Late Summer Vegetable Soup

Fresh tomato juice is one of my favorite soup bases - it just tastes so good, doesn't it? Since I am getting ready to go on a road trip, I wanted to clear the fridge and what better use for 2 quarts of fresh tomato juice than a soup (OK, bloody marys, but that's not dinner - well, not without spicy dilly beans). So, this soup turned out really amazing - it's all about putting together the right things and not overdoing it, right? And, wanting to make some space in the fridge, I found a quart bag stuffed with ice cubes of tomato juice and added those, too...


Late Summer Vegetable Soup

Step 1: Saute in olive oil, in heavy bottom stockpot:

1/2 large white onion, minced fine

Step 2: when onions are softening and getting clear, add:

2 10-12" squash (1 zucchini & 1 coccozelle in this case), diced

Step 3: as zucchini are starting to brown, add

1 c frozen peas
2 c green beans chopped in 1-2" segments

Step 4: as everything starts to soften, add broth ingredients

3 quarts fresh tomato juice
1.5 quarts chanterelle broth (simmer 1-1.5 c. dried mushrooms, strain & reserve the mushrooms)
2 c of fire roasted red pepper juice (just happened to reserve after peeling & seeding peppers)
1 c orange tomato curry ketchup (some left from last fall's recipe)

Step 5: finely mince or julienne mushrooms, add to broth

Step 6: chiffonade into pot with scissors 2 handfuls of kale (red russian winter and lacinato), stems trimmed, more kale is good - depends on what you have (chard, arugula, parsley would all be good)

Step 7: add herbs, salt & pepper to taste:

1 t. dried tarragon
1 t. dried sage
1 t. dried marjoram
1 t. dried savory
1 T. dried rosemary
1 t. powdered garlic
1 t. black pepper
1 T. salt

Step 8: cube 16 oz block of extra firm Nigori tofu into 1.5' chunks, stir in gently

Step 9: prepare 2-3 c orrechiete pasta in salted water with olive oil (to keep it from sticking together - you aren't tryig to get sauce to stick to this pasta, so it's ok) - once broth is about where you want it, still thin - add cooked pasta to soup

Step 10: eat yummy soup and bring some to work in a nice big quart size mason jar.

YIELD:
Serves A FREAKING LOT! Ok, about 8 quarts. Get eating!

CSA Box for June 13

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Originally uploaded by jennconspiracy

Pretty good combination - some fruit to make up for the overripe fruit I got last Friday (cherries had mold on them, peaches were brown and mushy).

Lavender was in this week's box - something else to strike from my list as I have some growing in the yard (and almost 1# dried lavender blossoms from my herbs purchase!)

Dobson inspected the box and we were both puzzled that my request for "no plastic" resulted in every item being enclosed in plastic!

Customer service was very good - she is going to make sure that it's all in paper next week. Click on the photo for more pictures of Dobson's CSA inspection process.

Vegetable Revelations

A bouquet of collard greens is good for over 1 week in a Hull beanpot - then some of the leaves get kinda yellow, so I chopped up the rest of the leaves and made some killer collard greens on Monday night (thanks Erin & Dave!).

I paired the collard greens with a really decent curry (and tumeric/bharat seasoned quinoa) that included all my leftover veggies from the party weekend before last and stuff from Friday's CSA box: Nantes carrots, green beans, peas, 1/4 of a cauliflower, two small yellow potatoes, a red onion, mushrooms, raw cashews (browned), garlic, and the remaining 4 frozen cubes of tomato juice and 4 TB of frozen tomato paste. I added a pile of garam masala, a bit of hot curry powder, chili flakes and a bit of water at the end to simmer and soften up the carrots and potatoes more. It turned out fantastic. That was lunch and dinner yesterday, and lunch today.

I also used up the radishes from the CSA box and the red leaf lettuce to make up four salads for lunch for the week -- turns out that Dobson really really likes radishes. My cats keep acting like they are starving -- Dobson is going to the corner house and entering the kitchen when their door is open to eat dog food (much to the astonishment of Frankie, a small black dog about Dobs' size but much taller due to his long skinny legs) and George is foraging around backyard grills and bringing back chop and steak bones (into the HOUSE!).

After I made the salads for the week, I left a pile of radish, lettuce and carrot peels for Dobs - it was all gone by morning.

This evening, I wanted to have some fruit juice -- but I didn't have any in the house. Sitting in my fridge was a small yellow watermelon -- it was a bit overripe when I got it, hauling it to Black Sand Beach and back on Sunday probably didn't help. I cleaned it and put it in the blender with water and agave, strained half of it and now have a pitcher of gorgeous refresco. Though my favorite is agua de melon, I'm very happy with my yellow agua de sandia!

Tonight's dinner was pasta with sauce - I used up some olive tapenade, 8 oz of cremini mushrooms, a small shallot, garlic and a can of plain 365 tomato sauce. I threw in a couple of cubes of frozen arugula-basil pesto and - voila! Killer pasta sauce in under 30 minutes. The key is to carmelize the onions and mushrooms first -- that makes the sauce rich and tasty. Much cheaper than buying a jar of prepared sauce. Pictures forthcoming...

Garden is coming along nicely - the tomato plants that went in a few weeks ago are really picking up steam. I'm a bit worried about the pepper sprouts and the other tomato sprouts - they don't seem to be doing quite so well (yet). The basil sprouts are also looking poorly. I found something to put over the parsley seeds to keep the boys from digging them up again. The catnip plant is high up on top of my shed in a pot -- my mom suggested growing it in a hanging basket -- might make more sense given the agility of the kitty who was most attracted to the fresh catnip -- George is a leaper.

The chard is really perking up and the arugula is just a day or two away from being a salad or pesto. Time to put in more arugula seeds!

CSAs

I'm looking at CSA options -- I want to go half-sies with James on one and am trying to find options in my area. So far, I've got:

1. Full Belly Farm Guinda, CA - $25 per week, pick up from a spot in the neighborhood.

2. Farm Fresh to You Capay, CA - $29 per week, delivered. I met these folks at Green Festival last fall, they seem really nice and looks like the best option so far.

3. Terra Firma Farm Winters, CA - $25 per week, pick up.

I know there must be others but I can't find them easily... thoughts?