Hello there friends! I've been a bit lax on sharing some yummy recipes on here lately, so I figured I'd end off the month with an easy soup made with a few items right from our backyard garden. Might as well take a stroll through the garden while we're at it. Some of our plants seem to be bouncing back nicely after a month of unrelenting heat. Autumn seems quite a ways away, but you know it's always soup season in my household!
Squash has been the clear favorite in our garden this year. Throughout the summer we had quite a few nice acorn squash come off the vine, but now as we enter the end of the season the butternut squash has made a fine showing! We just pulled off three lovely specimens this week, with more to come shortly.
8 pounds of goodness!
I adore all squash, so I will happily incorporate its lovely vibrant fruit into many recipes this season. With another seasonal nutrition event coming up in a few months, perhaps I will get to use some of our homegrown items to share with the guests yet again!
Our peppers have had a bit of a tough year. Slow to grow, and when the fruit does start appearing little nibbles also pop up before we have gotten a chance to enjoy any. Hopefully the bugs have had their fill and will leave us a few nice prizes from our labors. The bell peppers above are looking well, and the hot peppers below seem to be starting to thrive. We had some cooler weather earlier this week that might have helped with a break from the inferno.
We have had some consistent fruit from the tomato plants, though only the cherry tomatoes seem to actually be ripening outdoors. Our cherry tomato might not be quite as large as my pal @enjar's plant, but she has gotten quite tall towards the end of the season and still is producing a handful of fruit a few times a week.
The other few tomato plants are hanging in there, and my boyfriend did pickle some of the green tomatoes this week for a nice treat. He also started seedlings that will hopefully produce some more bounty for us before the year is out. More beets and cabbage, along with pumpkin and herbs.
My lovely purple basil was getting eaten up a bit outside, so we did bring some inside with the traditional basil to try to make sure we get to enjoy some of it! I kind of like having some extra greenery indoors anyway. :)
Many of the other herbs are also bouncing back outside. When I went outside to find some for my soup I grabbed a few sprigs of the wonderfully fragrant sage that is growing again! As @riverflows shared a few weeks ago on her Steem blog, sage has many benefits for health and wellness. I don't think I appreciate it enough, so I am going to try to use it more often! Just the smell of it was enough to enhance my mood and put a smile on my face.
With that, I think I'll share my simple slow cooker soup. The slow cooker might just be my favorite kitchen appliance. I use it often all year-round. As often happens, when I made this dish this past weekend I had used my smaller one for steel cut oats and the larger one for the soup. Besides just being able to put it all in the cooker and let it do its thing on its own, it usually means easy clean up with a one "pot" meal.
Cauliflower & Acorn Squash Soup
Makes 8 servings
- 1 medium acorn squash, seeded & chopped into bite-sized chunks
- 1/2 large head of cauliflower, cut into florets
- 1 heaping cup red lentils, rinsed
- 8 cups water or low-sodium veggie broth
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/4-1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder
- 3 cups roughly chopped greens (I used Swiss chard)
- juice of 1 lemon
- 1 tablespoon mild white miso
- a handful of fresh herbs for garnish (I used my sage)
Place everything through the cayenne in a 5-quart slow cooker.* Cover and turn on low. Let cook for 6-7 hours, or until the vegetables and lentils are cooked through.
Once the soup is done, remove the bay leaves, stir in your greens and the lemon juice. Scoop out a few spoonfuls of the broth and mix with the miso before incorporating back into the soup. Taste and adjust any seasonings you like. Sprinkle on some chopped fresh herbs for serving. I love the fresh sage in this combination, but basil, dill or fresh parsley would also be wonderful for that vibrant finish!
*I like to mix the ingredients together but add the bay leaves on top last so that they are easier to find and fish out after cooking.
This is also my entry for @simplymike's monthly Garden Journal Challenge. I very much enjoy interacting and learning from the other wonderful gardeners on Steemit! We are still trying to continue improving our green thumbs, but it is always so wonderful to make meals like this one with items pulled straight from the ground! Natural medicine for our bodies and our souls. 💚
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://plantstoplanks.com/cauliflower-acorn-squash-soup-august-garden-update/
Sounds yummy!
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Thanks @violetmed! We're enjoying it this week. Down to the last little bit then on to the next bowl of goodness. :)
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I really love these kind of soups - this one looks amazingly delicious yumyumyum
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Awesome garden you got there :) and the soup looks delicious too!
It's definitely doing alright this year! Got some good stuff out of it to make into some tasty meals. :)
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It's great that everything can be found in your garden)))
We do have a good bit! Whatever we can't get from our own, the farmers market usually has! We are very lucky around here with access to such healthy and delicious produce.
Good your getting some produce from your garden a pity that the insects and other thugs are thinkigyour produce is so good they have to dine on it before you can get to it
That soup sounds good I dont think I have ever had one with those ingredients sounds very interesting
Thanks for this great post and being an active member of @steemusa
I guess that's the price we pay for trying to keep our garden organic and pesticide-free! We do try using a hot sauce spray to keep some of the little critters away, but it doesn't work on everything. Ah well, they gotta eat too I suppose. ;)
The soup was nice and simple, but still hit the spot! The beginning of the week was cooler outside, too, so it just felt like soup season was starting!
