Souped Up Soup!

Yesterday I posted about my "take a peek into the produce bins and concoct some sort of soup for dinner" experience in the kitchen.  I commented that tonight's soup would be similar but with sautéed celery instead of the kale. (My apologies on the typo about "now add the onions and garlic" as it was supposed to be add the onions and kale. I fixed that boo-boo.)

OK, so the planned soup just got souped up. I discovered 4 buttercup squash, from Old Market Farm, in my garage last eve. Now I did not exactly lose them, they were just momentarily forgotten. I decided to get them into the house before they froze and started rotting on me.

So I roasted the squash this AM. Revving the oven up in early AM helps to warm the chilled downstairs after a cool night.

To make this soup quickly, on an eve after working all day: get the squash steaming first, before you sauté the celery and onions. Cut a small to medium buttercup squash in half, remove seeds, and put into a pot of water that has about 1 inch of water on the bottom. When water starts to boil, reduce heat to a gentle simmer, and cook squash for about 20 minutes. It will be ready when you finish with the sauté and soup prep. 

Kitchen Advice: Never boil your veggies in a pot full of water; steam in the least amount of water you can get away with and not go dry. This goes for potatoes you are cooking to mash. Less water means less nutrient loss. Pour off cooking water into a coffee mug, let cool, and drink. Get every cell enhancing mineral and nutrient any way and every way you can!

Now get going on the celery & onion saute'!

• Sauté the medium sized onion, cut into small chunks, and the celery leaves in bacon fat from local, pasture raised pigs, no nasty curing chemicals added. (Use whatever you like for gentle sautéing: pasture raised butter, coconut oil... I would avoid most vegetable oils but that is another blog post and story!) The celery will sauté quickly, add the celery after the onions are just about finished.  This way you do not over cook the celery leaves.
• Add approximately 3 1/2 cups of goat's milk to the blender with 3 big cloves of the Birdsfoot garlic.
• Add the onion and celery to the blender.  
• Plop in big scoops of the squash, at least use one half of the cooked squash. Be careful scooping the squash out of the shell as it is hot and a steamed squash gets mushy not rigid like an oven roasted one. (Add lots of butter and sprinkle with curry, the other half of the squash, while it is still hot so the butter melts. Mash the butter and curry into the squash. Put into a dish and take to work tomorrow!)
• Sprinkle in, oh maybe 1 tsp. of medium heat curry powder (Nature's Storehouse or the Potsdam Food Coop). I use more curry with squash or pumpkin soup because the squash flavor can handle it without being overwhelmed. Besides, the spices in curry are amazing healers!
• Blend until the consistency and smoothness you want in a cream soup is achieved.
• Pour in soup pot and gently warm.
• Ladle into soup bowls and add a pinch of unrefined sea salt, if desired.

Don't forget the beet gratings!  Beets soup up the soup in several ways:

• fiber
• nutrients
• raw veggie with dinner
• contrasting color to the pretty orange soup (this artsy cooking style feeds the heart, mind, and soul!)
• beets are used as cancer therapy in Germany and Russia!  Why wait to use as therapy; prevent health problems now!

Quickly grate the beet using my metal cheese grater. I sprinkled the beet gratings on top of this generously curry seasoned cream of squash/celery soup.

If the pot is big enough, or the eaters few enough, you will have left overs for lunch or later dinners this week!  OR... freeze in a wide mouth, quart Ball canning jar (leave head space for expansion during the freezing process) and enjoy in a week or two!

Cheers and happy, healthy cooking!

Gospel of the Slaw

So, you may be wondering if I have lost my mind, maybe a new chapter has been added to the Bible that you did not hear about yet, or something weird is going on... well, it is none of the above.

I have the best encounters with people I work with, one on one and in group settings.  People are truly amazing when we allow them to be at their very best.

I am often encountered with the "I eat nothing but salads and I still cannot lose weight" issue.  I try to explain that summer vegetable salads, in the fall and winter, are very cooling to our body.  Summer veggies are for summer eating.  When we summer cool ourselves, in the winter, we also slow our metabolism.

Want to rev up that metabolism with warming, winter nourishing veggies?  Try a root veggie and cabbage slaw.  Recipe below.

Now for the title, it goes back to the people I meet thing I mentioned above.  An endearing client labeled my slaw recipe as the "Gospel of the Slaw" and paid the good recipe forward to many friends and family members.  The slaw is a great way to get yummy, raw veggies into your winter diet and keep it all seasonal.

Be well, eat slaw.

PS  Grating a butter nut squash and spicing the salad dressing with cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, ginger, and vanilla is another fun way to enjoy raw winter veggies.

Root Veggie & Cabbage Slaw

Assemble enough vegetable to feed the people who will be gracing your dinner table, red and green cabbage and root vegetables:  beet, parsnip, rutabaga, celeriac, carrot, purple carrot, turnip, winter storage radishes (bigger than the summer salad radishes), kohlrabi, salsify, burdock, horseradish, etc.

Fine chop red and/or green cabbage

Grate, on a metal cheese grater, root veggies. Pick root veggies you grow or can acquire locally.  I use 2-4 root veggies with the chopped cabbage, choosing different root veggies with each meal.

Add a grated apple.  My kids eat more, and more willingly, when the juicy sweetness of a grated apple is part of the salad.

Mix together in a bowl with the above dressing

Cover and refrigerate until meal time.  I make this dish last and serve immediately with every fall and winter meal.

Optional:  add a few raisins, add walnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds… just make it yummy for you.

Salad Dressing

1 cup organic extra virgin olive oil

1 cup raw apple cider vinegar

1 tsp. organic prepared mustard; preferably made with apple cider vinegar, not grain vinegar

Dash unrefined sea salt

Dash fresh pepper

Crush clove of garlic

Herbs to taste:  rosemary, basil, oregano, thyme, parsley

Optional: 1 – 3 tbsp. dark maple syrup or sucanat unrefined sugar

I make this dressing in a Ball, wide mouth, quart canning jar so I always have it available for dinner salads, whatever the season.