This Season's Savior: Soup

Be honest. You're counting down to your last day of work in 2011. You cannot wait to have a few days off, be a true couch potato, and let the weight of 2011 fall off your shoulders. You're using all your creative power to think of interesting (but not tacky) gifts for family and friends, and frantically trying to decide which kinds of cookies you'll bake for the numerous cookie swaps you've been asked to attend. The motivation and energy to cook yourself dinner are severely waning. Well fear not my bitches, I have the solution! Soup. That's right, a nice big pot filled with whatever your heart desires. Perhaps it seems obvious as to why soup can help you this season...perhaps not. So for clarification purposes, I've taken the liberty of providing you with the reasons why soup will be your new savior this holiday season: 


1. Quantity: any recipe will yield at least 3 days worth of soup for you to enjoy (and usually more than that). Make a pot of soup and you won't have to worry about dinner for the majority of your work week!


2. Shelf Life: leave soup in the fridge and it's good for about 5 days. Put some in the freezer and it'll still be ready for consumption 6 months down the line.


3. Time commitment: the best tasting soups cook for a while on the stove top, but the actual prep work you have to do is minimal (chopping the ingredients, sautéing them in the pot, and adding water...20-30 minutes tops)


4. Cure-factor: it's flu season and many of you (myself included) are probably sick. So what's better than a nice hot cup of soup to warm your body and fight your cold? 


Now do you see why I'm praising soup? And the best part is that there are so many different ways to spice up a serving of soup, so that you don't feel as if you're having the exact same thing to eat every day. Try having any of the following with your piping hot bowl of joy: 
- grilled cheese (or any other sandwich of your liking)
- rice or pasta with some olive oil and herbs sprinkled on top 
- piece of chicken, ground turkey, sausage link, or scrambled eggs (and if you're going to take the time to cook yourself some meat, you might as well make a few pieces of whatever you're cooking, so that you can have soup & chicken -or whatever- for more than just one day)
- salad: make it simple (toss some greens together) or use whatever creative juices you have left to make something more complex
- fruit or bread: if you have a big bowl of soup, you don't need too much else to eat, so a piece of fruit or a slice of bread will help fill you up!
I've just listed more than five different side options to go with your soup...that's a different meal for every night of the work week! Isn't soup awesome? 


This afternoon I made a BIG batch of minestrone soup (my dad's recipe - my favorite soup) that I intend to eat  for dinner and/or lunch every day this week. Boring I know, but I'd rather come home from work every day this week knowing that dinner is already made (and as you can see from the above list of soup accompaniments, my meals will be slightly varied). The holiday season is filled with enough decadent feasts that I find it satisfying to have at least a few predictable meals throughout the weekday and take a break from the superfluous supply of festive holiday foods. 


What sort of soups do you like to make?