New Soup

I have always liked to have at least one home made soup included on our four week revolving menu.  Over the years I have tried many different soup recipes but sadly none of them have ever received enthusiastic, positive reviews from the children.

I blame bread.  I like to have a heavy, home made savory bread with soup to dip in and soak up the broth…yum.  However, if I serve homemade bread then ALL the children eat only the bread and won’t even try the soup.

So, I tend to make all my homemade soups very thick – more like a thin stew than a soup.  With pasta or rice included in the soup we don’t need to have bread added as a side dish to get the grains.  Still, soup is definitely not a popular item with the children unless it comes from a can and is laden with salt.

Last month I introduced a new soup and this week we had it for the second time.  All but one of the children eat this new soup – in fact, most asked for a second helping too.  The one who doesn’t eat it has never even tried it, adamantly insisting they don’t like it without tasting even one bite of it.   Stubbornly sitting at the table eating only raw vegetables and salad because I didn’t make any bread. ;-)

Here is the recipe for Lasagna Soup;

• 4 Italian sausages,cut in half lengthwise and sliced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 680ml can of spaghetti sauce
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 L water
• 1 L vegetable stock
• 8 lasagna noodles, broken in small pieces
• 500 ml cottage cheese

Stir fry sausages and onions together in large pot.  Add pasta sauce, tomatoes, water and vegetable stock. Simmer.  Add noodles and cook until softened (about 30 minutes).  Remove from heat and add cottage cheese.  Serve topped with Parmesan or Mozzarella cheese if desired.

Here’s a picture but it was taken later in the day after  the leftover ‘soup’ had already been refrigerated and so the noodles have soaked up almost all the broth but it still tastes good.