Now that I've learned to make a few soup from the recipes shared by my hubby, I love it! I love that I'm finally cooking something for the family (instead of just for my kiddos) and I love seeing my children slurping the soup.
One obvious reason I'm very determined to make soup is my 17 months old girl loves to eat rice. And when I said rice, I meant, plain rice. No matter how you add in chunks or pieces of meat or tofu or eggs or veggies, she will just pushed those aside and eat... RICE. When I first highlighted this to hubby, he said 'All the more you need to make soup so you can pour the soup over her rice and she still gets the goodness of the soup!'
I don't believe it at first. I've always believe that soup is just water boiled for hours with meats and veggies inside. Just water. Then hubby told me that when you boil meat bones (such as pork or chicken) with vegetables, the marrows from the bones will retain in the soup and we get the nutrients from the soup after that. You can read more on the benefits on bone broth/soup here.
I was convinced then and so far, I've made soup 4 times and everytime, my kids finished their meals. And the following morning, I use the leftover soup as the base when I cooked noodles as breakfast for my kiddos. Which they happily eat finish and even slurped all the soup away. Beats making anchovy soup to be honest! And my almost 4 years old boy telling me 'Mmmm... mummy the soup is nice! I love it!' is just wonderful!
** Picture of my kiddos' dinner - rice with lotus root soup (added with veggie, tofu and fish)
I was so determined to make soups more often for the family (at least 3 times a week is my target) that one day, I woke up early and told hubby to watch after the kiddos (still asleep) while I hurried off to the nearest wet market and bought about 2 weeks supply of pork bones to make soup. I was so desperate to get the pork bones that I even parallel parked my car successfully (after 2 rounds around the market area and couldn't find a nice parking spot and yes, I really failed at parallel parking) because time is running out (scared kiddos awake, scared no more pork bones left).
Anyway, I got what I wanted and am very happy that I'm finally learning to cook for the family (soups for now), slow start but better than nothing right?