Tag Archives: soup

Wild Leeks Soup

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It is the season of wild leeks. That season is short. In the woods, green covers the forest floor. The bright new leaves pierce the dried maple and beech leaves that fell in the fall. When the sun shines through the bare branches, you can smell them.

My son and I popped into the woods late in the afternoon. We each had a trowel. We dug up some leeks. Drive the trowel straight down, pull it back to loosen the soil and shake out some leeks. They are sort of similar to leeks you might buy in a market, but much smaller, smaller than typical scallions. And they are softer, more fragile. We made a small pile, enough to hold in one hand. Bright green on one end, covered in dark dirt on the other.

I washed them in the sink. I collected quite the pile of soil in the trap, mixed with a few dried leaves and grass stems. I had a clean bunch in the end, ready to be made into soup. I cubed several potatoes and sliced the leeks, tossed them with butter and olive oil, and sauteed. I added some water, some stock, some salt and pepper, and cooked it all into a soup.

I also made dinner rolls. I hear yeast is getting hard to come by. We always have a lot on hand anyway, so we are good to go for now. Dinner rolls are like the lazy bread–make some dough and knead it and let balls of the stuff rise in a pan. Then bake it and… fresh rolls, easy and quick. Soup and bread–pretty standard dinner around here.

Oddly, by the time the soup had reduced and gotten thick, it turned a bit green. I mean, the leeks were green but I have never had them turn other stuff green. And this new green was much darker–not the bright green of the fresh leeks. So it had a bit of an off color, but it was dang tasty. Those cut leeks smelled strong before they cooked down so I admit was a little nervous that I had put in too many leeks, but my fears ended up being unfounded.

Our wild leek window is small so I need to dig up some more before they fade away. Omelets? Quiche? Pizza topping? I’ve got lots of options. Especially if I want some green food.

Colt’s Foot and Wild Leeks

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There have been a few crocuses popping up but I’m not sure they count. The first flowers of spring are really Colt’s Foot. They pop out of the leaf litter on the roadside, yellow stars among last year’s crumpled leaves.

In the woods now, wild leeks emerge. There is a place nearby where I can see down and down into the trees as they slope downward to the west. This time of year it is clear of undergrowth. The floor of the forest grows green with wild leeks as they pierce the matted vegetation. Like crocuses they come from waking bulbs.

I will find my way into the woods behind our house, bend down and dig. I will pull some wild leeks from the soil and turn them into soup. I will bake bread and serve them with the soup. We will taste spring in our house.

Today, as the sun rose, the river smelled like more than melted snow. It smelled like earth and rain and new grass. I stood where the river flows under the road. Colt’s Foot bloomed at my feet. A Meadowlark sang, then zipped across the road until it disappeared into the willows.

Are we more attuned to spring this year? Do we notice more now that we have all slowed down? We are afraid, some of us, of what might come. Some of us are afraid of what has come. Spring, however, also comes. The yellow flowers bloom. The green leaves push up from bulbs.

I imagine the Phoebe, broadcasting from the roof of the falling barn, sings about such things. Perhaps, however, I give the Phoebe too much credit. I find beauty in the life that has been hidden, while the Phoebe simply finds insects and carries leaf stems to build its nest. It sings of that.

It is not wrong for me to be afraid. It is not wrong to admire life seeping back all around me. The Snipe, circling ghost-like over the meadow at dusk, reminds me that I can be both, reminds me that the turning of the world is worth my attention, whether I am afraid or not.

Twenty Five Carrots

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I pulled the last of the carrots yesterday, the last thing to come out of the ground for the season. There were 25 carrots of three varieties. My wife went for a run with a friend and when they returned they had a tasting of all three.  One was sweet, another was really sweet, and a third was almost bitter.  The third one was one I got because it would supposedly mature quickly and last. That it did, but it isn’t know for flavor, apparently. The variety is actually typical in supermarkets. I guess that explains it.

Another friend called later in the morning.  He had baked a whole pile of pumpkin bread and wanted to bring some over on his way to the market.  He was planning to make a stew and was all out of one ingredient–carrots. So we made a trade–a handful of carrots for some fresh warm sweet bread.  He also took the taste test and found the results as the rest of us had.  My daughter also agreed–I trust any kid who tells me a carrot tastes sweet, even if she did have a fever.

The carrots that did not get consumed in the taste test or get shipped to be chopped into stew or get saved to eat raw met a different fate.  I peeled them, cubed them, steamed them, blanched them, and froze them. I was planning to make carrot soup but we still have pumpkin soup left over from a couple days ago.  I can still make soup with the frozen carrots but now I have no rush.  i froze twelve cups of carrots, which seems like a fair amount, although I am sure they won’t last all that long.

