It’s cold here. The other day in Tucson, the temperature was 20-degrees. My water pipes froze and it took awhile for them to unfreeze but I was lucky as pipes burst all over town. We have snow advisories for tonight and that’s as low as 2,000 feet.

When it’s cold, I want to fill my stomach with something warm or hot and nothing satisfies that like a bowl of steaming hot soup. I have been thinking about soup a lot lately and thought how wonderful it would be to put soup into a bread bowl. That would make eating soup an event.

I love pumpernickel bread from the bakery and instead of asking them to slice it like I usually do, I could just dig out the inside and fill it with an earthy soup like split pea or chunky potato with dill or a hearty bean soup.

If I used Italian bread I could do a meatball soup or robust minestrone. When you think about it — the possibilities for soup bowls are endless.

Do you have any good ideas for pairing soups with bread bowls?

As for inside of the breads, don’t let them go to waste. Bread guts could be used as croutons or stuffing another day.

Here are some easy recipes and other thoughts about souper bread bowls.

Happy eating…mmm, mmm good.