And dream about hot soup all day

here comes winter

As the weather changes here, we're getting excited to pull out some of our favorite seasonal recipes again. Once it starts to get cold, soup comprises a significant part of our diet. As the primary cook around here these days, I'm a fan of soup for a few reasons: it's adaptable to the ingredients you have on hand, it's relatively easy to make (there's some prep at the beginning, but then it's usually just a matter of giving yourself enough time for it to cook and stirring occasionally), it warms you up, and (hopefully) it's delicious. I thought I'd share 3 of our favorite soups here, for some "heading into winter" inspiration:

Borscht (adapted from Marian Morash's The Victory Garden Cookbook)

4 strips of bacon
1 large onion
1/2 teaspoon celery seed (the recipe calls for celery, but I'm not a big fan)
2 medium beets, quartered
2 cloves garlic, halved
2 cups tomatoes (fresh or canned)
1 cup potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 quart stock
2 cups water
3 peppercorns
salt to taste
2 cups beets, julienned/grated (I like to do this in the food processor - it saves a lot of time and effort)
1 cup carrots,  julienned/grated (see above)
4 tablespoons butter
3 cups cabbage, shredded
lemon juice, to taste
sour cream


Fry bacon until crisp, then set aside (I like to chop it first, but it's not necessary). Chop onion, sprinkle on celery seed, and cook in bacon fat until softened. Add bacon, chopped beets, garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, stock, water, peppercorns, and salt. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Remove vegetables (I like to pour everything through a colander placed in a large bowl - be careful, it's hot!) and puree them in a food processor or with a food mill (an immersion blender - in which case you don't have to do any draining - or a blender - in which case you will need to let the vegetables cool first, trust me on this one - will work too). Add the puree back to the broth and keep warm over low heat. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a pan and saute grated carrots and beets for 5 minutes. Add to soup base. Melt remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and braise cabbage for 5 minutes, until wilted and slightly browned. Add to soup base and simmer for another 5 minutes. Add lemon juice until it has a slightly tart, but not sour, taste - start with a splash and keep splashing until you get the flavor you like. Serve with crusty bread and garnish each bowl with sour cream.

simmering borscht

Sauerkraut Soup with Dumplings (adapted from William I. Kaufman's The Wonderful World of Cooking: Recipes from Northern Europe and the British Isles and Marcia Adams' Cooking from Quilt Country )

1 tablespoon butter
1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons flour
1 quart tomatoes
1 1/2 pounds sauerkraut
8 cups stock
sour cream


Brown onion in butter. Stir in flour. Add tomatoes, sauerkraut, and stock. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cook, covered, for 2 hours.


1 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cold butter
1 egg, beaten
6 tablespoons milk


Combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter until the mixture looks like oatmeal. Add egg and milk. Blend until just combined. Drop in large tablespoonfuls onto simmering soup. Cover and cook for 20 minutes. Garnish each bowl with sour cream.

Saffron Carrot Soup (adapted from Monica Bhide's Soup of Carrot, Bellpepper, and Saffron)

2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion
1 pound carrots, peeled and chopped
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 tablespoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon saffron
4 cups stock (I like it with chicken best)
1/2 cup sour cream
salt and pepper to taste
saffron garnish


Melt the butter in a medium pot and cook onion until soft and golden. Add carrots and cook until softened. Mix in the turmeric, cayenne, coriander, and saffron and cook for one minute. Add stock and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cook covered about 20 minutes; vegetables should be very soft. Puree vegetables (see my suggestions for pureeing in the borscht recipe) and add back to broth. Stir in sour cream, salt, and pepper. Garnish with a few strands of saffron per bowl.

In my next entry, I'll write about some of our favorite soup accompaniments (accessories? I don't know, stuff that goes with soup). Happy souping!

The apple of my eye

don't worry, I put a shirt on him too

A few Saturdays ago, we made baby's first trip to the Farmer's Market. Actually, it was our first trip this year too. Our garden kept us plenty busy and fed in the spring and summer and we didn't have much call to supplement. As we now head into winter, we're doing our final stockpiling and preserving and the market was great for filling in those things that hadn't worked out in our garden or that we didn't choose to grow. While we did harvest some garlic, it definitely wasn't enough to get us through the winter, so we were happy to see some good looking heads at the market. We go through a lot of garlic around here and this probably won't last until next season, but it will be a good start.

In the name of newfound flexibility (I'm having to exercise this a lot with a newborn - it's good for me), I had to give up on my plans for an hour-long trip to the farm for apple picking and cider making this year. There were lots of apples at the market, including a number of uncommon/varieties we'd never seen before. We found a stand where they were actually cheaper than picking and had lots of delicious varieties to choose from. We ended up with 50 pounds of Cameos (a variety we've sauced before, with a nice crisp texture and tartness) and McIntosh (a family favorite - a bit softer than I typically prefer these days, but they have a really great tart flavor and will be well-suited to saucing, I suspect). After making them into sauce, it turned out that we needed a few more, so I got my apple picking in at the nearby orchard the next weekend (I wore the baby,  Tres wore 2 picking buckets, and we picked another 40 or so pounds of Fujis in about twenty minutes). I sauced 25 pounds of them and we're storing the rest in the shop for fresh eating. A few things I (re?)learned this year: using soft apples (like McIntosh) means you will have to peel by hand (as the handy dandy peeler doesn't abide soft apples), said peeler will spray juice everywhere (dress and cover your surroundings appropriately), and the pureed apples will burn if you don't stir them pretty constantly (so try to curb the urge to multitask, despite the monotony of standing around stirring a slowly heating pot).

 apples from the market

my peeling station

our pantry, stocked for winter

 the rest of the pantry, applesauce is on the far left

Speaking of flexibility, the saucing and canning process was a little different this year too. While I followed the same basic steps (peel and slice, cook, grind, reheat, can), it took me a little longer. About 4 days longer, in fact. Now, it's not to say that I was processing apples all day these days, but I was fitting apple processing in between feeding, changing, and otherwise caring for our son. It's interesting what a different rhythm a baby gives your day. I imagine if he were a bit older, I could fit this in during naptime or otherwise structure it around his schedule, but because he is so young and doesn't really have a schedule yet, things are a bit more "fly by the seat of your pants." There are lots of days when I don't do everything I'd like, but I'm learning to set reasonable goals and, again with that word, to be flexible if things don't work out quite the way I'd hoped. I realize more and more how very lucky I am to have a schedule and a life that allow me to do that. Having a cute, sweet baby doesn't hurt either.