Add the bouillon at the table

My own copy

The kids are in finals, so of course half the kids, and me, are coming down with a cold.  An excellent occasion to try at least the idea of Mark Bittman's Clean-Out-the-Fridge Vegetable Soup.  My soup was comparatively limited by what I had in the fridge to clean out, and I wasn't about to go out in the rain in my mildly sick and tired state to pretend I ever had on hand as wide a range of vegetables as Bittman.

Wannabe Mirepoix: leeks, carrots, mushroom.

Mine was a leek-carrot-mushroom-tomato-potato-spinach soup.  No pistou.  But served with cheese sandwich or hamburgers to take the pressure off.

I added my bouillon paste right into my soup bowl!

I serve a vegetarian soup at more than half our dinners in the winter, but tonight I was impatient with the thought of another vegetable bouillon broth.  So I did a crazy thing--I cooked the vegetables in water, and served a choice of vegetable or turkey Better than Bouillon soup base paste at the table.  I know this doesn't allow the vegetables to season in the broth while cooking, but it was worth it to me to serve vegetables in turkey broth to those who wanted it, without having to divide the soup into two pots so the vegetarian version would be available to those who require it.

When Chicken Soup is Off the Menu

My kid has a cold, severe enough to warrant missing a day or more of high school, severe enough to warrant a visit to the doctor, and severe enough that we filled a prescription for antibiotics. And I'm super conservative about antibiotics. Apparently I believe I can stop global drug-resistant TB by my reluctance to treat ear infections.

Of course, being a Mom, I want to supplement all that medical stuff with highly nutritious comfort food. The home version of the RS compassionate service dinner. Chicken Soup would be my impulse, but of course with this kid, Chicken Soup does not apply. This kid is a vegetarian. In fact, she's THE vegetarian who got us all back into this.

She likes thai yellow curry vegetarian, so this afternoon I fetched that for her.
She likes Campbell's Tomato Soup, reconstituted with milk, so I made that for her.
Tomorrow for lunch I'm making Indian Tomato Curry at her request.
Tomorrow for dinner I'm making more Thanksgiving yams. Possibly trying that other bloggernacle yam recipe I can't find now, mashed with roasted banana and maple syrup.
I thought of cream-of-butternut squash soup, and a vegetable pie with carrots.
But—I seem to be overplaying the beta-carotene. The poor kid will end up healthy but a strange shade of yellow at this rate.

Also, I'm off the rails for translating my emotions into food prep without the chicken soup. I've been offering her hot chocolate or orange soda in between her herbal tea—not exactly healthy. I made biscuits from scratch that, though light and fluffy, were not liquid enough for a sore throat. So I ate half the biscuits myself, with butter and jam, and was not comforted.

How do you do Mother with Sick Vegetarian Child?