I still need to tuck that garden bed in for the winter, now that it contains no more root crops. I edged it and turned it and figured I could just get to it another time.  I forgot about frost.  That still happens I guess. It makes the ground cold and eventually the ground will get all hard and frozen. I need to keep that in mind and get the garden set for the winter.  I have made my leisure. I need to cut that out. At least I have something to show for some of the work.

 

Carrots on Cutting Board

On the Chopping Block

Carrot Cubes

Cubes

Carrots in Colandar

Look at These Orange Puppies

 

 

Soup and Bread

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That’s what’s for dinner. I had to be home to meet my daughter off the school bus. It isn’t always easy to work when she comes home, especially when it is just the two of us, and frankly, I want to spend time with her during that window. So we did that. She told me about her day, showed me what she brought home. The kid is a gem. She smiles and feels proud of herself. I feel lucky to witness that every day.

Once she started chilling by herself, I stuck some sweet pumpkin in the oven to bake. I started bread dough. I turned the pumpkin into soup and the bread into dinner rolls. It is the easiest dinner ever.  It took a little time but was not hard to do. So we ate bread with our hot soup together at the table. My son didn’t eat much. I think he is getting sick. It seems most kids are getting sick these days. It is only October and plenty of children are missing school. Too bad. Maybe the soup and bread will help.

We have nine pie pumpkins left. Enough for some pumpkin muffins, maybe more soup, and a pie. Later in the week I will whip up one of those. I want to make this pumpkin pie I learned about several years ago and tried only once. It is light but rich. I want to experiment with it and maybe make it again for Thanksgiving. What’s not to like about pumpkin pie?

I may be getting a little something in the head myself. I have been wondering if I run every morning, will that help me stay healthy, meaning will it prevent sickness? I know I will be healthier in general if I run often, but can it ward off the viri?  Can it keep the bacteria at bay?  I guess I will see what I can find out with my R of one.  I had a short run this morning. Maybe I will go longer tomorrow. It was awfully hard to get out of bed in the dark this morning. I am hoping it won’t be so tough the next time I try it. I love running as it gets light, but it has been all dark these past days. It is dark when I leave the house and dark when I return. Easy there, Winter; it’s only October.

So I will try my running and pumpkin health plan for a while. That soup will last for a few days. When it runs out, that’s when I’ll bake up a pie, or at least some muffins. That ought to be good, no?

Day of Food

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I spent a good deal of time on food today. It was well worth it, but I am ready for one last trip to the kitchen, to scoop a bowl of coconut chocolate chip ice cream I made a couple days ago, then a sit with a book. I baked bread in my running clothes, after I lit a fire in the stove. I ran 7 1/2 miles this morning in the twenty degree grayness. It was a heck of a beautiful morning and I do that again. We had friends planning to come over and I was on kid duty (four of them) while my wife and company ran. I had to get started.

I was dressed in proper duds by the time our guests arrived, and I also had cut carrots, celery, potatoes, turnips, peppers, and onions. Soup was on. Since I was at it I decided to make some soup stock. The soup and bread were for lunch, along with the apple crisp I whipped up. I froze the stock, along with the remainder of the last batch of stock I made. I also spent time outside in the garden, digging and pulling the weeds that snuck in at the end. I turned compost and worked on making more with leaves and weed bits. I added compost from our kitchen scrap pile to some of the garden beds. And I covered several beds with silver maple leaves that were starting to decompose. It was a productive day.

I wish I could spend this much time on feeding our family more often. I would love to have fresh healthy food every day. We do almost every day, but we do sneak in processed food now and again, in the form of crackers and granola bars and such. Frozen meals almost never make their way to our house, and those boxed ready to prepare meals I feel like I hardly know. I was asked to do a survey recently of instant type meals. There were probably a dozen of them they asked about. I didn’t recognize any of them. I stay away from those center grocery store aisles.

I also baked up a pumpkin and a squash at the tail end of it all. I pureed them in the food processor and popped that in the freezer. The squash was a mystery plant that grew in the compost pile. We had sweet dumpling squash plant last year and this one was sort of like it. But it was orange and green. It think it may have been a cross between a pie pumpkin and the sweet dumpling. Inside it was bright yellow. It tasted sweet but different. I saved the seeds and will plant them in the spring. If it grows again as it did this year, we may have a new variety. I named it after my son.

That son of mine is asleep, along with his sister. He got tuckered out helping me spread dirt and leaves this afternoon. Now is the time to have that ice cream. I am a little tuckered myself.

Kitchen Frenzy and a Soup Recipe

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I got home from an all day meeting today about 4:30.  I headed right to the kitchen.  Last night I was going to make a tomato corn chowder.  Then I got working and didn’t stop until way too late.  So I planned to make it tonight.  And I did.  It meant I had to get cracking.  And I did.  It was, how to say this, tasty as all [insert expletive here].

