The brisk autumn air often sparks the urge to come indoors
and rekindle the spirit of hearth and home.
-Victoria Magazine-
Traditions are a topic I've written about numerous times before, and yet I'm here to talk about them again. Cultivating new traditions is a fun aspect of homemaking and building a family culture. They give us regular rhythms and rituals to look forward to and they keep us on track in a special way that other things just don't. They mark time and special occasions and they bring celebration to the ordinary, everyday.
As autumn was beginning this year, I came up with a simple idea. We needed to make Sundays a soup and bread for dinner kind of day. I ran the idea past my mom and it didn't take me having to say anything besides what I just wrote to win her over. It was done and dusted. Sundays would now be Soupy Sundays...with bread, of course. This seemed like such a cozy, homey idea to me and I wanted to make the autumn and winter months as fun and cozy as possible. It was settled.
We've enjoyed several Soupy Sundays at this point and they only keep on getting better. It brings me such delight to choose the perfect soup recipe each week and pick out just the right bread to be paired alongside it. I am also finding that my creativity is sparked tremendously...and a huge plus is that I am trying so many new recipes.
So far I've made white bean, kale and sausage soup with homemade focaccia bread, vegetarian minestrone with potatoes, chili with cornbread, and ham and bean soup with French bread. I've got cream of chicken soup and wild rice soup on the menu as well as my rainy day stew and our favorite crusty bread and homemade rolls. Oh, it's just wonderful!
We make it special by lighting candles on the table and sitting and chatting and lingering long after we empty our bowls. Sunday afternoons are now spent chopping, sauteing, and dicing. The Dutch oven gets full of goodness and simmers away long into the evening and then we feast. Lots of deliciousness to be shared and memories to be made.
There are of course leftovers, so naturally, we enjoy these either for lunch during the week or on our newly inaugurated "Leftover Night" once a week, usually on Wednesday or Thursday. The bread, if there is any leftover, gets made into homemade croutons which have become a newfound favorite around here. They're super simple and easy to make and they taste so much better than the store-bought ones...no comparison in our book.
We have designated soup mugs that we got in the Smoky Mountains several years ago. They're each a solid, bright color and have handles to make them easier to hold. However, sometimes I love pulling out our pretty coffee mugs...the larger ones...to use as soup bowls. It just makes it a bit more fun and festive, don't you think?
There's nothing fancy at all about our Soupy Sundays, but they have become a hallmark of our week. It's a great way to end the weekend and a peace-filled way to mark the start of a brand new week. I can only imagine that they'll become more cherished and cozy as the air gets colder and we may even gather round the little table near the fireplace to have our Sunday night feasts. That sounds about as good as it gets to me!
What are some of your favorite soup or stew recipes? Do share below...I'd love to hear all about them. And do feel free to share some of your ordinary traditions...let's chat!