These are chilly times in many ways. February is National Soup Month, but I don’t think anyone should wait to have soup just in February. I am for Soup All Year time; sometimes hot and sometimes cold. Let’s save the cold soup for the heat of the summer and think of warming our tummies now. (Husband Larry doesn’t think much of cold soup. He said it is something else).

Daughter Nissa sent me a very interesting article from her Chemical & Engineering News magazine. In an article for Newscript, Leigh Krietsch Boerner wrote about hot soup to fill the void in your cold soul. Sensory scientists found that people who slurped up hot tomato soup reported more positive emotions than when they had lukewarm or room temperature soup. Volunteers ate soup at 77, 104, 131 and 158 degrees fahrenheit and then chose words from a list as to how the soup tasted and how they were feeling emotionally. The two hottest temperature soups rated “happy”, “nostalgic”, and “affectionate”. Lukewarm soup was still somewhat positive. Room temperature soup ratings included “worried”, “disgusted”, and “bored”. They also ran studies with water at these temperatures and found the reaction was not as strong. They also did research on coffee and tea temperatures. It was found that people generally like their coffee hot. If it cools down and consumed later the whole taste of the coffee to the drinker seems to change to a more negative side. Statements like “it’s a different taste” and “it’s a totally different mouth feel” were recorded.

Okay, that may give you something else to think of next time you make or warm up your soup and beverages. We can be our own “sensory scientists” at home and see how we may compare to the test people. I think that overall most of us probably know what makes us happy with what we eat. I also think for a lot of food items, the “first hot time” seems better than the leftover warm up. Soups generally are an exception as the flavors take time to join together. Freezing also changes the taste for a lot of combinations, especially if heavily spiced or herbed.

My soup cooking binges include chili, chicken wild rice, French onion, and veggie beef. I make an Instant Pot full of each and then split into serving sizes and freeze them. The Instant Pot is a great way to do the meat for the chili and then add all the other ingredients and let it simmer for a short period of time. Because I am not going to use the Instant Pot as a pressure cooker (for the most part) I can fill it almost to the top, just leave enough room for a gentle simmer. French onion soup used to be an almost all day project to get the onions just right with a lot of cooking and stirring being repeated. In the Instant Pot, there is just a short period of time to sweat the onion slices and then add a bit of brown sugar, baking soda and red wine and pressure cook on manual for about 25 minutes. After this, the remaining liquid and flavorings are added and simmered. I really play around with flavoring the French onion soup to get just the right taste I like. The wild rice grains were started in the Instant Pot but it still needed a bit more cooking after the time was up but I just added the remaining soup ingredients and let it simmer for a longer period of time and it turned out perfect.

Daughter Nissa was telling me the soups she was making for her enjoyment this week and made my collection look a little pale. She is doing Kielbasa, bean, pasta and spinach recipe, along with a escarole and Italian sausage recipe. I may have to do a freezer clean and make use of some of those “been in there for a loooong time” items. Of course, that will lead to a whole different ball game which will introduce some different cleaning hormones. A lot of them (hormones) are on winter vacation!