Soup For Supper

It’s amazing how when you have a family member who is relegated to a “soft” diet for a few days how much soup needs to be simmering on the stove.  Miss T had wisdom teeth extracted on Saturday and was ordered to stick with a soft diet for one week.  Are you kidding me?  I mean, we all like soup, we are keen on soup and that’s a good thing because we are eatin’ soup for supper!

Today I’ll be sharing a recipe for “Parsnip Soup”.  Roasting the parsnips is an important step in this recipe as it brings out the nutty, sweet flavor.  Parsnips, a cousin of carrots make a lovely, creamy soup.  Parsnips are not easy to find at my local markets so I substituted waxy potatoes for part of the parsnips.  Prime season for parsnips is fall and winter.  Bigger is not better when choosing parsnips as the larger ones tend to be woody and bitter.  Select small to medium-sized parsnips with even color and no dark spots.

I have a couple of other soup recipes I”ll be sharing over the next few days so I dare say February has started off as “Soup Month”.  It’s likely I’ll be rustling up some other dishes as well, especially as Valentines Day approaches.  Meantime dig out your stock pot and make a big ole’ pot of delicious, steamy, comfort food.

Texas, as most of the country has seen is experiencing unseasonably warm weather.  With yesterdays temperatures topping out at nearly 80* I couldn’t help but take a walk out to the apiary.  The bees were buzzing all over the yard and I could see them going in all directions.  I fired up the smoker and took a peek inside all 6 hives in my bee yard.  The amounts of pure, new honey in the hives were astonishing. This mild winter has prevented frozen or starved bees but I wouldn’t think of taking their honey just yet as I have a feeling winter isn’t really past.  Seeing that pure, golden honey capped with clean white wax makes my heart skip a beat.  I’m hoping for a few jars of early honey this year.  Fingers crossed!  Take a look at my February bee pics then you’ll find the soup recipe.

Enjoy!

Glorious Golden Honey

Frame full of freshly capped honey

Look at that little bee booty - she is making honey down there

Bees guarding the hive - notice two on each side and their big eyes watching me

I love this picture of the guard bees.  Their eyes are so visible in this shot and the one on the far left seems to be saying to her sister, “do we know her?”.

Parsnip Soup

Ingredients:

2 pounds parsnips, peeled
1 pound waxy potatoes
1 pound leeks, white part only, washed thoroughly
2 tbsp. olive oil
6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
3 ounces shredded Gruyère cheese
1/2 cup cream
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375*.  Cut the parsnips and leeks into rounds.  Place on a large rimmed baking pan and drizzle with olive oil.  Toss to coat all veggies.  Place in oven and roast for about 50 minutes or until parsnips are tender.

Meantime bring broth to a boil in a stockpot and add potatoes, reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are tender.  Transfer parsnips and leeks to stock pot after roasting.  Using an immersion blender, purée ingredients to desired consistency.  Bring the purée to a simmer.  Add cream and cheese and stir until thoroughly combined.  Stir in ginger and nutmeg and reduce heat.

Soup can also be pureed in the bowl of a food processor or blender jar.  If doing either method take caution not to splatter the hot soup.

Recipe adapted from Kelly Yandell @ http://www.themeaningofpie.com/