As the New Year begins, it only seems right to offer a recipe for a soup that is chock full of vegetables and even a little bit of fruit. The creamy soup will incorporate nicely into a regime of healthful menus.
I’ve been making this soup for years. A long time ago, much longer than I’d like to admit, I joined a group of women once a month for a Sunday afternoon meal. We called it our Recipe Exchange Group. We would each prepare a part of the meal and bring along the recipe to share. Elsa, our friend from Argentina, brought this soup to one of those long-ago meals where we’d not only eat, but also chat about our kids, our husbands, and food. It was an appreciated outlet for all of us in this small group of moms who liked to cook.
If you have made a resolution to eat more fruits and vegetables each day, this soup will make it easy. There is a fair amount of chopping involved, but once that task has been accomplished, the soup will be ready to eat in no time.
Velvety smooth, thick and creamy, soft and spreadable, sweet and tart — all characteristics of a good lemon curd. Every year around this time, I pull out my favorite recipe for lemon curd. Last week, I adapted that recipe to create a mouth-watering bowl of mango curd. A kiss of citrus from lemon and lime juices gives this creamy tropical curd just enough tartness to balance the sweet-as-honey mango.
As part of my resolution to eat more salad, I am trying to buy ingredients that can be turned into a salad without too much fuss. You practically need to buy tender salad greens every day so I've been buying crunchy vegetables and hardier leafy greens instead. On my shopping lists these days are daikon radish, carrots, celery, fennel and red radishes. Shaved thin, they all are great salad fixings. I also buy avocados, and some citrus fruit to gussy up my salads. 
My appreciation of certain foods is only enhanced by the symbolism associated with them. As an example, in Italy it's a tradition to eat lentils on new years day. The individual lentils are supposed to represent the coins that will come to you in the new year. Ever since I heard that, the thought of a big sausage and lentil stew on new years day seems like just the right thing. Jewish new years or Rosh Hashanah has its own traditional foods. I grew up eating apples dipped in honey to represent the sweetness of the new year, but I just learned that another traditional food for the Jewish new year is the pomegranate. Moroccan Jews say that the seeds of the pomegranate represent the good deeds or mitzvah that will occur in the new year and I have to say I think that the two-fold symbolism is as sweet as an apple dipped in honey. 
I can't think of a better food for the cold days upon us than a big bowl of comforting chili. There is something special about the heat of chile peppers that has a rightful place in this stew. Chili is a great dish for bringing people together and it can feed a crowd very easily. This recipe can be doubled or tripled. It's perfect for when you have group of friends over for game-watching on Super Bowl Sunday. The best part about a recipe like this is that it can be prepared in advance and simply reheated when it's time to serve. No one needs to slave away at the stove and miss watching the game.