The weather has turned bad on us. Hey, it’s October, right,  so it has every right to do so(pun intended)!

In our household October equals excitement on various levels.

For one thing, daddy bear starts to feel a bit better concerning the weather and starts to enjoy things more. He suffers from what I call seasonal and locational melancholy from May until the end of September: he misses his home country, the sunshine and the warmth and only recovers from mourning for it once the weather turns cooler there as well…

Emma starts getting excited come September about a couple of things: the imminent(for her!) birthday celebrations in November and Halloween. Of course, the older she gets, the more she understands and wants to participate in Halloween as a dress-up, have-fun celebration and she gets truly excited at the thought of witch lollipops( yes, Mothercare do them!), chocolate pumpkin treats(Home Bargains, 67p per bag of 20) and not-so-scary lanterns in the house.

As for me, it’s comfort food cooking season! This year, the pumpkin craze started really early on Pinterest and inspired me to order my pumpkin puree which will lead to tasty pies and soups in the weeks to come. But for me, as a Romanian girl, autumn equaled heart warming, home made soups and  I have kept the tradition in our family.

To tell you the truth, I felt compelled to introduce more Romanian foods into our diets a couple of years back, when Emma was about two. She had become a typical fussy eater who would have given me a headache every evening by turning her nose to almost everything I cooked. Things wouldn’t have turned this way, maybe, if as a result, she hadn’t developed severe constipation and had to be seen by several doctors in the attempt to make her feel better. Of course, the doctors couldn’t do much for us as the root of the problem rested with her disastrous eating and had no pathological causes.

In the beginning she turned her nose to my Romanian soup because it had veggies in it(and she was firmly convinced she didn’t like veggies!) but we managed to convince her to give it a try by using the usual tricks of the fussy eating trade. We put up a common front and made a point of eating it as a main course with plenty of “mmmm”, “this is yummy”, “tasty soup” addressed at each other, not her. Naturally, she became curious and had a taste when she realised it was chicken soup(as she liked chicken at the time).

Introducing veggies was a bit trickier but we did it progressively. In the beginning, she only had potato from the soup, that was ok but we talked about the other veggies she rejected: “Uuuu, look, Emma, this is carrot.” “Yes, that is celery. Celery helps you go to the toilet.” “Mmmm, yummy, sweet red pepper.”

Soon she had added the carrots and the peppers and so this autumn I got more adventurous. I have continued to add new things, like freshly chopped tomato, parsley and green beans. She has had no objections so far and actually seems to have this biological clock that is set for Monday noon, when she has to have soup for lunch!

So here is my recipe in handy pictures. I add this sour powder at the end, called borsh, but not to worry. The soup would be as yummy without it!

Basic ingredients. You can add other ingredients you like as leek, for example.

Get your chicken to boil first in water and stock. I use organic and it takes about an hour to get tender.

Prep your veggies while your chicken is boiling.

Allow veggies to boil for another half and hour. Yummy(and healthy) soup ready!