Yes, We Cook!

Photo a little blurry, but what a nice color:

Borscht is a soup people tend to either go hot or cold on. I’m hot for it. Love it. I thought of that as one can eat it hot or cold too! (ugh, bad play on words, perhaps?) It can also be made with meat or just veggies. There are endless variations. I simply used what I had around as is my wont to do.

Ingredients:

• 6 beets (I used three orange and three red beets)

• 1 small purple cabbage

• 24 oz crushed tomato

• 48 oz vegetable stock

• 3 carrots

• 1 very large red onion

• 12 cloves of garlic

• 3 tbls dill (fresh would be better, I used dry)

• 1/2 cup very strong red wine vinegar (I get this really rocking stuff from a winery in California’s Napa Valley. My step father is the source. I have never liked the weak crap you can get in the grocery store and also grew up with fine vinegar. This stuff is thick and dark and you can’t see through it–it’s a whole other realm of wonderful–if you have ordinary vinegar you might want to use more as you like)

• 1 tbls paprika

• Salt to taste

I cut up everything in relatively large chunks as I am not well enough to do lots of time consuming stuff, including endless chopping. (I’m a hard-core foodie so I can’t give it up, but I do have to take a lot of short cuts) If you can cut some of the veggies before hand and saute them, that’s better. Then whether you puree it at the end is a matter of taste.

I just did big chunks and threw all the ingredients in a pot and let it cook for about an hour and a half. I then let it cool a bit and pureed it in a blender.

Top with thick delicious greek yogurt.

Related posts:

1. Roasted Beet Salad
2. Asian cole slaw
3. Festive roasted root veggies
4. Lentil soup with bison sausage
5. Summer gazpacho — with that which happened to be in my kitchen/garden