Winter Vegetable Soup

I made a wonderfully delicious soup with some of our winter CSA vegetables. I wasn't sure what to do with radishes and a rutabaga, but the farm website had a recipe that included those plus carrots and butternut squash, all which we had gotten in the pickup this week. I didn't have all the ingredients so I modified it a little, adding some and ommiting others. It turned out really well, and I now think this is my favorite soup, pushing the Winter Barn Stew down to number two.

For anyone interested, here's my recipe:

4 cups vegetable stock/broth
1 large carrot
1 small parsnip
1 onion
1 cup daikon radish
1 cup rutabaga
2 cups butternut squash
1 can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup dried parsley
2T cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 cup water
1 tsp sesame oil
sea salt to taste

Peel squash and cut all veggies in bite-sized pieces. Sautee onions in 1 tsp sesame oil, add veggie stock/broth and bring to a boil. Add all vegetable pieces, beans, parsley and cornstarch mixture. Simmer 45 minutes, season with sea salt, and serve with crusty bread.

Haven't posted in a while

I've been meaning to post on a lot of things, but I haven't found the time. It's rainy today so it seems like a good opportunity.

I was lucky enough to be able to take 4 weeks off of work this July & August. I couldn't take them all at once, but I was off for two weeks, worked for one week, then was off for two more weeks. It was really nice, and I got the chance to relax and experience life at my preferred speed, instead of the crazy hectic life I usually lead.

One of the weeks was spent on Cape Cod with Sallie, Michele, & Catherine at Sallie's mom's beautiful house in Chatham. We spent some time at the beach, rode our bikes, went to coffee shops, practiced yoga, and ate really well.

Speaking of eating well, the CSA produce that we're getting continues to be wonderful. We had a couple of weeks where everything was purple. Purple carrots, purple peppers, purple broccoli, and three different variations of purple eggplant. We also had glorious peaches and several different types of melon. Yum!

Now that the seasons are changing we are starting to get more fall produce. We are getting a lot of corn, red peppers, apples, and different types of squash.

The change of season also marks the transition from road cycling to off-road cycling and I'm starting my cyclocross racing season tomorrow! It will be an appropriate kick-off since it will be a mudfest after all the rain today. :-) It's not cyclocross without mud!

I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully I'll get my race reports posted without too much delay and maybe that will inspire me to update this blog more regularly.

Kohlrabi, Scallions & Garlic Scrapes

Ok, maybe I do have something to say after all.

Geoff and I have purchased a half of a farm share (we're splitting it with Catherine). For those of you who don't know, Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a way for us city folk to get farm-fresh food without it being picked raw and shipped halfway around the country. It's also a fun way to try new food, since you have no control over what will be in your CSA box each week - you have to figure out what to do with whatever you end up bringing home with you.

Our first week of the CSA gave us strawberries, green garlic, turnips, beets, lettuces and spinach. Neither Geoff nor I had ever cooked turnips or beets before (although we both like beets a lot), but the farm's website had a recipe for Beets, Carrots and Hakurei Turnips in a Lime Vinaigrette, which I made, but used a raspberry vinaigrette marinade which I got at the cider mill store in Vermont. It turned out pretty well. The turnips didn't really have a lot of taste on their own and took on the flavor of the beets and carrots. I also sauteed the green tops of the beets and turnips with green garlic and olive oil, and that was scrumptious.

This week (2nd pickup) we got some new items - kohlrabi, garlic scrapes and dill - along with strawberries, turnips, carrots, scallions, lettuce, and spinach.

Last week I didn't know what green garlic was, and this week I didn't know what kohlrabi or garlic scrapes were. The kohlrabi we got were purple and looked like little sputniks with leaves attached. I was a little taken aback and unprepared. The farm website didn't have any recipes for kohlrabi so I turned to the world wide web for assistance. I found a recipe for roasted kohlrabi which I modified to use some of the other items from the CSA. (That vegetarian cooking class I took this spring is paying off!)

This is my made-up recipe:

2 kohlrabi, peeled and diced
4 tiny farm-fresh scallions, diced
2 garlic scrapes, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
dash salt

Mix ingredients in a bowl, transfer to oven-safe casserole dish and bake at 450 degrees for 30-40 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes (approx) after first 20 minutes.

It was absolutely delicious! I highly recommend it.

For the record, the kohlrabi was very tasty raw as well. One could easily slice it and add it to salads for a bit of extra crunch and flavor.

I also sauteed the kohlrabi leaves with turnip and beet leaves and the last of the green garlic from the previous week.

I'm not sure what to do with the dill, but Catherine said she has a potato salad recipe that uses it, and if the sun ever appears, then that would be a nice thing to have out on the deck on a warm, sunny evening.

Can't wait to see what's in our pickup tomorrow!