I could never be accused of being a girly girl.  I am not a frilly, hearts and glitter kind of girl.  I hate shopping.  I don’t like pink, and I think unicorns are early genomic experiments (or creatures brought here by the aliens….)  But I digress…

I grew up with two little brothers, and I have two sons.  I have been surrounded by boys close to all of my life.  But saying all of that I do have moments of girly-ness…I love butterflies.  For one, they are pretty. 🙂 And secondly, from a scientific standpoint, metamorphosis is fascinating.  And from the life lessons file, how wonderful it is to know that even if you start out as a weird caterpillar, some day you can be a fantastically beautiful butterfly!

So of course, as I walked down the pasta aisle at the grocery store, my eyes were drawn to the farfalle pasta.  You know the ones…the bow-tie pasta…but then I saw the farfalline…baby butterflies!  (ok as I just pointed out “baby” butterflies are catapillers, which look more like ziti, but I don’t have to be that critical ALL the time!)

I grabbed the box of pasta excitedly.  The wheels in the creative side of my brain started turning!  I had to find the perfect way to use these tiny butterfly noodles!

The days are much shorter now.  Fall is definitely arriving.  The days are tending to be more gray and wet.  As much as I want to hold on to summer, I am looking forward to autumn.  BUT butterflies are a spring/summer kinda thing…some how I need to find a way to make an autumn-y dish more summer-y.

This is how I created Butterfly Garden Soup

No butterflies were harmed in the making of this soup!

This soup is far from complicated.  Some of the best meals are ones that are just thrown together.  I browned a pound of ground beef with a bit of Onion Onion and Garlic Garlic. While that was cooking away, I filled a pot with a bag of frozen vegetables.  My favorite would have to be vegetables for soup:  stewed tomatoes, corn, potatoes, green beans, onions, carrots, celery and okra. Cover the vegetables with water and put on medium heat.  I drained the grease from the ground beef, and slid it into the pot with the vegetables.  I used three beef bouillon cubes and two cans of condensed tomato soup.  Season with salt and pepper after the bouillon has dissolved.  If you season before, you could end up with too much salt.  Lastly I added two handfuls of little butterflies.  Honestly I did toss the butterflies in…so that they could fly into the soup…hey I never said I wasn’t easily amused!

Like most soups or stews, the next-day left-overs are much better than day of soups…not that I would know with this soup, I didn’t get any left-overs! 🙂