While oatmeal was simmering this morning I chopped some onions and celery and started sauteing (in another pot, not to worry) with some olive oil. In went some carrot and an ear of Brentwood sweet corn. Garden oregano and thyme, bay from a hillside in Novato, and sage from the store completed the spicing. This boiled together for some 2 hours, the solids were removed and then it was reduced a bit. The bowl on the right represents what became veggie stock (1 quart for now, 1 for later) and the other produce represents the rest of our soup for tonight. I was feeling somewhat vegan today and was inspired to make a soup based on one from last fall involving roasted butternuts, sauteed leeks, chantrelles, sage, butter, and a fresh fresno red pepper. It was really good. Topped with creme fraische it was awesome.
Well with todays thinking being vegan, I could use the veggie stock, but had to brown my fresh sage in some soy garden spread. Out came the sage leaves, in went the leeks and some brown mushrooms for near ten minutes. The butternuts had been halved and seeded, coated with olive oil and baked at 350 for about an hour and a half. These were scraped, placed in a larger pot with the sauteed items and covered with stock. This was mashed together and boiled for a few hours during which Peggy Hill and her sidekick Cayenne came by. The soup was ladled out and blended in batches until smooth. This next photo shows the unblended soup, some cherry infused ginger syrup, and working toward being candied, some cubes of fresh ginger cooling in simple syrup. Collectively I have spent nearly a third of my day staring at these three vessels and boiling some type of root, fruit, stem, leaf, or cob.
Tonight we will feast on the soup, maybe with a side of steamed carrots and fresh corn on the cob. There's not much of that fig tart left so we might be forced to drizzle some cherry ginger syrup over vanilla soy dream while we wait for our candied ginger to finish making itself.
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