Adult Crabapple Soup

Soup cooking on the stove!

When I was a kid, I used to go camping every summer with my mother at Long Sault Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. I used to look forward to these trips because my grandparents and Uncle had adjoining campsites. This meant I could play with my favourite cousin, Dean! 

Me and Dean when we were kids. BFFs!

I have so many fond childhood memories from Long Sault. I remember this truck would pass by every day with a microphone announcing "firewood for sale" and for some odd reason, we would get all excited over this. I remember my aunt and uncle giving me chocolate syrup every morning for my milk. I remember swimming in the lake and sometimes an adult would take us to the beach down the road. I remember collecting empty beer bottles with Dean in the woods and empty campsites. We would then go begging to an adult to take us to the nearest store (Beckers - which the adults would call Peckers when they thought we weren't listening!) to cash in the bottles. We always bought candy with the money. 

This was back in the 80s and early 90s and break dancing was a thing. I remember my cousins and I put cardboard on the ground while we showed off our moves! The campfires at night were also fun. I loved stargazing and burning marshmallows on sticks! I was never really good at toasting them as a kid. I would just put the frigging marshmallow in the fire and take it out while it was still burning! I think I had more fun making "great balls of fire" (pun, intended) than really eating the marshmallows!

Chilling at the lake!

My favourite memory of Long Sault involves a game I used to play with Dean. We would get an old bucket, fill it up with water and lug the thing around. We would gather crabapples that had fallen off the trees and use that to make "soup." The fun thing is, we didn't just put crabapples inside, we found rocks, sticks, dirt and sand. You name it, we put it in the soup! I swear, there could have been shit on the ground and knowing us, it went in the soup. It needed a "special flavouring" after all!

I remember this one time, my uncle Dave (who is my favourite Uncle, by the way) would place our pot of "soup" over the campfire to "cook" and I would always give a bowl of my concoction to my older brother. He was a real sport who pretended to eat it and would throw it in the bushes when I wasn't looking.

I remember one year, I decided to make Crabapple soup at home, in my own backyard. We didn't have any crabapple trees but we had a plum tree. I simply replaced the crabapples with plums and added my usual dirt and rocks to the mix. My mom had some carrots that were going bad so she cut them up for me for my soup. She then put my pot of soup on the stove for me so I could pretend to cook it. Well, that pot was left on the stove overnight. My older brother came home late and completely drunk off his ass. He thought my mom left some leftover soup for him and he accidentally ate some! I remember him telling me this story like it was yesterday and I still laugh at him for it!

I guess when it comes to making homemade soup and gumbo as an adult, all that practicing making crabapple soup as a kid paid off. I do not have a recipe for the soups I make today, I just wing it but I read up a long time ago on how to make homemade broths and gumbo. I realized it wasn't too far off the mark from my crabapple days. I simply replaced the ingredients with edible ones! I can assure you, dear readers, there are only healthy and edible ingredients in the soups, stews, and gumbos I make as an adult!

I started making gumbos when I first moved out on my own, The soups and stews came much later, when my baby bat was a baby and in daycare. I remember calling his never-ending bouts of sickness, "the daycare ebola." We were always sick with something. I remember us catching strep, and pneumonia on numerous occasions. The baby bat caught this weird thing called "Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease" and even Scarlett Fever! Numerous colds and the flu were always present every fall, winter, and spring in my house. One thing that helped us was my homemade chicken soup. My kid used to call it "Mommy's magic soup" and it was a must-have for every ailment we faced in our home. 

I have been a bit of a hermit these past few weeks and I decided to make Sundays my cooking days. I would make a nice meal and a homemade dessert. I usually expect my kid's dad to show up to bring the baby bat back home from having him all weekend. I would invite him over for a home-cooked meal. It's always nice having someone enjoy your cooking! 

Considering, we have all been really sick all week over here, I decided that a batch of "Mommy's Magic Soup" was in order. I got all the ingredients and started to get to work. The house smelt amazing with the aroma of soup cooking and it really felt like home. I hope one day when my kid is all grown up and out on his own, he will take a batch of my homemade soup out of his freezer and heat it up. I hope he looks back to when he was a kid and how this soup's magic properties would instantly make him feel better. When I cook for my kid, I cook from the heart and with the intent to heal. I really do like to think that this energy goes into my soup and it really does heal! Maybe one day, he will make his own soup and remember my stories from my crabapple soup days. Hopefully this will make him laugh!

My dog, Storm got a treat too. While I was cutting up some of the chicken for my soup, I gave her some! For the record, the chicken was cooked (boiled) and it had no seasoning on it. She really enjoyed chowing down!

A nice bowl of a hot soup! Yummy!

The dessert for the week was a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I stupidly put too much batter in the pan, forgetting that this cake rises a lot! I have a mess to clean in my oven! Either way, when the cake is iced, no one will notice the deformities! It adds a little spunk!

Not the prettiest icing job but it tasted delicious! The cake was cut in half and I even put icing between the layers!

 

Overall, the meal was a huge success and we all enjoyed our Sunday dinner. What a nice way to end a weekend and to get back to the grind the next day!