Recipes

I planted my first garden this year. It was a lot of work at first, building garden boxes (thanks Kyle!) and filling them with a good soil/compost mix that we bought from our local dump. But the planning and planting was a joy and the garden has become a wonderful addition to my daily routine: water, weed (luckily not too much – we started with clean soil!), prune and harvest. I’ll post a picture soon, but for now I’ll try to list what I’ve got: tomatoes (cherry and heirloom), peppers (bell, jalepeno, green chili), bush beans, walla walla sweet onions, brussel sprouts, carrots, beets, kale, zucchini, pumpkins and a whole herb garden full of basil, chives, parsley, lavendar and green onions. What a list! I may have been a little over-ambitious this first year.

The challenge (and the beauty) of having an incredibly productive garden (we live in zone 4 – ideal for most things except lettuce and spinach) is finding fun, new and delicious ways to use the produce. I’ve been scouring the internet for fun recipe ideas all summer and just came across this lovely vegetable soup recipe on the blog of a girl I went to high school with. Thanks for the recipe, Michelle. Check out her blog Oh, Mishka!

Simple Vegetable and Bean Soup
6 carrots
4 celery stalks
1 onion
2-4 cloves of garlic
extra virgin olive oil
2 cans of beans, drained and rinsed (I used great northern and pinto beans)
2 boxes of chicken or vegetable broth
salt and pepper
other seasonings you want to include (I used cayenne pepper and bay leaves)

Heat the olive oil in a large pot. Chop the carrots, celery, and onion. I opted to use bigger, roughly sliced pieces of vegetables to give my soup a very rustic feel. Finely dice the garlic. Once your vegetables are ready, toss them all into the pot. Add a bit of salt and pepper, then sauté them for about 5 minutes, until the onions begin to look a bit translucent.

Now add your vegetable or chicken broth and the beans. Salt and pepper as much (or as little) as you’d like. I also added a dash of cayenne pepper to mine, because I like just a hint of extra heat in soups. I also added a couple bay leaves while the soup was cooking, then removed them before serving.

Cover your pot and let the soup simmer for about an hour, or until the vegetables are cooked to your liking. Serve with a side of homemade bread and enjoy!

Michelle says you can substitute any veggies into this soup and the beans add a nice little kick of protein. Can’t wait to try this!