Soup Season is here and we couldn’t be more ready!
Leeks are a favorite late season crop that add so much depth of flavor to everything they touch, especially soup! We had a bumper crop this year so I’m excited to experiment with leeks this winter…
Straight up Potato Leek soup is divine, so I wasn’t sure if I should mess with it… but I did because I can’t help hiding extra veggies in all my meals.
So, here’s a soup that’s every bit as delicious with some added protein and veggie power. But it all starts with bacon, so don’t worry, this is definitely scores high on the flavor meter.
Ingredients
Bacon- 1 lb locally raised Leeks- Three large or four medium leeks Thyme- few fresh sprigs or 2 tsp dry Bay Leaf- 1-2 Potatoes- 4 medium-sized, peeled and cubed Cauliflower- half to a full head, cut up (or 2 cups Zucchini, shredded) Any White Beans- ~ 1 cup Chicken Stock- 3-4 Cups Salt + White Pepper to taste 2 Tbsp Cream Cheese – optional
Directions
Soak and cook beans until soft (or used canned). Fry the bacon on low until crispy. Set bacon to drain. Use bacon fat to sauté leeks, on medium low for 5-7 minutes. Add in potatoes, cauliflower or zucchini, thyme and bay leaves. Pour in chicken stock. Simmer until everything is well cooked, 20+ minutes. Fish out bay leaf and thyme sprigs. Add in cream cheese. Use an immersion blender (or blender) to puree soup, or leave chunky if preferred.
Garnish with cream, microgreens, fried leeks, bacon, kale chips, etc… Delicious with homemade sourdough!
I’ve got more Forks in the Dirt “Veggie Heavy” Recipes over on my RECIPES PAGE. I hope you love this soup as much as we do, let me know what you think of the added cauliflower and white beans.
This is my husband’s favorite hearty winter soup; a hearty blend of locally grown goodness that somehow becomes much more than the sum of its parts. Specifically this is a potage; which sounds really fancy but simply means a really thick soup.
I could go on and on about how much I love soups, and I’ve already compiled a few of my other favorite soups in a blog a while back, “Simmering Through Winter: Soup Suite”. It takes you through making “Very Veggie Zuppa Toscana, my take on a Basic Veggie Soup and a Ham + Lentil (way better than your split pea soup!!) plus some tips and tricks to making amazing soups- like getting the herbs and spices you add to “bloom”, stock vs broth, etc.
But back to this amazing simple yet sublime soup.
Sausage, Kale + Potato Potage
1 lb pork sausage (local makes a huge difference here!)
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp Oregano dried
1-2 tsp Thyme dried
2 tsp Celery leaf dried
2 cups shredded zucchini (I use frozen)
4 small or one huge russet style potato
4-6 Cups torn Kale (I use frozen too)
6 cups chicken stock
Fresh parsley for serving (or any microgreens you happen to have)
Instructions: Sautée Italian pork sausage until fully cooked, can spoon off some of the fat if desired (I find that locally raised pork products don’t have nearly as much fat as commercially raised kinds). Then add onions and sautée a few minutes, then garlic, then herbs.
Let the herbs ‘bloom’; this is when you let the dried herbs cook in fat before adding liquid to the pot – this is soup MAGIC!
Once you enjoy the aromas of all the herbs, add in the ‘wet’ ingredients; kale, zucchini, then potatoes and stock. This simmers only as long as the potatoes need to cook.
Serve with warm crusty bread, adding fresh greens, cheese or roasted squash/pumpkin seeds to the bowl just before serving. Or, you know, eat it right out of the pot…
For this suburban Homesteader this means dyeing your Easter Eggs with whatever you’ve got in the house. Plus this means you can actually eat them without worrying about ‘extra’ chemicals.
Bubbles on a dipped egg right out of the dye
Natural dyed Easter eggs have a simple yet stunning charm, plus I think the process is much more manageable for parents with younger kids…
I know we’re all busy but if you can chop a few veggies and simmer them while boiling the eggs you’ve got this!
