Soup FROM YOUR GARDEN’S HARVEST

When it turned so cold last week, I thought a bowl of soup would be ideal. Unfortunately, I never actually got in the kitchen long enough to do more than heat water for tea. A week later and it’s cold again and, after a 3am inventory of the freezers and kitchen, I had two day’s worth of menus with soup featured. Time to get in the kitchen.

How many soups did your garden grow? Did you freeze, can, or dry your harvest? Here are two suggestions for souping your garden harvest.

Vegetable Soup

• peas
• green beans
• carrot
• corn
• potato
• garlic
• salt
• pepper
• rosemary

Variations on a theme – add more herbs, onions, beans, meats, fish, and grains (rice, noodles, barley).

Butternut Squash-Sunflower Seed-Apple-Spinach Soup

• butternut squash
• apple
• sunflower seeds
• spinach
• chicken bone broth
• almond milk
• cumin
• white pepper
• salt
• cardamom
• cinnamon
• ginger

Everything went into the VitaMix and 4:44 minutes later, I had a misty green creamy soup.

I was a little too generous with the pepper, the soup sort of bit back. While I was wondering what could smooth out the bite, I remembered I’d wanted to use liquid smoke in one of the soups.

And as it turns out, that’s what smoothed the peppery edge.

Two soups, four meals, in an hour.

It really didn’t a lot of time or energy to make these soups. As I mentioned in the Soup – Souping post, there are a lot of good reasons to step up the soups, especially this time of year.

I’m thinking soup will finally make a more consistent appearance here.

Soup is a good way to make use of all you grow and who doesn’t need more veggies? It’s a nutrient-loaded meal without a lot of effort. Next on the soup menu? Well, there’s okra, edamame, and brussel sprouts in the freezer… eh, time to go shopping. See – this is why you want to have a garden. More on hand to soup with.

I did find in the freezer a turkey soup from last November and a lamb stew. Silly me, I heated and ate it without any thought of taking a pic. And it was pretty.

Stay warm.

What better way to enjoy a garden’s harvest than a brothful bowl of soup?