Occupational Hazard

When I was growing up, my mom would occasionally make junk soup.  Sounds delicious, right?  I’m pretty sure my mother kept a jar in the freezer and would randomly throw in vegetables, a few leftover green beans, some celery, a handful of corn, and when the jar was full it became junk soup.  Allegedly lots of people do this, my mom’s friend Ellen called it Soup of the Day and her friend Linda called it something else, something I’ve obviously forgotten because I was never very interested in soup that had been gradually taking shape in the freezer, growing from the things my siblings and I were so crazy about the first time around that we didn’t even finish them.

Then all of a sudden last week it was 4:30 and I had no plans for dinner.  (The phrase “no plans for dinner” could really go two ways – it’s either wearing a dress and heels and coyly talking to a gentlemen caller or it’s standing in the kitchen with a ponytail and two small boys pulling all the pots out of the cabinets.  In this story, it’s the latter.)   All of a sudden I find myself chopping up sweet potatoes and opening cans of black beans and tomatoes and finding half a package of frozen corn in the freezer and a carton of chicken stock in the pantry and here we are.   Important difference:  I’m calling mine sweet and sour peasant soup, not junk soup.

For most things I really don’t mind turning into my mother; she’s creative, hardworking, efficient, honest, giving, etc.  But I really didn’t want to start making junk soup.  I’m not even a big soup fan.  Unfortunately junk/sweet and sour peasant soup fits so well with my inclination towards vegetarian cooking, my goal to not waste food, and my poor dinner planning that it was only a matter of time. 

I’m making peace with the soup.  I’m just hoping I can keep myself from cooking turnips.  There are few things more disappointing in life than walking into the kitchen for dinner and seeing a big bowl of what appears to be mashed potatoes and then realizing, oh wait, it’s turnips.