cold soups

It has been in the 90;s and 100's lately, so early in the year. I am going to try something I've never done before - cold soups. My first try is Jade Garden Soup. It is simmering right now. I'll use chard instead of spinach since that is what I have. Hope we like it.

Jade Garden Soup

Rated: Submitted By: CORWYNN DARKHOLME Photo By: Soup Loving Nicole Prep Time: 25 Minutes Cook Time: 45 Minutes Ready In: 1 Day 1 Hour 10 Minutes Servings: 7

"A savory combination of spinach, lettuce, and parsley are pureed with rice, not cream, in this cool jade green soup. Garnish with sour cream, paprika, and dill."

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil 1 onion, chopped 1 carrot, sliced 2 stalks celery, sliced 6 cups chicken stock 1/3 cup uncooked white rice 1 1/3 cups fresh spinach, washed

and chopped 1 1/3 cups butter lettuce - rinsed, and torn into small pieces 1 1/3 cups chopped fresh parsley salt to taste ground black pepper to taste 1 pinch cayenne pepper

Directions:

1.	Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in onion, carrot, and celery; cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent and the vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes.
2.	Pour in chicken stock and rice; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 35 minutes or until rice is soft.
3.	Stir in spinach, lettuce, and parsley; cook just until wilted. Season with salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper. Use an immersion blender (or blend in batches in a blender) until smooth. The soup may be thinned with more broth, if desired. Refrigerate overnight before serving. Garnish as desired.

swiss chard

This morning I went to the Farmer's Market and bought some Swiss chard. It is one of my favorite vegetables to grow because it is so trouble free -it doesn't mind the heat, doesn't mind the cold, can take a bit of a freeze -  but I do not have any of my own yet. So I was pleased to find some locally grown. I made the following recipes from Marissa Macclellan's Food in jars blog (see link below). The green leafy parts are cut up and put into meat loaf and the stems are made into a quick refrigerator pickle. The stems of one bunch of chard made exactly one pint of pickled chard stems which I am looking forward to eating in a couple of days. The meat loaf was delicious though I would chop up the chard greens finer in my ninja next time and I used ground beef rather than ground turkey since I have wonderful ground beef in my freezer which my nephew raised for me. . Her recipe called for leeks but i used chopped chives and garlic chives because those I have growing in my yard. 

http://foodinjars.com/2015/05/csa-cooking-turkey-meatloaf-and-quick-pickled-chard-stems/

Fresh Mint Tea

My mint bed is pretty lush. I don't know what kind it is because it was already in place when we bought our house. It is growing through an area which is lined with groundcloth and covered with gravel. I think the former homeowner might have done that to suppress the mint but it happily grows right through it.

Making fresh mint tea today.

Sweet Mint Tea
Pack a quart jar with fresh, clean mint leaves. Add 1/2 cup sugar. Run hot water over outside of jar to prevent breakage, the pour in
Boiling water to fill
Agitate jar to dissolve sugar. Cover loosely and let stand several hours or overnight. Strain contents. use resulting concentrate by pouring into ice-filled tall glasses. May freeze concentrate.

Plain Mint Tea
Pack quart jar with fresh, clean mint leaves. Pour in boiling water. Let stand several hours or overnight. Strain contents. Use resulting concentrate by pouring into ice-filled tall glasses. May freeze.

This procedure may be used for any fresh herbal tea such as with lemon balm.

Ukrainian canned winter salad

I heard a lady who moved here from Ukraine give a talk about her country. The whole talk was fascinating and covered all sorts of subjects. One thing she said was that home canning was veeeery popular in Ukraine and they canned winter salads. I found a recipe for that online and here is a link. http://www.valentinascorner.com/canned-vegetable-salad/
I believe I will try this except I will not try oven canning but water bath can it. I noticed that several Ukrainian canning recipes I found online use oven canning and flipping the jars. Don't think I'll try that though.

Perennial vegetables

Since reading Eric Toensmeyer's book "Paradise Lots" - oh such a good book by the way! https://paradiselotblog.wordpress.com/All about how he and his partner made their 1/10th acre city lot into a permaculture garden in a northern climate.



Anyway, I read about perennial vegies and thought I'd try some.



I know, asparagus right?



 But I decided to start with sea kale and sorrel. So far the seeds (from Restoration Seeds http://www.restorationseeds.com/) are just planted in flats and I am waiting for them to come up.

I have them slated for a shady spot where I took out dead juniper.

Herbs make a pretty short list

I only have a few herbs in the yard. There is chamomile which reseeds itself, and lemon balm and mint which are perennial. I harvested chamomile and lemon balm yesterday to dry for tea. I live in a dry climate so I just put it in paper lunch sacks and set it out of the way until it is dry.




There are chives and garlic chives as well which I just cut and use. If there are a lot I freeze the extra. The garlic chives seem to be spreading throughout the back yard and make it smell interesting when we mow the grass.

Small fruit in my yard

My yard is semi shady but some small fruits do well. My red  raspberry patch (Polana) has produced like crazy the past few years. My friend Chris, a fabulous gardener gave me my starts. This variety is one where you cut the canes right to the ground every fall after they are done bearing and they come up again in the spring from the roots. These are known as primocanes aka fall bearing. The other kind are floricanes aka summer bearing. She had tried many varieties of raspberries and this is the one which survived in our climate - zone 3, sometimes 4. The floricane types always died out in our harsh winters.


I have a Hinnomaki Red gooseberry bush which produced well the last couple of years but this year did not flower and the leaves are curled. I must find out what is wrong with it.


There are two currant varieties - red currant and golden currant. Both produced a lot of growth and beautiful leaves but no flowers this year.

Rhubarb of course, a gift from a friend, which does well in front of a downspout.

I planted black raspberry - McBlack - last year which is supposed to do well in zone 3. The initial planting died out over the winter but they are spreading into deeply shaded nooks around the yard this year. Aren't they supposed to be sun lovers? I hope they produce something.

Three mature crabapple trees make a nice deeply shaded area in the side yard. They bloom beautifully and produce tiny red crabapples. I made pickled crabapples one year and crabapple jelly one year. The deer love them and make a cozy sleeping area for themselves between the trees in the winter so I have been leaving the crabapples for the deer.


I tried grafting real apples to one of the crabapple trees but the grafts did not take. I want to try again but I keep putting it off until too late in the season.