Soup January

A few years ago, with an intention of eating more vegetables (because let's be honest, we could all stand to eat more vegetables), I implemented "Soup January" -- a month to eat cozy, heart-warming soup packed full of veggies. I'm sure that at the time I thought I made it up. I'm also (now) certain that it existed as a thing before I started doing it. Today, if you go on social media like X (the platform formerly known as Twitter), you'll can search the hashtag and find posts from far and wide. I like to think that great minds think alike.

I'm not sure how other people roll with their version of Soup January, but in my version the goal is to make a pot of "soup" once a week throughout the month of January. I use scare quotes because I'm pretty generous in my definition -- soup, stew, stoup, chili, and curry are all fair game. Sometimes I make old favourites and sometimes I try something new. More recently, it's become somewhat of a competition, with the soups ranked at the end of the month. 

Over the years, there have been some real winners -- Julia Child's boeuf bourguignon, Newfoundland wedding soup (as printed in Downhome magazine), creamy tortellini soup, and Julia Child's French onion soup stand out in my memory. But in all honesty, I can't recall a soup that wasn't good. 

Actually, that's not true. I did have one kale soup that was a disaster from start to finish. Until this very moment I had erased it from my memory. I think the lesson here is that you can take the intention of eating more veggies too far. But I digress...

This year, after eating leftover crockpot pork chili from my freezer for a few days, we kicked off Soup January with a pot of chili lime ginger turkey soup. The broth was very flavourful and I was pleasantly surprised when the soup wasn't too hot/spicy for my liking. We decided the recipe does need a few tweaks in the future (seasoning the turkey before cooking it, adding more edamame, cutting the bok choy into smaller pieces, etc), but we're definitely going to make it again. 

A fun new addition to this year's instalment are the two sets of silicone freezing trays that I received as Christmas presents. The brand name version is called Souper Cubes, but there are dupes available online. These sturdy reinforced trays have tight fitting lids and are designed for freezing individual portions of soup (or any other liquid you might like). They come in a variety of sizes and feature fill lines so that you can portion appropriately. You can store the soup in the trays or, once it's frozen, you can pop out the portions and put them in a freezer bag. I'm thrilled to have them because I very often freeze leftovers and the round Ziploc containers I have seem to waste a great deal of space in my freezer. I'm hopeful that these portions will stack and store in a more orderly fashion and take up less space! 

Now, I hadn't anticipated having so much of this soup left based on the ingredients and what I thought was the serving size. And since I already have a plan to make mulligatawny soup for suppers this week, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to test my present. As for whether this soup will freeze well, it remains to be seen, but there aren't any ingredients that were immediate cause for concern. And, hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained! I'm looking forward to enjoying it again as lunch or supper throughout the week and month. 

Next weekend, Lidia Bastianich's minestrone con pesto soup is on the docket. Since it makes 3 quarts of soup (!), I'll probably have to cut the recipe (or fill a few more Souper Cube trays!), but I'm looking forward to it. 

Until then, I'll be busy putting away Christmas and finding space in my cupboards for my Souper Cube trays.