Soupin' It Up

A running joke in our household is that when Ian is away on business I revert back to breakfast food for every meal. Before we had children, I would subsist on breakfast cereal when he was out of town.  Early in our marriage, he would actually prepare meals for me in advance of his departure to make sure that I had things to eat until he returned.  That seems so long ago.  I am a much better cook now but Ian has always been far more motivated than me to make "dinner" food for dinner. I am quite happy to have pancakes or eggs on toast for supper; dinner food is overrated in my opinion.

With Ian away in New Orleans for the week but no yummy sugary breakfast cereal in the house, I spent the day preparing some "real" dinners in advance.  I may still resort to pancakes later in the week but I figured that I would at least make an effort before the kids wear me out.

I had some mushrooms from my patch ready to harvest and a surplus of goat milk so I started off with cream of mushroom soup.

Recipe: Gael Glen Farm's Cream of Mushroom Soup

INGREDIENTS

1 lb. mushrooms (half sliced, half chopped)
1 Tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, sliced
2 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
4 cups broth
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1 cup goat milk
1 tsp soy sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Wash the mushrooms to remove any dirt or debris. Slice half of the mushrooms and roughly chop the other half.

Add the olive oil, mushrooms, garlic, salt, pepper and thyme to a soup pot. Sauté the mushrooms over medium heat until they have released all of their moisture, all the liquid has evaporated from the bottom of the pot, and the mushrooms become very dark brown.

Add the butter and flour to the pot. Stir and cook for about two minutes more. The flour and butter will form a thick paste and coat the mushrooms and the bottom of the pot.

Add the broth and stir to dissolve all of the flour from the bottom of the pot. Allow the liquid to come up to a simmer, at which point the flour will slightly thicken the broth.

Stir the milk into the soup and add the soy sauce.  Serve hot with fresh bread for dipping.

With Ian not here to eat up the leftovers for lunches, I decided that I had better clean out the fridge.  This chore resulted in a pot of "leftovers soup". 

I could be fancy and call it "roasted corn and rotisserie chicken chowder" but really, it is just the contents of my fridge from last week's meals.  Happily, it made 4.5 L of soup so I was able to freeze a few jars for easy meals later.

Finally, I pulled out the leftover apples that Ian and I peeled and sliced last week when we were making apple chips in the dehydrator.  I used some of our homemade lard to make pastry for an apple pie. 

I still had apples left over so I threw the rest into a crisp with walnuts and raisins in the topping.  Ian hates nuts and raisins in apple crisp so we will just have to eat it all up before he gets home!

And there we have it - dinners and desserts for the next two days.  We may still end up eating breakfast for dinner later in the week but at least I can say I tried.