I tried to find a recipe but just couldn’t scrounge one up.  That was probably for the better.  It would have taken me longer to keep referring to a book and then half forgetting what I just read as I chopped garlic.  Here is what I did:

  • Sauteed three small leeks in about a tablespoon of butter and a splash of olive oil in a large pot and then set that aside
  • Cut up two medium size carrots (small cubes), a couple pounds of red potatoes (cubed), two sweet peppers (diced) and sauteed all that in the large pot in about a tablespoon of butter and a splash of olive oil
  • Added four cups of water and two teaspoons of salt to the pot and brought that to a boil
  • Removed the pot and then removed a couple cups of the potatoes to keep them in chunks, then pureed the rest in a food processor
  • Tossed three small tomatoes (OK I used the one weird large tomato I picked yesterday that looked like three small tomatoes attached at the hip), diced, along with four cups of corn I had removed from the cob (already cooked) into the pot.
  • Heated the tomatoes and corn gently for about ten minutes, then added the chunks of potatoes and the puree
  • Added a teaspoon each of chopped fresh oregano, chives and thyme
  • Added a cup of whole milk
  • Topped with freshly grated black pepper, heated for another 10-15 minutes (stirring to keep it from sticking to the bottom)
  • Ate it up

The children chowed it, even my son, who has been pretty picky lately.  I have to admit, and my wife said this aloud, it was worth the hour spent preparing.  The vegetables and herbs were all from our garden or from our CSA.  Even the milk was local.

Item two was making the base for coffee ice cream.  I whipped that up while the soup heated and stuck it in the fridge.

Then I went out with the kids and picked basil.  We have more basil than I can handle.  This is first year that the basil has really just grown.  I clipped it pretty well not long ago and it really grew back well.  I cut 12 cups of the stuff with my eager children who lost interest when they decided to mow the lawn with their scissors.  They didn’t get all that far on that project.

I made three batches of pesto (it is supposed to get pretty cold the next couple of nights–basil doesn’t like cold), froze two and popped the other in the fridge.  By now the children were off to bed with their mother, and I tried not to make too much noise with the food processor.  They did fall asleep eventually, even after the delivery truck woke them up.  Late delivery.

I just polished off the small bowl of ice cream from the batch I made after the basil was stored away.  I probably shouldn’t have coffee ice cream this late–it is made with coffee after all, which people drink to stay awake.  But I had to try some.  What kind of cook would I be if I didn’t taste what I made?  Plus, I didn’t have that much.

I waited to eat the ice cream after I had cleaned up everything (except the ice cream maker bucket–that thing was way too cold to wash).  Cleaning too far too long.  I was ready to be done when the counter was still covered with dishes.  My wife still is healing from her sliced finger, otherwise I am sure she would have offered to do all the cleaning.  I cook, I clean, I eat.  All after a day at work.  Not bad, eh?

What’s for Dinner

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Last night I had the time to make a good dinner.  I whipped up cream of celery soup and fresh dinner rolls.  With fresh pears on the side.  It was wholesome and tasty.  The kids hated the soup, of course.  “This looks like throwup,” says the boy of joy.  He was serious.

OK, it did look a little like throwup, but only some kinds of throwup, not the gross kind.  Well, not the grossest kind.  But it did taste good–salty and fresh and creamy.  I guess you can’t have everything in a soup.  Especially one that your kids think looks like something your body already rejected.

At least the rolls were good.  They ate plenty of those.  So tonight I wondered what to make.  I had a lot less time.  The rest of the fam was off to the library where my daughter met a friend from school for some friend time.  It was me deciding and me making and I had had a long day.  I didn’t feel like making anything complicated at that point.  I just wanted to eat it.

But of course I wanted my family to have a quality dinner.  I had to make something fast that had no resemblance to bodily fluids.  So I made spaghetti.  We don’t have that all that often.  It is easy and we all like it but I tend to make things that are fresher if I can, or that are just more fun to make.  Spaghetti is just too easy.

My savior was the table.  Instead of the easy pour it into bowls at the stove approach, I set places and we had some spot lighting and we sat together and talked about our day.  I love that.  I remember eating spahetti as a child but more than that I remember eating together as a family.  I want my kids to remember that.

The bummer is that I had really been looking forward to making the soup yesterday.  I had never made cream of celery soup before.  Mostly because, well, it’s celery for god’s sake.  But I had all this celery since you can’t buy just what you need and I needed to make something with it.  I’m thinking next time I toss in a few carrots.  It will give it a little sweetness but, more importantly, some color.

But then again, do I want to hear my boy of joy say “This looks like…?”