Yes that’s true of course but I think organic and pesticide free is the way to go even if you loose some
Same heat was cooler in the mornings but warming up today and tomorrow
Oh definitely! No yucky commercial sprays here. I often bring home hitch-hikers from the farmers market, too. Just this week I adopted a few worms in a squash, haha!
Lol sorry I had to laugh at adopted a few worms
Lol sorry I had to laugh at adopted a few worms
Your veggies look so healthy @plantstoplanks and that soup amazing, just bursting with flavour and goodness. I definitely want to make it, absolutely yum!
Too bad we can't do a swap of soup for your moussaka! 😉
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Oh gosh I hope Im not late for @simplymike challenge... will try to bring one out on wkd anyway. Awesome to see more of your garden, things are really thriving!! I love adding miso to soup. Sadly we cant do cauliflower round here due to FODMAP. I HAVE been munching purple sprouting broccoli straight from the garden though!!
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I think you've still got some time! Would love to see your update. :) Things were looking a little bleak here earlier in the month, but happily things have turned around a bit. I was just happy to crank out a quick post since this week has been jammed! I don't think I make soup the same way twice, so it's always easy to adjust based on what you've got, right? I'm sure that broccoli is totally delicious!
I don't wan't to sound like some of the comments we get, but truth is, I am hungry and I wish I had this soup right now. It looks comforting, yet still, summery enough, with all the goodies from your garden. Everything is growing very nicely, just to bad the bugs are nibbling on it, lol 🍅😊🥦
And here is well deserved Wonkie for you:
Haha, I know I always feel like I write a lot of the same comments on Mondays because everyone really does make me drool with hunger! This really was a nice light mix that was great on the cooler days we had earlier in the week, but not too heavy for the warmer days as summer snuck back in these last few days. ;)
Ohhhhh, i didn't mean you Katie, lol.
You’ve been visited by @porters on behalf of Natural Medicine!
Isn't it wonderful to be picking fresh food from your garden, food that you know what has gone into it! Your garden looks like it's giving you a fair bit of produce and it's great the heat has lessened and your plants are thriving once more! Are you using aluminium cans for your seedlings? That's different!Thanks for sharing your garden and delicious soup recipe!
Thanks for stopping by @porters! The joy of working with fresh-picked ingredients never gets old! I smile just thinking about the next meal I'm going to make.
Yes, @dksart saves beer cans and has been recycling those to start the seedlings. Waste not, want not, right? :)
Love the combination of cauliflower and squash ~ Your squashes look so robust and the sage and new basil plants look so healthy too. Also loved to see your planter boxes in the background of the tomatoes.
I still have some cauliflower in the fridge, so I'm about to go and make some cauliflower soup right now. Only I'll have to improvise with the squash and miso ~ Maybe sweet potato and my dark miso. Love miso and just the day/evening now for this soup. Cold and wet. ♥︎♥︎⚖️♥︎♥︎
Thank you! I am trying to send lots of love to my little green babies to keep them growing well! That sounds like a delicious variation of the soup. You can never go wrong with a homemade soup. I rarely use the exact same ingredients over again, but it always comes out warm and nourishing! Enjoy!
That looks really good Katie! Must be quite satisfying to be able to grow your own food and prepare it so awesomely!
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Very much so! We have plenty of ups and downs as we continue to learn more about gardening, so it makes it that much more rewarding when we get a good haul!
I'm a squash fan also. I love butternut squash soup, and this acorn squash soup of yours looks delicious as well. Thanks for the recipe!
Yum! I'm sure with all my butternuts coming off the vine I'll have some of that on the menu soon, as well. I almost blended this up for a creamier soup, but then at the end decided to leave it whole and chunky. :)
That looks delicious @plantstoplanks
I might borrow that one for my first attempt next week when the girls are back at school.
Gaz
Thanks Gaz! It's a good one to add to a healthy meal plan rotation. Soups are always a great way to fill the belly with lots of good veggies! :)
This looks delicious, really prepare some recipe with ingredients from our garden, besides being delicious gives us a lot of satisfaction.
Thank you for this wonderful article.
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I hope by doing this, more content creators/bloggers/vloggers will get to know this wonderful platform we both thrive in. :)
Keep creating awesome content!
Yay! At last I am able to comment!! This has been sitting open for days.... I love the idea of doing this in the slow cooker - I am assuming you did it on low? My relatively new one cookts things a whole lot faster than my (mum's) old one. I worry about over cooking the vegetables and having them turn to mush....
Let's see if this works... ;)
Yes, I did it on low! I often still make sure to check on my slow cooker every so often since it really can go from perfect to mush in no time. Still makes it less hands on than on the stove top, and puts off less heat since we are still in the sweltering weather over here right now!
It did! But Gina's not working.... So, that's an idea for cooking when it's really hot. I never think of using the slow cooker in summer...
Garden AND recipe! Awesome to see everything growing so well and turning into yummy food too.
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