Everything in the fridge soup

This really is a whatever you've got soup..

Ingredients:

2 small yams, peeled and chopped
4 med. beets, chopped
4 carrots, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 zucchini, chopped
5 brown mushrooms, chopped
1 cup green lentils
1 tbsp fresh rosemary
1 tsp fresh oregano
a pinch of thyme, sage, savory, Italian seasoning,fennel seeds, herbs de Provence, basil
1 tbsp butter
8 cups water

Method:

1. melt butter in a large pot on medium heat
2. add chopped vegetables and saute for 8 - 10  minutes
3. add garlic and herbs and stir for an additional 2 minutes
4. add water and lentils and raise temperature to bring it to a boil
5. turn the heat down to med/low, put a lid on, and simmer for 45 - 60 minutes or until lentils are soft.

Serve with buttered toast or with leftover rice, quinoa, pasta etc.  and top with black pepper or parmesan.

( We sometimes call this mushy soup because the yams, carrots and zucchini usually get very soft.)

More Blueberries

Dehydrating Blueberries

Making blueberry cookies didn't make much of a dent in my giant stash of blueberries in the fridge, so I thought I'd pull out the dehydrator and dry some up for snacking.

There are several ways to dry blueberries in a dehydrator - it just depends on what you want the end result to be. You can simply wash them and set them drying and you will end up with something like a mini blueberry chip.

Most sources recommend that you dip them in a hot water bath first to soften and break the skin. This will result in blueberries that are soft and chewy like raisins.

First, I put a pot of water on the stove to boil, and prepared an ice bath to cool them and stop the cooking process.

Once the water was boiling, I dumped the blueberries into the hot water and let them sit for about a minute. Then I scooped them out with a slotted spoon and let them soak in the cold water for another minute or so. (if you have a metal mesh strainer, you can dip the entire strainer into the hot, then cold water.) 

I then spooned the berries out on my dehydrator trays, being careful to keep the berries spread out.

I turned on the dehydrator to 135 degrees and am now waiting until tomorrow to try them out.

Blueberrries in cookies

It's blueberry season here and the crops were so good this year, they are practically giving them away for free. As I inspected the contents of my fridge this morning, I realized that there were quite a few pints of berries in there just waiting to be eaten.. Last year, I bought several flats and froze them in ziploc bags. It was lovely to have blueberries handy all through the year, but I found myself still purchasing the occasional carton of fresh ones at the store to snack on.  Thawed blueberries are fine for baking or on breakfast but are considerably less pleasurable to eat out of hand.

I pulled up a recipe for grain free blueberry almond cookies here.  The recipe calls for mixing it in a food processor however, I ended up dumping it into a bowl and mixing it with a spoon to get it properly blended.

I was a bit concerned that the berries would fall out, but for the most part they stayed put and the cookies turned out beautifully... the boys said these were 'make again'.