30-Minute Homemade Alphabet Soup

Waiting for a baby that isn't yours is a particular kind of anticipation. You can't control it. You can't hurry it. You can only go about your business and check your phone more often than you'd admit and cook things, because cooking is what I do when I can't do anything else. This week I cooked a lot.

Monday: lentil soup. The simplest thing I know — lentils, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, broth. Simmer until the lentils dissolve into a thick, earthy porridge that tastes like a hug from someone who means it. I don't write about lentil soup for the blog because it doesn't photograph well and people eat with their eyes first, which is unfortunate because lentil soup tastes like kindness and looks like a swamp.

Wednesday: bread. Not the soda bread from last month — yeast bread, the kind that takes four hours and requires kneading, which is something my hands need when my mind is buzzing. You push the dough. You fold it. You push it again. The dough pushes back, elastic, alive, and the rhythm of it — push, fold, push, fold — is the closest thing to meditation I know. The bread rose beautifully. The crust cracked when I tapped it. The inside was soft and warm and smelled like yeast and flour and the particular satisfaction of making something with your hands that didn't exist four hours ago.

Friday: chicken stock. A whole carcass from Sunday's roast, simmered with onion, carrot, celery, peppercorns, and thyme for six hours. The house smelled like a grandmother's kitchen, which is what I am now — a grandmother, gender notwithstanding. A grandparent. A person who makes stock and waits for babies and checks his phone.

Helen is calm. She's a nurse. She's delivered this kind of news before, from the other side. She knits and watches the weather and says "babies come when they come" with the authority of a woman who has seen hundreds of them arrive and knows that none of them consulted a schedule. I believe her. I still check my phone.

The garden is growing. The peas are up. The lettuce is up. The world is green and warm and waiting, the way I'm waiting, for the next good thing to arrive. Sarah called Thursday night and said she's ready. Tom said he's terrified. Helen said that's normal. I said nothing, because I remember being terrified too, twice, and the terror didn't diminish the joy. Nothing does. Nothing can.

Lentils, bread, stock. The kitchen is full. The phone is charged. We wait.

The chicken stock I made Friday—six hours, a whole carcass, the house smelling like everything good—was always going to become something else. When Sunday arrived and the phone still hadn’t rung with news, I ladled that golden stock into a pot and made soup: simple, honest, the kind of thing you’d make for a child who just arrived in the world, or for the grandparent sitting in a warm kitchen waiting for that child to get here. Alphabet soup felt right. There’s something quietly hopeful about letters floating in broth—all that possibility, all those words not yet formed.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
2 stalks celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes
6 cups good chicken stock (homemade if you have it)
1 cup alphabet pasta (or any small pasta shape)
1 cup frozen peas or green beans
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Instructions

Soften the vegetables. Heat olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and the onion is translucent, about 6–8 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.
Season and build the base. Stir in salt, pepper, and thyme. Add the diced tomatoes with their juices, scraping up any bits from the bottom of the pot.
Add stock and bring to a boil. Pour in the chicken stock and raise heat to medium-high. Bring to a rolling boil.
Cook the pasta. Add the alphabet pasta and cook according to package directions, usually 7–9 minutes, until just tender. Do not overcook—pasta continues to soften in the hot broth.
Add the greens. Stir in the frozen peas or green beans and cook 2 minutes, until heated through and bright.
Finish and adjust. Stir in the lemon juice and fresh parsley. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

30-Minute Homemade Alphabet Soup — Cooking Through the Wait