All in a Day's Work

There's something about a cool wet autumn morning that puts me in the mood to make soup.  It's my favourite thing to cook, my favourite thing to eat, and my favourite way to tell my family I love them.  

I plan to use up the last of the harvest from our backyard garden.  With lots of carrots left and a few beets, I begin with curried roasted carrot soup.  I choose vegetable broth since my daughter is vegetarian.  Many recipes I've read in the past recommend throwing the spices in with the softened veggies, rather than later with the broth and roasted carrots as this recipe says.  I sprinkle the curry into the frying pan and reap the rewards as the kitchen is filled with a heavenly aroma.

Once the first batch is simmering on a back burner, I troll the internet for a traditional Russian Borscht.   I give thanks to my mother for the pink rubber gloves she brought me as a hostess gift one visit as I shred beets into a bowl.  Luckily I have some beef flavoured vegetable broth on hand so my daughter will be able to enjoy this soup too.  I decide to cheat on the cabbage, and I phone my husband and ask him to bring home a bag of coleslaw mix.  It's mostly cabbage anyway and the recipe calls for carrots too so I think myself quite clever.

When it comes time to add the beets to the broth and other vegetables, I deglaze the pan they were cooked in with some of the broth and a wooden spoon to get those flavourful caramelized bits stuck to the pan.

I fill the sink with hot water and bubbles while pots steam and elements tick behind me.  Looking out my back window,  I notice the ground at the base of the pear tree is littered with ripe pears.  Until now, most of them have gone straight from the ground to the compost.


Fall is a busy time for us and so often the pears are what get left behind.  I decide to rescue a few of them and start searching for small jars and weighing sugar to see if I can't throw together some pear jam.

While I search the fridge for a lemon I see the chicken carcass from last night's dinner...might as well make some chicken stock while were at it, and I pull some green onions, some celery and the last of the carrots from the crisper.

It's almost 4:00 now and my calves ache a little from being on my feet all day. When I see those jars with their rich jewelled contents, satisfaction floods through me, tinged with  a sense of anticipation that makes it all worth while.