Get Creative with the Souper Bowl Challenge: December 27-January 8

During the Souper Bowl Challenge, we’re asking YOU, the people who support Vermont farmers by keeping us busy restocking local root vegetables, squash, and dairy, to submit your favorite recipes for soup. Enter a recipe featuring one of five local ingredients (potatoes, carrots, squash, beets, or dairy) and get a chance to win a $50 gift certificate to City Market. The winning soup will be chosen by participants taking a soup making class on January 12, and City Market member-workers will pack up 250 bags with the ingredients to send up the road to the Food Shelf to help a neighbor in need.

I sampled the classic Moosewood Cookbook borscht recipe to shoppers on Sunday, a hearty soup full of local potatoes, beets, onions, carrots, and cabbage.

 

 

Some of the conversations went like this:

 

“What are you sampling?”

“Borscht.”

“Uh (peering inside the pot)….no thanks.”

 

“What are you sampling?”

“Borscht.”

“Oh, I’ve never tried it before.” (Tasting.) “Wow, you’ve convinced me, I’m going to get the ingredients right now.”

 

“What are you sampling?”
“Borscht.”

“Oh, I have my favorite recipe for borscht at home, but thanks anyway.”

 

This last comment intrigued me. Borscht is a soup of Eastern European origin (whose climate is not so dissimilar to our own), and there are dozens of ways to make it, chunky or smooth, with or without tomatoes, with or without meat, but typically with beets and a smattering of dill. It’s usually served with a little blob of sour cream or yogurt on top.

So if you have a favorite recipe at home for soup that you’d like to share with us, please pick up an entry in the Produce department between now and January 8th. Be it your favorite borscht recipe, a butternut squash and white bean soup (you know who you are), or a cheddar chowder as golden as the sun, stop by and let us know about it. We’ll have a lot of fun testing the recipes in advance of the soup class, and knowing that we’re doing something to help distribute healthy, local foods to homes that need them warms us right up - even in the depths of winter.

 

 

 

1 ½ cups thinly sliced potato

1 cup thinly sliced beets

4 cups water

1-2 Tbs. butter

1 ½ cups chopped onion

1 scant tsp. caraway seeds

1 ½ tsp. salt (to taste)

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 medium-sized carrot, sliced

3-4 cups shredded cabbage (1 small cabbage)

Freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp. fresh dill (plus extra, for garnish)

1-2 Tbs. cider vinegar

1-2 Tbs. honey or brown sugar

1 cup tomato puree

 

Toppings:

Sour cream or yogurt

Fresh dill

 

Place potatoes, beets, and water in a medium-sized saucepan. Cover, and cook over medium heat until tender (20-30 min.).

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a kettle or Dutch oven. Add onion, caraway seeds, and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent (8-10 min.).

Add celery, carrots, and cabbage, plus 2 cups of the cooking water from the potatoes and beets. Cover and cook over medium heat until the vegetables are tender (another 8-10 min.).

Add the remaining ingredients (including all the potato and beet water), cover, and simmer for at least 15 more min. Taste to adjust seasonings, and serve hot, topped with sour cream or yogurt and a little dill.

 

Adapted from The Moosewood Cookbook