Turnip Soup

Email chain:
Alayna: remember how i facebook stalk people before 8am? i am creeper.
ML: hahah. it's kewl. i have a bag of spinach and bread and my soup jar right next to me.
Alayna: i have parsnips and radishes and an onion
ML: we are bunnies
Alayna: we could make a costume

If I gmail search "soup" I get "hundreds" of past emails and gchats. As does Alayna. I decided to search back to see what my first "soup" email was. An archival tour, friends.

...Well, that took me 20 minutes. I have 754 emails with the keyword "soup." And my first was in Thailand when Caitlyn was talking about how much soup she has to eat with a chicken blood base. My first "soup" conversation with Alayna had to do with her just eating veggie soup because she was sick but had a job interview. We've come a long way.

Either way, we have moved our attention to turnips. Turnips are high in dietary fiber and low in cholesterol and saturated fats. Plus they have protein and a lot vitamins. I did a little google search while the soup simmered. I always fight not to peal turnips. My rule of thumb is that peels are good for you. Does anyone know if this is ridiculous? I have no idea.
Either way, good soup. If you decide not to add spinach then it would be a white soup, which Alayna and I thought would be very exciting.

Spoons up.

Turnip Soup!

• melt about 1/4 stick of butter in your soup pan
• add 3-4 chopped yellow onions, and cook until soft
• add about 5-6 chopped red potatoes and 9 chopped small turnips and stir into the pot, stirring to coat with butter, adding ground nutmeg, chili powder and ground red chili to taste
  
• cover with broth, bring to a boil and simmer until veggies are soft (about twenty minutes)
• add a few handfuls of spinach
  
• blend and serve! (even better with shredded cheese on top!)

Roasted Root Vegetable Soup / Ode to Beets

Union Square Market. Where I buy my beets & they play the Amelia song and I want to die because I'm so filled with joy.

Hello soup lads and ladles. (O.M.G. I'm good at this.) November is here. Which means all of our little vegetable friends are burrowing deep into the ground to stay warm, thus the perfect time for root soup.

Root soup sounds cool, doesn't it? Like Alayna and I somehow have morphed into two heavy set frontier women surviving the winter with only one donkey and a plow. It sounds almost as cool as when Lauren Cook casually mentioned how she pickles AND CANS her beets. My jaw dropped I was so impressed.



The thing is, I've been eating beets every day since Saturday afternoon. And I plan to eat them again in a few hours for lunch. Everything that comes out of my body is red. I love it. Poor little Zachy who had beet dinner with me on Saturday doesn't so much.

Via text message:
Zach: My poop was red and it scared me and I'm never eating beets again.
Mary: I ate the leftovers today and now my pee is red too!
Zach: I feel ill.

Of course, Zach didn't feel ill. He is just nervous because he has a marathon to run in 12 months and he's freaking. Don't worry Zach, keep eating nutritious foods like beets and you'll do fine.

Roasted Root Vegetable Soup

• chop about 4 parsnips, 4 turnips, 6 regular sized carrots, one large yellow onion, and 3 medium sized beets into bite sized pieces and put into a brownie pan
• add 4 whole peeled cloves of garlic
• sprinkle the whole mix with sea salt, black pepper, herbs De Provence and olive oil and mix with your hands to coat
• bake in the oven at 450-500 degrees for about half an hour, stirring once or twice, until you can fork through all the veggies fairly easily
• transfer to a soup pot, cover with vegetable broth and bring to a boil until the veggies are easily mashed
• blend and serve!

Happy soupies.