Welcome to the Soup-er Bowl!
I don’t know about you, but I love me a good, themed party – any excuse to get my friends or family together in a fun and unique way is something I’m always going to enjoy, and this past weekend was no exception. As a family, we hosted what we’re calling the first annual Fall Soup-er Bowl, and it was (in my opinion) the hottest ticket in town. I can’t take full credit for the idea because my sweet hair stylist Brianna (seriously go see her if you’re PNW, she’s the best) was my inspo based on a soup party she was at last year and I was so excited to be a copycat!
So, what are the deets? Well, each of the adults in my fam made a soup of their choice and we chowed down, rated them on a 1-5 scale in 4 areas of achievement and the highest scores in each area won – including the best overall that won the coveted GOLDEN LADLE!
This was such a low effort but big reward gathering to host and little touches of festive décor from Dollar Tree and Amazon made it feel so cozy and festive, plus the rain in the PNW that showed up this day was a paid actor. For snacks and dips and desserts, I bought some fun vessels from the DTree including some popcorn buckets, a witch’s hat cookie tray, some dip cups and drinking cups – honestly, never underestimate the impact a little festive touch can add.
You’re probably asking, “well Stefanie, how did you serve 6 different kinds of soups?” and the answer is simple, Amazon. I bought these adorable soup cups from the Zon and each person that cooked a soup was given one cup for each person in attendance with their correlating soup number written on one side – each soup chef scooped their soup into the cups and styled their soups with any toppings before placing a serving at each person’s seat at the table.
Once seated, we all had a scoring sheet that I designed in Canva, we rated each soup 1-5 in 4 different categories, appearance, smell, taste and best overall! It was so fun to watch everyone in my family acting like they were food critics about to review a Michelin star chef, but everyone’s favorite part was eating, big shocker. WE. WERE. STUFFED. In the end, my brother almost swept the competition winning 3 out of the 4 awards (as his little sister all I can say is, how rude) but my dad came in with a victory for the best tasting!
Our soups were all freaking delicious, we had Mom’s creamy chicken noodle, Dad’s marry me creamy chicken soup, my sister in law’s cheeseburger soup, my brother’s smoked chicken tortilla soup, my husband’s short rib noodle soup and my highly underrated and extremely underscored potato corn chowder. As I said, my brother won the Golden Ladle and after a brief victory lap, we all carved pumpkins, ate some treats and ended the night feeling so grateful for the time we had with each other making silly soups into a competition.