Soup season has come to an end. Soup is our favorite winter lunch, so all summer long I stick leftovers into a recycled peanut butter jar as "soup fixins." I defrost a jar every couple of days, add the previous days leftover soup and a pint jar of bone broth. Sometimes I'll toss in new leftovers. In the bowl pictured above, I tossed in a handful of freshly chopped kale from the garden. And there's lunch. But eventually, the weather starts to warm up and we have our last bowl of soup for the season.
This year was the first time I think I managed an ongoing soup from the first bowl to the last. There's usually some left in the pot and this gets put back in the fridge until the next day, when it's added to for a "new" soup.
Sometimes Dan asks what's in it, but I honestly can't be sure. The big bites are identifiable, but when I collect those summer leftovers, I scrape every last bit of tasty goodness into the soup jar. If the pot or pan is sticky with gravy or sauce, I glaze the pan and pour the liquid into the jar so that there are no air gaps. When I finish up a jar or bottle of sauce, ketchup, or tomato juice, I'll swish it with a little bit of water and add that to the jar too. I've even been known to add dumplings, stale tortilla chips, cheese, even leftover meat pie, crust and all. Everything but dessert goes into those jars. Nothing gets wasted! When it gets chilly out again in fall, I'll have at least a couple dozen jars of frozen soup fixins' for our winter lunches.
With the milder weather the chickens and ducks have started laying again, so our warm weather lunches revolve around eggs and salads. It's another way food helps mark our seasons.
What about you? Do you have seasonal food favorites?
