Winter vegetables are still abundant in our gardens because of our mild fall.
If you still have beets, cabbage, onions, parsley and celery in your garden you are fortunate, but if not look up sookefoodchi.ca to find the local farms which may have any of the above.
Borscht
Choose 5 to 8 medium- sized beets with tops, a small cabbage or medium cabbage cut in half, 1 or 2 onions, depending on your taste, and a good bunch of parsley and 4-6 stalks of celery, or tops of celeriac or a celeriac bulb.
You can either start with a beef bone in about 10 cups of water or some chicken broth or just use 10 cups of water.
Add some salt and pepper.
Chop the beets and tops into chunks.
Shred and chop the cabbage, onions and celery or celeriac.
Chop the parsley fine and add all to the boiling broth.
Cook until all the vegetables are tender.
This will give you a nice thick borscht soup which when ladled into a bowl with a dolop of sour cream or plain yogurt.
Some like to add 1 tbsp vinegar to the bowl of borsht as well.
Serve with whole wheat bread or corn meal muffins.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Sift 3/4 cup flour, 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1 tbsp. sugar, 3/4 tsp. salt.
Add, 11/4 cups yellow corn meal.
In a separate bowl beat one egg, 2 to 3 tbsp. melted butter or beef or bacon drippings and 1 cup milk.
Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture and just a few mixes to combine the two.
Place batter in well greased pan or muffin tins and bake for about 25 minutes.
Any leftover soup can be put into plastic bags, plastic sour cream or yogurt containers, labeled with date and year and what’s inside, to be used for a quick meal when needed.
Any questions or recipes you may like to see, you may email Ellen at mrslewersfarmhouse@shaw.ca
