we we won’t be having it for dinner anymore.”
Laughter from Mr S and me. Given the rarity of cooking by Dreamer and Brother, their votes have little chance of being acted upon by this administration.
I really love homemade chicken soup. I thought it was complicated. Turns out it is easy. Mr S and I really enjoyed it this week. Served with thick slices of a dense sour dough. I love my pumpkin soup even more. Mr S loves his ham and split pea soup and his seafood chowder.
All great winter fare.
But is it dinner? A meal on its own? Or must soup come with a main course?
What do you think?
lucinda sans 
Ah the BF would emphatically say no. So I eat it when he’s not eating with me, and especially on sick days. I used to like to make a big batch as I figured it upped my vege intake.
In the past month the BF has “run” cooking & meals. Like near 100%. Not wanting to ruin this strong show of man helping me in house jobs, it may mean no soup for a while. Shame though, being winter and all. Just dreaming of pumpkin soup now!
If it came to not cooking and going without soup, or cooking and having soup, I’d go with no cooking and no soup. You could make pumpkin soup for lunch?
That’s what i was thinking, a batch for my lunches. Like this past week, I had some ‘sarah only’ lunches which was baked ricotta
Emphatically yes to soups and stews for dinner. However at our house, we do tend to add bread and cheese, and have more (healthy?) snacks later. Sounds like your young men will be making themselves bowls of cereal for dinner soon 🙂
Except my boys don’t eat cereal. One eats muesli for breakfast. That’s about it. But I won’t be fussing. They’re old enough to work things out for themselves.
Our soups are pretty hearty and thick. What’s your favourite soup?
I love all soup! The ones I make at home are green pea/quinoa, carrot or carrot/squash, curried diced root vegetables (carrot, parsnip and potato), and borscht (beet). I also make a lentil and crushed peanut soup but that is probably only for hardcore vegetarians! Do your kids like chili? Have not heard anyone argue it’s not a meal.
Mr S (and probably my boys) will only eat chili if I serve it as part of tacos or nachos. Not a meal for them otherwise.
You have a high-maintenance family! 😀
Luckily they at happy with a high state of disrepair and mess and lack of cleanliness.
As a child I would definitely have been on Dreamer’s side. Disliked soup and couldn’t see the point of it. My son won’t even have a spoonful of it. Daughter, however, is ecstatic about any variety of it and greets it with incredible enthusiasm. Cooking it actually feels worthwhile!
As for my broader family, I hate to say that we would probably be divided down the gender line. Most of the males would not consider they had eaten if they only had soup and toast. That would just be a mere snack.
And if faced with the dilemma of not having to cook but not having soup – easy. I’d forego soup while the cooking run lasted.
Yes, you and I have cooked enough in our lives, thank you very much. Others need to step up and we’ll forgo soup.
Mr S must be unusual among men in many ways. He likes soup and sees it as a meal. Another tick for him.
Yes, soup is emphatically a meal! Even Mr D embraces soup as a meal, though his fussiness comes out in the type of soup. He makes an incredible spicy tomato soup and if we’re trying to be ‘good’ weight-wise he will make up immense batches to freeze and we will splurge on it for weeks. He will also venture into a variety of veggie soups or home-made chicken and corn soup. However, he won’t entertain pumpkin soup which is tragic. He also brain-washes mini-D against this winter delight.
That’s decidedly unAustralian! One must love pumpkin soup. I’m sure it’s in the constitution. (Dreamer won’t eat pumpkins nor pumpkin soup. I know not where from he came.)
I will eat pumpkin soup my mother makes (fear may be a motivating factor) but I don’t generally like it. We had roast for dinner last night, and Reg got the Wrong Pumpkin. There was quite the discussion after dinner about what sort of pumpkin I buy for roasts and why Kent (the one he got) is not as good as Butternut (he’ll believe Chaos next time).
Butternut? No way. Too bland. Too pale. Go the Jap or Kent.
Soup is emphatically a meal. So is cheese on toast. So is scrambled eggs. Anything I damn well cook at night time is dinner, otherwise certain other people are completely free to make their own dinners..
As my boys got older that was increasingly my response. And sometimes I just feel like a couple of soft boil eggs – though I know what my boys’ response would be to that.
Soup alone is definitely dinner at my house! Or breakfast or lunch! I especially love it as leftovers because it’s so filling and quick to reheat 🙂 Our favorite homemade soups are gnocchi soup, veggies and wild rice, and chickpea with dumplings. Mmm!
Never had gnocchi soup! How does the gnocchi stay together. I do love soup at lunch. Don’t know I could stomach it for breakfast though.
Soup (or whatever else I serve up) is dinner here. There is only GMan and I and we love soup. Pumpkin is a long-term favourite but others are minestrone, french onion, cauliflower and bacon, celery, leek and potato all feature on the menu here.
Yes, I’ve made celery soup and loved it. Strange how it changes its flavour. And minestrone. Mmm. Could have some now.
Soup is a drink and is not food. I find this unfortunate, as I quite like the idea of soup. The reality however… Nope. Don’t like it. If someone else makes it and puts it in front of me, I’ll eat it with reasonable grace, because any meal I haven’t cooked is a bonus. The kids aren’t keen on soup, either – this is more to do with me never having it than anything else I suspect. They’ve not had it since day care. Reg, on the other hand, is quite keen on soup and sighs a lot on weekends because we never have any. (I do get him those soup for one jobbies to take to work, but that’s as soup-y as it’s likely to get in his life)
I know it is liquidy but it isn’t a drink. See, I wouldn’t each for soup if I was thirsty.
It is. Absolutely!!!! Dinner.
Sorry to hear Dreamer & Brother will be going hungry.
Need a second course. Ice cream or ice cream and fruit. They will be so excited.
For me a main meal of soup needs to be thick enough for the spoon to stand up in otherwise it is not a main meal. Yep boys, I agree with you. I will be a geriatric soon enough and will wait for that day to start with soup you can drink through a slurped straw.
Funny girl! I like a nice clear broth. But couldn’t stand it through a straw.