Our Neighborhood Soup Troop

I've told you all before what a great street I live on in Toronto and what makes it 

so terrific are the friendly people who are my neighbors.   They have made me 

feel so welcome and what a treat it has been.

We have a Soup Troop on our street that was organized a couple of months ago 

and has been a great success.  There are five of us in the troop and each week, 

one of us makes a quart jar of homemade soup that is delivered to the 

other four people.  What that means is that on Monday night, each of us 

receives a soup gift for us to enjoy that week.  Once a month, I have to come up 

with an interesting new soup to give back to my group.

What fun it is to see what kind of soup will be delivered to your door each week.  

This was one of Sharon's great soups ... Italian Wedding Soup with it's yummy 

tiny meatballs, spinach and pasta.  It was so good.  I have also had artichoke & 

pistachio soup, French onion soup, fish chowder, pumpkin and sweet potato 

soup and African peanut soup.  

My first soup that I delivered was Lentil Sausage Soup.  

It's definitely a meal in a bowl.

I love reading cook books for new and interesting menu ideas.  One of my 

favorite chefs is Ina Garten and I have each and everyone of her good books.  

The food always tastes great and her recipes are so easy to cook from.  My favorite of all her books is the Barefoot in Paris Cookbook.  Ina use to have an apartment in the  6eme arrondissement  close to where I stay in Paris and I would go to the markets 

hoping I might see her there shopping.  Never happened but it was fun looking.

This is the page from Barefoot in Paris Cookbook with the Lentil Sausage Soup.

I always write something in the margin of each recipe to remind me of my 

impression of the dish and if I made any changes to the recipe.  I substituted  

hot sausage for the keilbasa sausage to give it a bit of a kick 

and I liked it better.  It's a very hearty soup but sometimes I

get a little tired of lentils.  I sometimes throw in some pesto half way through

a pot of soup just to change the taste a bit.

This is a bowl of my Mom's beef vegetable soup that I just love.  The

tomato and beef broth is so good with all the very fresh veggies.

So, you might want to try a Soup Troop in your own neighborhood or among

your friends.  It's a great way to get to know the people on your street

 and for one day each week, someone else cooks a meal for you.  

Now, that's souper!!!