Hearty Harvest Vegetable Soup

Celebrate the fruits of the harvest with a bowl of our Hearty Harvest Vegetable Soup. A perfect after school pick me up dish to get you and your kids through till dinner time. Why not get your kids involved in the preparation as well. I had my 7 year old son on hand to help me with the chopping, stirring and tasting (magically vegetables are much tastier when they have helped to prepare them yourselves!)

Did you school hold a harvest festival during the autumn school term? I have vivid memories of my school hall stage bursting with fresh and tinned produce around this time. I grew up a in a rural community, so there was always plenty of fresh vegetables on show (my own family grew cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers and broccoli) and those who didn’t brought in tinned foods. There would then be a big sale at the end of our Harvest Festival assembly for all of the parents and carers to buy the good on display and then the money raised would go to help a charitable cause.

We are celebrating all things Harvest with the 2nd Grade Blogging Team this week, so we wasted no time in making our Hearty Harvest Vegetable Soup to share with you all.

The Benefits of Cooking with Kids

My sons turns 8 in a couple of weeks (he could tell you days, hours and minutes as he is so excited!) and he is showing a real interest in food and cooking, so to nurture this interest, we are trying to get him involved a bit more in the preparation of some of our meals. He is at an age now where he is able to use a knife safely (under strict supervision) so he can now start to get involved in more than just baking with me.

Getting kids involved in cooking is a great way to:

• Teach them a vital life skill for later life- we all need to  eat!
• Teach them about eating a healthy balanced diet. My son needs to know why he can’t eat hot dogs and burgers every day.
• Introduce your child’s palette to new flavours and textures. Never give up on this. Keep trying and eventually your child will become more adventurous.
• Build their self confidence, as they watch others enjoy tasting the food they prepared.
• Have fun together. It can get very busy around here, so even just a few minutes chopping vegetables together is a great way to catch up on what has been going on at school etc.

Basic Kitchen Safety for Kids

It is also a good time to introduce basic kitchen safety to your child:

• ALWAYS keep your fingers behind the knife when you are chopping up vegetables and keep a firm grip.
• ALWAYS look down at what you doing when you are using a knife. DON’T GET DISTRACTED.
• ALWAYS have an adult with you when you are using a knife or near a hot stove.
• DO NOT touch any pans that are over the heat.
• ALWAYS wash vegetables after you have cut them up so remove any dirt of bacteria.
• ALWAYS wash your hands before and after preparing food.

As well as telling your child the do’s and don’ts of the kitchen by the age of 7-8 they need to know why as well, as this will help it to stick and they will remember it better each time they come to help you out in the kitchen.

10 Thanksgiving Sensory Activities

Hearty Harvest Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

2 carrots diced
1 large potato diced
2 leeks sliced
3 garlic cloves crushed
Salt and pepper
1 tbs Rapeseed oil
1 litre of chicken or vegetable stock

How to make Hearty Harvest Vegetable Soup

Prepare all of the vegetables with your child beforehand bearing in mind the kitchen safety advice above.

Gently heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the leeks and a dash of salt and saute the leeks for 5 mins.

Once the leeks are starting to soften, add in the carrots, potato, garlic, salt and pepper and cook for a further 5 mins.

Pour over the stock and bring to the boil and then simmer for approx 15 mins until the vegetables are cooked through.

I added in a small tin of sweetcorn about 5 mins before the end of cooking to give the soup a finishing crunch.

Serve hot with a some crusty bread.

Recipes and Learning

After enjoying a bowl of soup have a look at the recipe together for some added learning fun. My son has been starting to explore fractions, doubles and halves at school and looking at a recipe together is the ideal way to put these concepts into practice. You could ask you child to write up the recipe in their Recipe Journal, but with double or half the quantities.

Getting them to write down how they made the soup in their own words as well is a great way to check their understanding of the recipe. The next time they come to make it, they can then make it using “their own recipe book” rather than your own. This sense of ownership of the recipe will boost their self esteem no end and encourage them to try more new foods and recipes as they race to fill up their own journal.

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Now it’s time to see what the rest of the 2nd Grade Blogging Team have been up to this week:

Sugar Aunts have been doing Harvest Themed Mental Math adding 10’s and 100’s.

Rainy Day Mum has been Harvesting Seeds for some Hands on Plant Science.

We are very proud to introduce our second book this year, Green, Crafty & Creative: Natural and Recycled Activities for Kids. Click here to download a copy of the e-book version NOW!