I Made Soup!

I am a stay at home dad. I enjoy this job, and I take it serious enough to do it right. That should be a good set up for you.

I have been doing this job for close to six years now, and the one aspect of this job I enjoy the most is cooking. It’s the most creative element of being a stay at home dad, and there is also a deep feeling of satisfaction when you make something to eat that everyone enjoys.

Yet, I am not an efficient cook. The one fault I have is throwing away excess veg and proteins. It’s a huge waste; not only of money, and it feels like it’s also bad for the environment. (I’m also not the best at composting – even though the City is trying to encourage my neighborhood to do more of it.) Every other week, I seem to go through the fridge and have to toss out wilted and spoiled food.

That’s why today was such a huge victory for me!

I had a crisper drawer that contained bok choy, Napa cabbage, mushrooms, carrots. Added to that were the extra onions, garlic, and shallots that I had. There had to be something I could do with these extras?

I then it came to me; I could make a Japanese vegetable soup! About a year ago, I had copied down the recipe in a notebook, and through I didn’t have all the ingredients, I had enough that could substitute, plus I have kombu and instant dashi on hand, as I made a lots of miso soup.

Did the soup taste good? Yes. Did the soup need some work? Also, yes.

But the point here people, is that I found a way to use all that excess veg, and make something out of it that was pretty good, and healthy.