Another great part is that the kids drop the eggs in the liquid dye containers (old yogurt cup, mason jars, what you have) and then wait to see their creations until the morning!
Natural Dye Basics
My boys got into the ‘science’ part of this with labeling the dyes
These natural dyes take at minimum 3 hours to really set in, and we let ours soak overnight. So, the ‘hands-on’ time for kids is more in the prep of the food items.
I love introducing the idea that food can be used for crafting as well as nutrition with my kids. My boys also love guessing which will be the most blue, dark, beautiful etc. I appreciate the added layer of anticipation this process invites.
That being said – there are obviously as many ways to do this as there are chickens who lay all those eggs, so YOU DO YOU!
PS: All chickens also appreciate the over cooked cabbage, beet peelings and blueberry mash!
If you happen to have a LOT of eggs coming in from your chickens, try making my Homestead Strata recipe!
My Favorite Fruits and Vegetables for Easter Egg Dyeing (*depicts color of processed egg)
Yellow Onion Skins:
Boiling Onion Skins
*RUSSET RED I had saved these for a few weeks, but you may have enough for a small batch just laying in the bottom of your veg bin (or is that just me?) Boil in water 40 minutes to release the color
Lavender Flowers:
*OLIVE I usually have some older and not very fragrant bunches of dried lavender flowers (and leaves and stems) around. Rinse them off, crumble into a pot and boil for 30 minutes.
Red Cabbage:
Boiling chopped Cabbage
*EASTER BLUE I used the wilted outer leaves plus a few more, 6 or 7 leaves in all and chopped them randomly to help them release their beautiful colors. Boil for 30 minutes.
Beets:
*DARK RED I also usually have a few remaining beets from last fall’s gardens in the bottom of my veg drawer. These slightly shriveled beets are perfect for taking thick peelings off of to use for dyeing (and I still save the beets to roast) Boil for 30 minutes.
Grape:
*BLUE/GRAY I usually forage some wild grapes every Fall and freeze the extra juice. So I’ll add some water to the juice I had already boiled to thin it out to have enough to cover the eggs. *This could work well with purchased juices too!
Blueberry:
*BRIGHT BLUE I used a half cup of frozen blueberries and 1 cup of water. Not the most cost effective food use, but wow were these eggs turned vibrant and a fun compliment color to the red cabbage. I mashed and boiled for 5 minutes.
Turmeric:
*YELLOW I use powder so no need to simmer, just mix with water and vinegar before dyeing the eggs.
Egg Dyeing Process
For me part of the beauty of this process is the anticipation it builds by just leaving the eggs in the dye overnight- my kids are used to this way now, so they know what to expect- but if explained to kids as both a science experiment and a way to wake up to a surprise, you really can’t go wrong!
You basically chop up veggies or mash fruit, boil to extract to colors, cool and strain.
Hard Boil the eggs and cool.
Then get into a container that works for submerging however many eggs you want to dye. Once in the container, right before you’re going to dip the eggs, add 1-2 tablespoons of vinegar per cup of liquid. Then let the kids dunk the eggs and wait!
One difference between this and the commercial dye kits is the colors can rub off more easily, so be gentle. Also I find the beet dye usually oxidizes to brown within a day, so I added a bit of cherry juice this time (remember just use what you’ve got!) to help it hold the red. I also recommend polishing with a little olive oil once *completely* dry.
So we leave our sit/soak overnight – and the kids love scooping them out in the morning – we let them air dry and then GENTLY rub them with olive oil. Project done. Kids feel like artists. I like that I didn’t buy anything extra.
Always Experimenting
I finally got to the point of laying pretty flowers and leaves onto these before dyeing and I loved it. I ended up boiling the eggs with the imprints tied on in the onion solution (with vinegar). I followed THESE basic instructions and ended up happy for my first attempt. I can’t wait to try again next year!