Leftover Soup

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I was home with the kids tonight, just the three of us.  We had sandwiches, soup and fruit for dinner.  It was a winning combination.  I made pumpkin soup last weekend and it was a real winner.  I used frozen pumpkin from the summer and pureed it smooth with some sour cream.  It was a real success.  My daugher asked for more the night we had it and then asked for it for breakfast the next day.  She still liked it tonight, a couple of days later.

We also had some potato leek soup left over from a few days before.  I ate that.  Good cheese, good bread, good soup, and fresh fruit to top it off.  It was cold out, the woodstove finally heating up after a day of us gone, and we were filling our bellies.  It was a satisfying parent moment.   Happy kids, happy dad.

Soup is one of those foods that work pretty well most times, but especially well in the winter.  And they are cheap.  I am into cheap these days.  We spend a lot of money on food.  In some ways I am OK with that.  I want to eat good food.   I don’t like to compromise when it comes to food.  But good food is expensive.  It is one of those ironies of the food system.  The stuff that is grown close to home without all the extra poisons tossed onto it actually costs more.  It goes against logic–less shipping and less cost for all the added junk, yet it costs more?

I hope to make some soup later this week.  I hope it comes out well, and that it lasts.  That will satisfy the palate and the wallet.

Pie and Kites and Rain

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So we had this fall/harvest/Halloween shindig this afternoon and it was a blast. I spent about four hours in the kitchen making soup and pie. The soup was pretty easy and relatively quick. The pie took a while but I managed to make two of them, apple of course.

The first pie was a recipe from a cookbook (or most of a recipe). It has cheddar cheese right in the crust and the usual truckload of butter, a dash of cinnamon, vanilla, sugar. I used mostly Macintosh apples but I also added a bit of Honey Crisp, since we had a few of those hanging around the house. It turned out well, as it has for me in the past.

I made the second apple pie with a crust recipe my mother gave me years ago. That crust contains vinegar. The pie was all Macs this time but I spiced it differently, with a little cinnamon but also with cardamom. It, as well, turned out to be a winner.

I made both crusts by hand, literally. Instead of using the food processor shortcut, as I often do, I worked the dough with my fingers. This makes a far better crust, even better than using one of those pastry cutter jobbers. These crusts, while different, were flaky and tasty. They held up but could be peeled apart. They were crispy and sweet. That worked for me.

Once the soup and pies were consumed and the children were rounded up and the conversations ended and the gang took off, I did what any party host does. I cleaned. But then my son suggested we go fly kites, so I dropped the sponge and headed outside.

The wind was blowing from the southeast and it was strong. We got a couple of kites in the air for a little while, but the wind was fickle. We had a few nosedives. Plus, it started to rain. As the rain fell harder and harder, the wind petered out more and more. I brought the kites inside to dry and we called it good. I hung them in the mudroom. One of them has a long tail, maybe fifteen feet, so I had to drape it over multiple hooks.

Now, after dark, the children tucked into bed, the rain falls hard. They fear the power failing. Before bed they asked if it would go out. What could I say but what I always say? “I don’t know,” I told them. They fell asleep anyway. They sleep to the sound of rain and wind. And I think about having another piece of pie.

Pumpkins on the Railing and on the Table

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We have a dozen pumpkins on the railing of the deck.  These are the fruits, so to speak, of our gardening labor.  I have baked up a few of them so far, to use in muffins and soup.  I made two batches of muffins this past weekend.  One was great, the other flopped.

The flopped batch came from missing one ingredient.  It took me quite a while to realize what it was.  Then I remembered that I forgot the baking powder.  It is great to remember that I have forgotten something.  It is far better than to forget that I have remembered something.  The second batch was the progeny of the flop of the first batch.  I was excited to make these pumpkin apple muffins and then I ended up with these somewhat tasty but way too dense things.  The next batch was a winner.

I also made soup this weekend.  It was part of a simple meal:  fresh bread, fresh soup and apple pie.  The pie was a group effort (my mother and niece worked on that) so the meal was truly a family dinner.  The bread was pretty much dee-lish, if I may say that about my own honey oat perfectly risen perfectly baked warm buttery yeast creation.  And the soup was dang good as well.

My wife and I went out to dinner a few nights ago and had some squash soup that was really amazing.  It just folded into your tongue and wrapped around your taste buds in a teasing caress.  It was hard to get enough of that.  I though I might take some cues from that soup and, while I had no illusions that I would replicate it, try my own version.

My version was a pumpkin (duh!) soup, with cream and honey and cinnamon and sage.  It was creamy and smooth and sweet.  I made a lot but it was consumed, even by two young children and a teenager.  That was accolade enough for me.

There are still many pumpkins left.  I will bake and freeze a few and I will make more bread and more soup.  And maybe another batch of muffins.  We still have a bucketload of apples left as well.  Our oven won’t be idle for a while.