Cooking with Kids: Warm Up with Soup

Warm Up with Soup

It's hot, Hot....HOT!!!

Hey there, my tasty little morsels, it's time to COOK! If you're lookin' to cheer up your day, warm yer belly, or get rid of those sloppy sniffles, Pep has some new recipes for you. It's yum-yum-yummy, so read on and tell all your friends what you're making for dinner tonight!

Here's the scoop:
The most important thing to remember when cooking on a stove is that it is hot. (What's that?) HOT! (Put it in da' pot!) This is why mom and dad - and that means you too - always wear oven mitts or use potholders. I like the oven mitts best because they make my paws look HUGE!!!

Important stuff to remember:

Is The Handle In?

Use oven mitts or potholders when handling a hot pot. But they do not keep out 100% of the heat, so still be very careful, and always use dry oven mitts or potholders (wet ones won't protect you). Never, ever, ever touch the flame on a stove.

Turn Handle In

Don't let pot handles stick out where they can be bumped into......turn them in so nobody knocks your pot off the stove and possibly burn themselves.

Now read through the rest of the lesson, where I show you the right way to do things. Well, don't just stand there, let's make some soup!!!

Making Broth from Scratch

Pep says:
"Now, say as fast as you can: Saltless soups are safe to sip, saltless soups are safer to sip than sodium-sodden store-bought stocks."

"Bouillon cubes or bust!"
Not so, says the Peppered Leopard, who takes great pride in sharing recipes plus health and safety tips for young cooks. The "sodium" that Chef LePep mentions above is sodium chloride, or salt. Salt is a mineral that is essential to health Your body needs sodium to function, but not an over-abundance of sodium.

Food manufacturers are slowly but surely meeting the demands of nutrition-conscious adults (and yes, kids, too!) these days. So you can now find "low-sodium soups" at the grocery store Read the labels to see how much sodium a can of soup contains, but today let's make broth-from-scratch!

Homemade broth is good for you. It's easier on your mom or dad's pocketbook than commercial broth. It's quite simple to make, and it keeps well in the freezer. Yes, the very best way, the healthiest (tastiest and cheapest) way to make soup broth or stock is to START FROM SCRATCH—and avoid using too much salt.

Pep's Safety Tip:

Cooking on a stove can be lots of fun,
but it must be handled with care.
If you remember that pots
can get really HOT,
then you'll be halfway there!

To avoid getting burned,
we've already learned
that oven mitts save the day.
So turn pot handles in,
let's say it again,
"Oven mitts can save the day!"