Bottom Line: we love making homemade Easter eggs!
Beets, Tumeric powder, Red Cabbage
We’ve come a long way since the first time I tried dyeing eggs without the fake colors and extra plastic + packaging.
But ever since that first year, we’ve been hooked!
Here’s another idea with a match up of natural dyes used to finished colors from this year.
These colors are from what you get when left overnight. Let me know if you give this a try, I love seeing everyone’s photos!!
There’s something so fun and even empowering in using regular household things to create art. Plus – We will be able to eat the hard boiled eggs without worry of added toxic dyes.
Happy Spring and Enjoy the return of all the eggs!
We all have our favorite food from holiday meals. That one most anticipated dish, or the combination of flavors that only happens once a year. For me it was the turkey stuffing and pumpkin spice cake. Although… looking back now, doing dishes with my grandma holds just as special a space in my heart.
I distinctly remember my grandma’s attic stairs around the holidays. They would be lined with all the baked goods she’d made, to keep them cool in what she referred to as her ‘extra ice box’. Each step held its own treasure; pumpkin chiffon, lemon meringue or apple pie, brownies, apricot strudel, lemon bars. But my favorite Thanksgiving dessert was the pumpkin spice cake! My Grandma was quite the baker.
Recipe Updates
I hope Grandma would still be proud of the recipe as I make it today. I’ve swapped and altered (quite) a few things. I make my own pumpkin puree, but there are decent organic canned versions out there now too! I use coconut oil instead of vegetable oil. And I swap half of the regular flour with oat flour, which is simply whole rolled oats that I’ve pulsed in my Nutribullet until flour like. I’ve also doubled the spices- so know that you can make this recipe your own as well.
I’ve tried to get this to an all Gluten Free version, but because my taste buds are locked into all the other things associated with this dessert, half GF is as close as I can get. This is a splurge anyways, and worth every bite!
To make a roll, invert a jelly roll pan of baked recipe on a tea towel and gently roll up and let cool in rolled position. Unroll to frost, re-roll and enjoy!
The recipe is also quite versatile. I’ve made it as bars, bread, muffins, a two-layer cake and most recently even a ‘roll’. Delicious whatever the form takes.
A note on pumpkin puree: Making your own pumpkin puree is not hard, but you do have to plan ahead a bit. The process is easy; cut a pie pumpkin in half and scoop out guts, roast cut side up (some people roast whole and scoop out after baking- I’ve never tried that!) at 350F for 1.5 – 2 hours. Let cool, scoop out chunks, and puree. It tastes AMAZING!
With either homemade or purchased pumpkin puree, I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!
Pumpkin Spice Cake Recipe:
4 eggs
1C Coconut Oil
1.5 C Sugar (I use raw)
2 C Pumpkin Puree
Thoroughly blend
Clockwise: Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Cloves, Ginger
In a separate Bowl MIX
1 C Oat Flour (grind/blender whole oats)
1 C White Whole Wheat Flour (or whatever flour you have)
½ tsp Salt
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 T Cinnamon
1 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Cloves
1 tsp Ginger (Or sub all spices with 2 T pumpkin spice blend)
Add flour mixture to wet ingredients, mix well. Pour into
greased pan.
I used to add chopped nuts before my boys outlawed them… Bake at 350F for 20-40 minutes depending on what kind of pan you’re using; muffin tin – loaf pan.
Cream Cheese Frosting!
8 oz pkg of cream cheese 1 T milk 1-2 tsp vanilla 1 C + powdered sugar *We add ground ginger to the frosting as well** adjust milk to make as think or thin as you like.
In case you’re looking for more healthy recipes for your winter squash varieties, I’ve got you covered with my “Holiday Market Meals“.
Can’t wait for you to dig into this recipe with family and friends this season! Just try to save some for the guests 😉 Michelle
