Canthook

The package at the used-grocery store looked interesting. It was a flat tray, covered with plastic wrap, and it had a sticker on it, reading "Soup Greens". Ingredients lists are supposed to be in order of weight, a rule which Frank Donio Inc., of Hammonton, NJ, apparently was ignorant of, or else they just didn't give a damn.

In any case, the ingredients included a couple of parsnips, about 6" long, , a turnip about 2.5" inches in size, three fairly small, fairly rough carrots, a quarter of a leek, an onion aobut 2" in size, a couple of pieces of celery about 3" long, and a very small batch of dill and of parsley. Total weight was supposedly about 16 ounces, which probably wasn't too far off; that's not a lot.

I chopped the onion up

and I put it in the bottom of my largest sauce pan, which is probably larger than your largest sauce pan. I added enough olive oil to make a nice puddle over the onion rings, and turned up the heat, and as fast as I could chop them up, I added the other veggies. When I got everything in, the onions were turning translucent, but not browning. I grabbed two boxes of chicken broth out of the cupboard and added them., stirring some more. Hmmm. I opened a 303 can of diced tomatoes and plopped them in, and then another 303 can. There was a box of Cope's corn, dried and toasted, and I opened it, tossing in half the corn. I figured things were too juicy, and the dried corn would help a little. I added a generous helping of dried chives, and a couple of tablespoons of dried vegetable flakes.

The dried veggie flakes are dried carrots, dried onions, dried parsley, dried celery, I think. Nothing that wasn't already in there, but they would soak up some of the juice. I melted a chunk of hamburger, about 12 ounces, I suppose, 27% fat. I would have liked something with more fat, because fat is where all the flavor is, but this is what I had. The soup didn't taste right. I knew I needed salt and pepper, but I like to add that at the table, because you can's undo it if you add too much. Hmmm. I didn't add any sugar to make up for the tomato acid. I grabbed the brown sugar because it was more convenient, and it seemed like it might add more of an interesting flavor.

Then I Waited

Blondie yelled at me a couple of hours later. I couldn't tell what she was saying. We have a Panasonic wireless telephone system, and after 5-6 years, I've learned that there's an intercom feature. I pressed the intercom button, then the "4", the phone in the living room being unit 4. She picked up. It's so much nicer than yelling.

"What was that you were saying?"

"I was asking, " she said, "if you've tasted this soup?" She thinks it's wonderful, that I'm wonderful. I went down later and tasted it. It's fairly good, better than canned soup, not nearly as good as the soup that Em, my late first wife, used to make. That's the problem with being married to a great cook. Nothing ever tastes as good, ever again,

I'll Settle For Good Soup and Adulation

But I'll settle for fairly good soup, and adulation. If I hadn't bought those veggies at the used grocery store, I would have used taters instead of the parsnips and turnips, and perhaps added some rice. If I'd had bought some parker brisket at WalMart in the last month, I'd have had a packet of frozen brisket cubes. Brisket has more fat, and it would have improved the flavor. And most of the time, I make cream soups, but Blondie's been complaining lately about her digestion, and she doesn't digest cream well, so that was out.

But like I said, I'll settle for good soup and adultation. It wasn't very expensive to make the soup. That 1-pound pack of veggies was 59c. Two cans of diced tomatoes ran me 50c apiece. The dried corn cost me about $1 - Cope's isn't cheap. The dried chives, dried veggies, and sugar, probably added up to 25-50c. The broth was 50c a box. Figure $4 total for a big pot of soup, very chunky, not much broth.

I'm not sure why, but the less you pay for food, sometimes, the better it is. This would've gone well with some homemade corn bread, but I had a lot of bread on hand from Sam & Alfred's italian bakery, down the street.

The Last Few Gardens

The last few gardens, I've had nothing but tomatoes. This year, I'm planning to be more adventuresome. I'm going to raise some turnips and parsnips, some cucumbers, and some butternut squash, maybe some leeks. I don't seem to do well with green bell peppers, Blondie doesn't care much for broccoli, cabbage and carrots are pretty cheap at roadside stands, as are taters, corn takes too much room, but cukes and squash yield heavy and they're too pricey in stores, leeks are expensive, and it's hard to find good parsnips and turnips. I'd like to raise some celery, because I like home-raised better, but I've only ever raised them from starts, and I've only ever seen starts for sale one year.

If you haven't raised a garden before, I advise you to get a Mantis tiller. I don't have the ad running here for any other reason than I think it's a great deal. It's easy to use, easy to store, easy to keep running, not particularly expensive, and fun. Being a gimp, that "easy to use" factor is important, and being a cheapskate, the "not particularly expensive" line is important, too. I bought mine right before they came out with an electric model, but even though gas engines were invented solely to try my soul, I've had very little trouble getting the Mantis to start and run. Click on the ad, and order factory-direct. They ship fast, and when you call for support, they act like they actually appreciate your business.
Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
- broth - cekert - cheap eats - chives - Cope's dried corn - diced tomatoes - dill - dried vegetable flakes - Frank Donio - gardening - good soup - hamburger - leek - mantis tiller - onion - parsley - parsnips - Soup greens - turnip - used grocery store