Rutabeggy soup

My Grandma Prange is the inspiration for a lot of my cooking, and definitely the source of my obsession with cookbooks.  When my sister and I moved out of the house she brought over wash baskets FULL of beautiful, hard bound treasure troves of gastric heaven.  That cookbook collection is the pride of my kitchen, and I love paging through them and finding her hand written notes in the margins.  Grandma always uses simple ingredients, and she regularly cooks out of a box, but that doesn't stop her love of experimenting with food.  One time she dumped an entire can of cherry pie filling in a box of cake mix and called it "black forest."  Her "what's the worst that could happen?" attitude in the kitchen definitely wore off on me.  I think the most important thing Grandma taught me about food though is that it doesn't matter what you're making, if you make it with love it's worth sharing, and boy did Grandma love to share what she made.  So much so that she'd cook up a big pot of soup and drive it all the way over to our house for a big family meal.  Her chicken dumpling soup was amazing, but the favorite in our house was hands down her rutabeggy soup.  Yes, I know it's spelled rutabaga, but this soup is so good my sister and I would beg Grandma to make it.

Unfortunately Grandma is slowing down a bit, and not cooking as much, and even if she was I'm 2000 miles away and can't enjoy her cooking as much as I'd like to.  Still, I think about her a lot, and I try to cook and bake things that remind me of her.  When I saw the beautiful rutabagas at our local market I immediately thought of Grandma and just had to try my hand at beggy soup.  The leak and the bay seasoning are my own twist, but the heart of the recipe is my grandma's, and I think she'd be proud of the end result.  

1 3ish pound bone-in pork shoulder roast - try to get one with lots of fat and a big solid soup bone

2 leaks, cleaned and sliced

5 cloves of garlic, diced

2 ribs of celery, sliced

1 Tbsp bay seasoning

3 small peeled rutabagas (about 1 1/2 - 2 c) chopped

3 carrots, peeled and sliced

6 small peeled potatoes (about 1-1/12 c) chopped

Fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Put the whole roast in a large stock pot.  Cover with water and boil for about 90 minutes, covered, until you have a clear pork broth.  Add the leak, celery, garlic and bay seasoning.  Boil, covered, for another hour or so until the broth turns gold.  Because the veggies have different cook times, I like to chop and add the beggies first, then the carrots, and finally the potatoes.  Once all the veggies are in, pull out the pork roast and shred the meat off the bone, discarding any large pieces of fat that haven't boiled off.  Add the meat and the bone back into the pot.  Simmer, covered, until all of the veggies are tender.  Serve with fresh baked crescent rolls.  

A taste of Minnesota on the west coast

I was feeling a little homesick all week, and then I found a gold mine in our cupboard - half a package of Minnesota wild rice from the farmer's market that was right behind our St. Paul apartment.  I think one of the things I miss most about the midwest is coming in from a cold, snowy day and settling down for a fantastic bowl of hearty soup.  Growing up in Wisconsin, that was usually my mom's chili (with noodles, blasphemy to some of you, I'm sure), or my grandma's chicken and dumpling or rutabaga soup.  There's something so homey and welcoming about soup.  So tonight, I made cream of chicken, mushroom and wild rice soup.  It was good, not amazing.  I think I put in too much thyme, not enough salt, and the chicken lost a lot of it's seasoning by being frozen for several months, but it satisfied the craving for something from home.

1 whole bag of pearl onions
8 cups chicken broth
1 massive carrot, chopped (probably about 2 cups)
1 cup of wild rice
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried rosemary
3 cloves of minced garlic
4 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons flour
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 of a rotisserie chicken
1 1/2 c sliced portobello mushroom
sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

1)  To peel the pearl onions easily, put them in a small sauce pan and cover with water.  Bring to a boil.   Let boil for a few minutes, then rinse thoroughly in cold water for 3 minutes.  Cut the ends off each onion and peel off the paper.
2) Mix the onions, broth, carrot, rice and spices.  Bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover and simmer until rice is tender, about an hour.
3) Melt butter, stir in the flour, and then mix in the cream.  Slowly mix the cream mixture into broth mixture.
4) Mix the chicken and the mushrooms in.  Simmer until heated through and soup has thickened.

Serve with fresh bread or crescent rolls and a big tall glass of milk.  Mmmm.... just like being a kid again.