Winter is coming...and it's time for soup! I don't know why, but I keep thinking about Campbell's. Campbell's chicken noodle soup. I loved it when I was a young person, because it was one of those things I could "make" for myself. Sure, you opened up the can, dumped it into a pan and just heated it up. But, it felt so grown up. Sometimes, you would add milk instead of water to make a creamy soup. Other times, you loaded it so full of crackers that it soaked up all of the broth and you just ended up with this wet, starchy deliciousness. I want that soup.

As a vegetarian, I have eaten a lot of analog meatless products--both purchased and made--but I really like Beyond Meat Beyond Chicken. And they aren't paying me to say this with a year's supply of product or anything. It's simple and easy to use on pizza, in salad, with pasta and in tacos. So I was thinking, why not chicken noodle soup?

For my broth, I used a combination of chicken flavored vegetarian broth and a kombu dashi; added onion, carrots and celery; finally pasta rings, Beyond Meat and herbs. Simple, nourishing...and nostalgic. It was memory in a bowl.

Recipe: Chickenless Noodle Soup

Three pieces kombu seaweed
1 small onion, finely diced
4 medium-sized carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
4 stalks of celery, trimmed, halved a thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 32-ounce container No-chicken broth
3-4 twigs of fresh thyme
1/2 pound small pasta Os, noodles, broken spaghetti, ditalini or even orzo
Salt to taste
1 9-oz package Beyond Chicken, thawed enough to slice and shred

To make the dashi:

Rinse the kombu and wipe gently with a cloth, but not too much--the powdery coating is what helps add flavor to the dashi. Place in a saucepan with four cups of cold water; let stand for 15 minutes. Turn the heat to medium and slowly warm the water to just below boiling, about 10 minuts. Do not boil! Turn off the heat, remove the kombu and strain the dashi into a measuring cup.

To make the soup:

In a heavy stockpot or Dutch, combine the onion, carrots and celery with the olive oil and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes, until the vegetables begin to soften. Add the thyme, broth and dashi, then simmer for 20 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Remove the thyme twigs, but keep the leaves. Add the pasta and cook until it is tender, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice the Beyond Chicken lengthwise, then shred the pieces with your hand or a fork. Add to the soup and simmer until warm. Serve in large bowls with big spoons and saltine crackers.

When my Mam-ma (Mildred) was alive, I would often call her to ask how to make this or that and for advice in the kitchen. She had a lifetime of knowledge, growing up on a farm, cooking for her family as a young mother and preparing meals for many, many people over the years. I remember once we were on the phone when I was in college talking about cakes and her yummy pound cake; she dictated the recipe and I scrawled it on the inside cover of one of my cookbooks. It's call "Jewish Pound Cake," but I'm not sure why. One of her friends she taught with was Jewish, so perhaps she got it from her? I've retitled it 'Mildred's Long Distance Pound Cake' here and created a lemon glaze to top it off. I have her bundt pan which I could have used, but instead I made individual cakes using baking papers. Today would have been her 95th birthday.

Mildred's Long Distance Pound Cake
The original recipe called for vanilla and a mixture of cinnamon and nuts to be added with half of the batter; I combined two of Mildred's recipes to create this lemon flavored version. This batter is very spongy and springy, so don't be surprised or scared of it.

2 cups sour cream
2 tsp. baking soda
1 stick butter (1/4 pound), softened
2/3 cup sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla or lemon extract
3 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
(scant) 1/2 tsp. kosher salt

In a bowl that holds more than two cups, combine the sour cream and baking soda (it will expand!) and place it in fridge. Combine the dry ingredients and whisk until aerated. With a stand mixer or hand mixer and bowl, cream the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until they are combined, then the lemon extract. Add half of the flour and mix until combined, then the sour cream and finally the rest of the flour. Scrape the bottom of the bowl with a spatula and make sure everything is mixed in properly.

Spray a bundt pan with nonstick baking spray and add the batter. Alternatively, divide between 15-20 baking papers (depending on size). For the bundt pan, bake for 40-50 minutes. For smaller cakes, bake for about 30 minutes.

Lemon Glaze
This sweet and tart glaze has a real zip of lemon thanks to the lemon zest and extract, so it complement the not-so-sweet pound cake perfectly.

2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon extract

Combine all if the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth. With a skewer, poke hole in the top of the cakes and top with the glaze.