Riddle Soup

Last week, BJ came home from preschool with a very specific request: he wanted to make "Riddle Soup." He even presented me with a drawing and a recipe which he'd created that day at school (art time is definitely his favorite time at school these days).
Translated by BJ as 1 cup of butter, 1 carrot (cut into coins), 1 sweet onion (cut into rings), and 1 piece of celery (cut into crescents). He said he wanted me to "sizzle" the onion in the butter. And while he didn't write it down, he was clear that you were supposed to tell riddles while you made it. Wouldn't be Riddle Soup otherwise.

Here's the picture that went along with it:

Counterclockwise from top: carrot (duh), butter (yellow blob in the lower left) onion (with stem), and celery.

At first, I didn't really take his request all that seriously, though I was appropriately impressed that he'd been so creative to come up with the idea and so detailed in its execution. But every day after bringing it home, he'd ask, "Mommy, can we make Riddle Soup today?"

So after days of this, I sat him down and explained that while I'd be happy to make soup with him, his recipe wouldn't exactly make soup. More like vegetables in a massive amount of butter sauce. After some discussion of what it takes to make soup, we sat down together and re-wrote the recipe:

BJ's Riddle Soup

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon of butter
1 carrot cut into coins
1 sweet onion cut into rings
1 celery stalk cut into crescents
1 cup of peas (we used frozen)
1 potato cut into cubes

He also decided he wanted to include a parsnip cut into coins. But we didn't have any parsnips on hand. He's never even tried parsnips before. So we decided to include that as an "optional" ingredient while writing down the recipe and add it next time we made the soup.

Final ingredient: RIDDLES! Tell them while you make the soup.

Directions: Cook onion and celery in melted butter until "sizzling." (I sauteed until transluscent.) Add broth until soupy. (I used a container of organic chicken broth from Trader Joe's.) Add other vegetables and cook until done.
We had a lot of fun making it and coming up with silly riddles, all of which had to do with the ingredients. "What's orange and is something rabbits like to eat?" CARROTS! "What's stringy and green?" CELERY! "What makes circles and makes you cry?" ONIONS!

It turned out pretty yummy, actually. A very basic vegetable soup (though not vegetarian, obviously). It induced BJ to try potatoes for the first time, which he initially declared to be yummy only to reject them for the next serving. (Always a process.) The only real "ick" factor for me was the fact that, as with almost every other kind of food, he preferred it cold. No matter how many times I remind myself of gazpacho, I still shudder a little bit at the idea of cold cooked vegetable soup. But he's eating it straight from the fridge for lunch as I write this and loving it! (After all, this is the same kid that likes cold oatmeal. He asks me to put an ice cube in it after I make it for him. Sometimes two ice cubes.)

He also just informed me (as he noticed I was writing this up) that he got the idea for Riddle Soup from a book. And sure enough, it's right there on the list of books I checked out for preschool (Library Mom is my job for the parent participation requirement): Riddle Soup, a Mr. Poggle and Scamp book by Valiska Gregory. The teacher had asked for books about soup as part of their autumnal themes. I absolutely love it that my kid is so inspired by what he reads!