Refrigerator Soup
Turning failure to success (and the easiest recipe you'll ever make)
The first time I made Refrigerator Soup, it was an accident. Not long after I had my first child, I convinced my husband to go along with a 30-day Real Food Experiment. I had just read 7 by Jen Hatmaker, in which she picks only seven foods for her family to eat for one month. Desperate for a purpose outside of the daily grind of motherhood, I was inspired by her experiment and wanted a kitchen challenge of my own. Looking back now, I have no idea what I was thinking. Surely there were better ways to find my purpose than giving up all the easy food choices.
I was not crazy enough to pick only seven foods—I was a breastfeeding mother after all—so I used Michael Pollen’s Food Rules. They seemed easy enough: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” “Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.” If we couldn’t picture ingredients “in their raw state or growing in nature,” then it wasn’t allowed in our mouths. We tried to turn it into a game: just how many plants can we eat?
There were two crockpots plugged in, taking up nearly all of the counter space in our tiny eat-in kitchen. Chicken had been cooking in one crockpot all day; black beans in the other. The night’s planned dinner: chicken and black bean tacos.
My husband came home from work and took our three-month-old baby from my arms, where she had been all day. Breathing a sigh of relief, I headed to the kitchen to finish preparing dinner. When I pulled the tortillas out of the freezer and read the label, I discovered they were not made solely of whole wheat. In fact they had multiple ingredients I’ve never heard of. Ingredients I couldn’t even pronounce, much less imagine in their raw state. I wasn’t even sure they had a raw state. I grabbed a second pack of tortillas made from a mixture of corn and wheat only to find they also contained quite a few ingredients I couldn’t pronounce. Crap, I thought. This was not a good sign. I knew the easy solution would be to bend the rules and just eat what we had, but we were only one week into our real food journey. I wasn’t ready to surrender yet.
Not sure how I was going to navigate the situation, I opened the first crockpot, only to find the chicken stuck to the bottom and burnt to a crisp. The recipe didn’t call for any water or broth; just a jar of salsa. I guess my salsa wasn’t liquidy enough. Shaking my head in disgust, I put the top back on and walked back to the living room where my husband was playing with the baby on the floor.
“I burned the chicken,” I whined, throwing my hands in the air and pitching a mini fit. “And all of our tortillas have crap in them. This is too hard!” My voice raised into a toddler-like shriek.
He looked up from where the baby was lying on the playmat, laughing obliviously to my woes. “Do you want my help?”
I shook my head violently and shuffled to the bedroom to refocus my thoughts. I’m not sure why I thought this real food thing was a good idea, I thought, my eyes blurring and heart racing. Life with an infant is hard enough. Why did I do this to myself? I closed my eyes and lay down on the bed. After a few minutes of silence, a flash of creativity hit. “I’ve got it!” I say excitedly. “We can make soup!” Never mind that it was 80° outside. The failed meal would be creatively turned into tortilla soup. I refused to fail.
After a few minutes of internet research, I went back to the kitchen to create my own version of tortilla soup. I grabbed an onion and green pepper from the fridge and a cutting board from where it hung on the kitchen wall. Once I chopped them into small pieces, I threw them in a pan with some olive oil, garlic, and taco seasoning. The smell was intoxicating; there is nothing more comforting than the smell of taco seasoning.
When the vegetables were soft, I threw in the shredded chicken, a can of tomatoes, some green chiles, chicken broth, tomato paste, and black beans. It looked more like chili than soup, so I added a little water and brought it to a boil. I tasted it, then added a bit more taco seasoning and salt before lowering the heat to a simmer. Proud of my ability to turn a bad mood around with a bit of creativity in the kitchen, I opened a bottle of wine and called to my husband in the living room. “Want a glass of wine?”
An hour later, we ate the most delicious soup I had ever tasted. Having found a bag of crumbled tortilla chips in the pantry, we used them as a garnish to add a little crunch. It made so much soup we had enough for lunch the next day and still had leftovers to put in the freezer for a rainy day.
I still fall into this pattern when something doesn’t go as I’ve planned for dinner. I pitch a minor fit and think about getting takeout. But then I remember there are no places we really like to get takeout from, and that it will take a long time and cost money that I don’t want to spend. While pouting, I think about the vast amount of food in our pantry, fridge, and freezer and challenge myself to just get over it and figure something out. It all started with that one night of tortilla soup.
We don’t eat strictly real food anymore. I buy tortillas from the store—usually made with white flour. I try to pay attention to ingredients, but I don’t nix it all together. We simply eat it in moderation. But our real food journey started a life change in how we ate, and much of what we learned then has carried through to how I cook today.
Eleven years later, I make a version of Refrigerator Soup at least once a month. Sometimes it’s Taco Soup. Other times I use Italian flavors instead. I pull out all the leftover meat and beans from the fridge and throw them in a pot with some veggies, seasonings and broth. Every time it’s different, but it’s nearly always a success.
We eat a lot of soup and beans in the Winter months. When the temperatures are frigid and the days are short, I crave a slower pace and feel less adventurous in the kitchen. Perhaps the best thing about soup is that you don’t really need a recipe. You just need an idea. This Chard & White Bean Stew is so easy and so customizable. Use any green in place of the chard; any bean in place of the cannelli. This Minestrone Soup is the base recipe I use when I want to make Italian Refrigerator Soup instead of Taco.
You are starting to see the earliest beginnings of the story I hope to turn into a book. The essay that opens this newsletter began as a blog post eleven years ago. It was only in looking back over my old material that I remembered this scene, and recognized just how far I’ve come in the kitchen since that day.
Seven Years Ago
Breakfast Ice Cream—a recipe
Finding Our Groove—a few notes after our big move
Five Years Ago
Beef Pot Pie—a recipe
Four Years Ago
Teriyaki Lentils—a recipe
By All Means Do It—on setting goals
2021: Breathe—a reflection about writing and mothering, the week I joined Exhale Creativity (P.S. Exhale is open for enrollment. It is the most amazing community of women trying to create in the chaos of motherhood. If that sounds like you, I’d love for you to join us!)
One Year Ago
~What Will We Name It? [Spoiler Alert: We named him Leonardo ‘dawg Vinci]
May you have courage to take risks when you’re feeling scared;
May you have confidence in the words you share,
May you be open to conversation and questioning, and
May you find strength to always do what feels right to you.
Until next time,
I’m no longer active on Social Media, but I am doing all kinds of fun things on The Blog!