My 16-year-old daughter is a teenager. Her daily experience is a topsy-turvy whirlwind of teenaged girl emotions, PSAT deadlines, soccer practice and reading 17 pages of Beowulf for English.
 
When she comes home she likes to believe all is right with the world.
 
Which is one of the reasons I make soup.
                                                                  
“Mom! Are you doing what I think you’re doing?”

“Yep, I’m making vegetable soup.”

Seeing her mother standing at the chopping board with garlic, celery and potatoes is, for her, like being cuddled in a rocking chair with a family of Care Bears while her mother sings “Hush, Little Baby.”

A simmering soup on the stove means the world has slowed to a crawl, my daughter once told me. Soup is comfort food. Soup is healthy food. Soup can take time to prepare, which means the person preparing it cares for the people she will later serve with big steaming crockery bowls.

This time of year, of course, is the best time to bring out the soup recipes, which I almost always tweak:

– A former vegetarian, I never use meat broth for my soups, but use a powdered veggie broth I find in bulk at the local health food store.

–I often use peanut butter to add a little umph, but only a tablespoon or two, otherwise at least one of the members of my family will say, “Ew. Does this have peanut butter in it?”

–I rarely use cream if the recipe calls for it, but will use 2 percent milk.

–I almost always have miso on hand, which is a thick paste made of fermented grains or soy, which adds not only flavor but nutritional value, but should only be added at the end as the nutritional properties will otherwise boil away.

–If a veggie or bean soup comes up lacking, I will throw in a pinch or two of crushed red pepper.

Among my soup recipes are several personal favorites that are also my daughter’s favorites, to include a pumpkin nutmeg cream soup I learned to make in France a few years ago, when our family was privileged to live in Europe for a semester with a university program my husband directed.

I also like a broccoli curry soup and a butternut squash pureed soup that manages to taste rich and creamy even though the recipe is nothing but veggies.

I have enjoyed over the years trying to duplicate the “sour soup” recipe my Lebanese great grandmother used to make, a recipe that is little more than lentils and veggie broth, lots and lots and lots of garlic and fresh lemon and cracked wheat balls mixed with flour and dropped in like dumplings.

My daughter likes my chicken noodle soup, which is the ultimate comfort food, which is nothing more than chicken, celery, potatoes, onion, carrots, veggie broth and whatever noodles or leftover brown rice I have on hand.

But it’s when I pull out the gumbo recipe that everybody gathers around. This is a recipe that comes out different every time, that I began perfecting when my family moved to New Orleans 30 years ago. Sometimes my daughter helps me with this one, especially when I need help stirring the roux. This is one time when I go crazy with the meat - vegetarianism and healthy concerns for once be damned. The secret is the roux - that and a cast-iron skillet of buttermilk corn bread to go with.

My kids know that I, like my fellow blogger, Lisa, can get bored with the usual family fare of meat loaf, pizza and mac and cheese (with all due respect to the recipe posted a couple of weeks ago on busymom.net. This time of year, when I make soup, I call into mind a slower time, a more quaint and interesting time for food and family time, when people took time in the kitchen, when the windows fogged up with the steam of a soup slow-cooking on the hearth. I make my daughter happy when I make soup. I make myself happy, too.

Debra-Lynn’s Gumbo Recipe

One cup flour

One cup vegetable oil

One pound frozen okra or fresh if you can find it (optional)

One pound shrimp

One pound Andouille sausage

One chicken

Half a pound of whole ham

Half a pound of smoked ham hocks

Pound of bacon

Six stalks celery

Two onions

One green pepper

Four cloves garlic

One bunch parsley

Spices (Tony Chacere Cajun spice, cayenne, crushed red pepper, etc., also salt and pepper)

Boil your chicken til it falls off the bone. Chop up the chicken. Skim off the fat from the broth and save the broth. If you are lucky enough to have fresh shrimp in your locale, remove the shells from your pound of shrimp, put the shrimp meat in the fridge for later and boil down the shells to a broth. Set aside.

Chop celery, onion, parsley, green pepper, garlic. Cook with half pound of bacon. Set aside.

Chop okra. Saute in half pound of bacon. Set aside.

Make the roux, by stirring in one cup flour into one cup oil in a cast-iron skillet. Stir on medium heat for about 30 minutes, until the roux turns the shade of brown you want. This is the most intricate part of this dish and can be perfected to meet your own style. Click here for a treatise on roux.

When you think you’ve got your roux the way you want it, add the cooked veggies, everything but the okra. The liquid will halt the browning process. Stir well and cook a little longer, maybe 5-10 minutes.

Warm the chicken broth (and the shrimp broth with it, if you have any) and add the veggies and roux, along with half a pound of your sausage and your ham hocks. Cook for an hour or two, if you want. All those meat juices will be working together with the roux to make a rich and robust flavor. Add water as needed to make the consistency you want.

After an hour of cooking, throw in the rest of your sausage, your ham and your chicken. Throw in your spices of choice, understanding that the meat is going to continue to be the greatest flavor enhancer of your gumbo. Let cook for another half hour. Add water as needed.

Add your okra and your shrimp during the last 10 minutes or so.

Serve with sliced green onion and file gumbo sprinkled on top, which is powdered sassafras leaves and should be available in the bulk spice section of your grocery store. You can also put the gumbo over rice in your bowl if you want.

Now: Laissez les bons temps roulez!

- Debra-Lynn