Harvest Monday - 18 January 2010

Even though I've been gone for almost half the week I did better about eating from my stores. Early in the week we had a stir fry. I defrosted some Komatsuna. I wasn't impressed with the defrosted texture. It became tough to chew. Not terribly, but enough to notice. The chard and spinach freeze better.

I had my ubiquitous winter coleslaw, with carrots and onions from the garden and stored cabbage from the farmers market.

Then I made minestrone soup which is mostly vegetables. I love minestrone soup. It tastes so good, but is so good for you. It can be made either vegetarian or with sausage like my son likes it.

Minestrone soup and freshly grilled bread

Daphne's Minestrone Soup

• olive oil
• 1-2c onions
• 1 c celery
• 1-2 cups carrots
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/4-1/2 lb hot Italian turkey or pork sausage (totally optional if you want to go vegetarian)
  
• 3 c tomato sauce
• 1 qt broth (either chicken or veggie)
• 1 1/2 c grated zucchini
• 1 c green beans
• 1 c cooked spinach chopped
• 3 c cooked dried beans of whatever varieties you like
• 1/2 c red wine (optional - I do this if there is a bottle already open)
• T fresh basil or pesto
• t dried oregano
• T dried parsley
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 c dried pasta which has then been cooked
• grated Parmesan cheese
  

First chop the onions and add them to the pan with olive oil.

I used the last of my stored onions. I didn't have quite enough, but I did have some leeks from the garden still, so I chopped them up too. I sauteed them until they started looking translucent.

I chopped up the last of the fresh garden carrots too. I still have some frozen, but if I want fresh I'll need to go to the supermarket. I added these and some store bought celery.

And some garlic from the garden. I still have tons of garlic. I think it is going to last the winter unless I start using it up more.

Once those are nice and sauteed down. I added the chicken broth, wine and the frozen tomato sauce made from my garden tomatoes. Canned tomato sauce looks so much prettier than the frozen stuff.

Then came the frozen veggies saved from the garden: green beans, zucchini, spinach (not pictured), and pesto (only olive oil and basil with nothing else added, I freeze it on a cookie sheet and break it into chunks). I added my beans. One cup was cranberry beans from the garden. The rest were local kidney beans and Jacob's cattle beans.

Then I seasoned it with oregano and parsley that I had dried from my garden. And added salt and pepper. I always cook the pasta separately so it won't get mushy. The soup recipe makes almost three quarts so I freeze it without the pasta and leave some in the fridge for lunches. As we eat it the pasta gets added along with the cheese. I once made the mistake of freezing the pasta and soup together. Ick!

Minestrone is a great soup to use up anything that needs using in the fridge. Cabbage or chard can be used instead of spinach if that is what you have.

If you would like to help me believe that harvests still exist, put your name and URL into Mr. Linky below. It doesn't matter how big or small your harvest is. If you have had a harvest this last week, show us and join in! Just a note. Last time quite a few people put links to all sorts of weird posts, but not the harvest post they wrote. Make sure you are putting the correct link into Mr. Linky. I can fix them if necessary, but would rather not.