Ah! The first post of a blog that so many people have said they would check. We shall see what comes of it…
For me, part of packing has been processing all the food that comes from our weekly csa box — this was a task I set for myself when I quit my job a month ago, and I plan to accomplish it. So, what do you do with celery root? Thus far, I have managed make a sour sort of soup and also broke my vegetable peeler. It was old, and apparently just couldn’t handle the strain…
Aside from vegetables and their peelers, our most recent news is:
We made it to the three year mark in our marriage.
On the same day, Nat, who had asked his boss to lay him off, got that wish.
So — now we have a little financial safety net in case the whole freelance thing isn’t as great as it seems from the outside, and we can start traveling around, being somewhat vagabond-ish, and seeing if we can get into the swing of freelance work.
We have, through the mighty friendship of France and Jen, secured a cheap/possibly free place to live in Denver, and possibilities for some odd jobs to keep us busy until it is time to come home for the holidays, after which:
We will be traveling to Alabama to work on a sheep and goat farm during the lambing season, which means lots of photos of adorable newborn lambs to look forward to in the new year. I have to keep thinking about those freaking cute little lambs to remind myself that we are about have an amazing adventure which is totally worth giving up our quirky apartment and moving away for a little while…
Slightly Sour Celery Root Soup
Saute a diced onion (medium or half of a large onion — white or yellow, unless you want pink soup) with a glug of olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan over low heat. *
while the onion is softening, peel and chop into 1/2 inch chunks your celery root and any other vegetables you want to add — with the csa share, I often find I have turnips, which are a bit of a mystery to me, so I add those. Carrots are nice and change the color of the soup just enough that it moves from beige to tan. Parsnips are totally wonderful in a pureed soup, but are delicious so many other ways that I usually save mine for something other than soup. I usually wait on potatoes and if my soup ends up too sour/salty/spicy, I add some mashed potatoes and they sort of smooth things out.
add your veggies to the softened onions and turn up the heat to medium. Salt them fairly liberally — salt and oil are best friends, and when they can get into the vegetables together, they bring out the best flavor. Stir every so often in between whatever other tasks you have going on.
When you start getting browned edges on a few of the veggies, pour in enough vegetable stock (or chicken stock — Nat is vegetarian, so I have never tried that but am sure it would be tasty) to reach the top of the veggies. Maybe you make your own stock, but if you are looking to me for a recipe, I would wager you don’t. I don’t make my own either, but have a few brands that I prefer: If I can get it, my favorite is Imagine Organics No-Chicken Stock — their vegetable stock is more widely available, and is usually what is in my fridge. If I end up at the corner market, Swanson’s vegetable stock is pretty okay. I steer clear of the Kitchen Basics vegetable stock, as it tastes a little tinny to me, which is particularly odd since it comes in a cardboard carton…
this is where you make this soup your own:
add:
between 1 & 3 teaspoons of powdered ginger
between 1/4 and 2/3 cups white or apple cider vinegar
other possible additions:
a sliced up apple
some lemon zest or juice
a leftover roasted eggplant **
a few shakes of toasted sesame oil **
some thinly sliced garlic **
a few glugs of leftover white wine
some curry powder or paste and/or other spices — this soup can go in just about any direction you are hungry for. If you don’t want it sour, omit the vinegar.
Let it simmer until everything is soft, adding enough water or stock as it cooks so that nothing dries out. When the vegetables are soft enough that you can easily pierce them with a fork, turn off the heat. Now, make sure there is enough liquid (maybe an inch above the level of the vegetables) and blend to the consistency you like — if you have an immersion blender, this is your shining moment. If you don’t, a food processor or a regular blender both work quite well. Be careful and use common sense, no matter what kitchen implement you use, because there is always the danger of hot soup exploding all over you.
ta-da! now all you need to do is make croutons out of that old bread you were thinking of throwing away. Seriously — croutons are the backbone of soup culture, and are probably the easiest kitchen endeavor since TV dinners were invented. Just toss some cubed up old bread in olive oil or melted butter (my favorite) and garlic and salt (or garlic salt, if you want) and let them toast in the oven at 350 (or whatever you need to have the oven set at for something else) on a baking sheet for ten minutes or so or until they look just crispy enough. I like mine less brown so that they have a little chewiness left to soak up the soup. Make some, and thank me for prodding you into it once you do.
This is a great soup to make right before all your vegetables go bad and just put it in the fridge or freezer for lunches or an impromptu first course (with croutons, of course)
* in my opinion, all good soup starts with an onion, some olive oil, and a heavy-bottomed pan over low heat. I’m a little bit of texture snob when it comes to food, and a crunchy bite of semi-raw onion where it shouldn’t be (and it never should be in soup) can pretty much ruin a meal for me. A heavy bottomed pan heats slowly and evenly, so the onions go all soft and caramelly instead of staying raw but slightly singed. I often will start (and even complete, if I am not making too much) a soup in one of my cast iron pans, which I think is the very best kind of pan for almost everything. Cast iron is inexpensive and can always be re-seasoned if you make a mistake. My non-stick pots and pans just can’t compare.
** these are the things I added to tonight’s batch of soup.
