Soup-Supper

I bought all the ingredients for traditional Irish corned beef and cabbage and planned to make Grandma Dwyer’s soda bread to go with it. The meal was meant for the soup-supper at church before Lent service. Making the dish in a crock pot required me to put in the meat first at dawn, five hours later, adding the hard veggies—carrots, onions, potatoes—then throwing in chunks of cabbage just before leaving for church. Great plan.

Three briskets of corned beef and two bags of vegetables sat in the refrigerator waiting my skilled hands—for days. Unfortunately, my car went to the shop but wasn’t ready on Tuesday. I had to pick it up Wednesday morning. Then my husband had two doctor appointments on opposite sides of town with three hour wait in between. Then time slipped through my fingers.

As we drove home, the reality hit me. We had one hour left before I was to arrive at church with my soup du jour. There was no way I could make it. I hadn't started anything. What to do? What to do?

When we arrived, I had twenty minutes to cook, dress, and leave. I thought of chicken soup but then why? Others would probably have that. Of course, with a pastor named Murphy I figured I wouldn’t be the only one planning corned beef on March 16th—the day before St. Patty’s Day.

With no time to eat myself, I decided on a simple Vegan dish that could be shared with the closeted-vegans within the congregation. An appropriate choice in retrospect. The dish proved popular though nestled in between the good Germanic based dishes—kielbasa sausage soup, sauerkraut soup, potato cheese soup—served to a Lutheran crowd.

Only one complaint echoed in the kitchen about the lack of Irish fare that came from our own Pastor Mike. He forgave me my transgression and tried my soup. I think his wife liked it better than he.

Vegan Lemongrass and Thai Chili Soup (17 minutes from start to finish)

1 qt Container Organic Vegetable Stock Low Sodium
1 8 oz Small Can Garbanzo Beans
1 24 oz Large Can Red Kidney Beans
½ cup Celery Heart Chopped
½ cup Bell Pepper Julienned—Red, Yellow or Orange
½ cup Carrots Sliced
3 Green Onions Chopped
6 Button Mushrooms sliced or canned mushrooms
4 leaves of Kale Chopped in Squares
4 leaves of Swiss Chard Chopped
2 rolls of Mung Bean Threads
1/3 cup Mizo Paste
¼ to ½ cup of Frozen Chopped Lemongrass and Thai Chili or chop the fresh ingredients
1/3 cup Soy Sauce

First dump the vegetable stock into a large pan and heat over medium burner. Add the hard vegetables—carrots, onions, celery—and the mung bean threads. Add drained and washed canned beans. Raise the heat. As the mixture starts to bubble add the rest of the vegetables. Stir. When the mung bean threads are soft, shut off the heat and add the lemongrass, Thai chili, Mizo paste and soy sauce. Mix well. Serves six to eight. Should be done in 17 minutes. That’s what it took me. Plus I transferred the whole thing into a crock pot and drove it to the church for Lent service.

Comment

Beth—my friend, mentor, and blog reader—pointed out that the marmalade recipe may dilute the vitamin C content from over cooking. I disagreed at first, but the more I think about it, she may be right. I altered the recipe to enhance the vitamin C. This weekend after picking another peck of oranges, I will try the recipe out. The flavor should be similar to the previous recipe.


Almost Raw Organic Orange Marmalade ala Pam
Into pan on the stove
• 2 cups of fresh squeezed orange juice
• Zest of 3 oranges sliced in thin ribbons
• Zest of ½ organic Meyer lemon
• 2 Tblsp Candied ginger if desired
Cook on low heat until the rind is soft and yummy. Shut of the burner and set the pan on trivet to cool.
While warm add
• 1 jar about one pound of organic honey
• Pulp of 10 organic large orange sections – no white parts. Double the amount of oranges if they are small
• Pulp of 1 Meyer lemon—no white parts
Mix thoroughly
Cool to room temperature
Mix in 1 package No Cook Pectin.
Stir for 3 minutes

Ladle into 3 small Ball brand plastic freezer jars or containers you already have
Refrigerate for 1 hour before eating—freeze or give away the rest.

Oranges

When my husband and I decided to buy a home, we originally looked for a condo with a tiny backyard. I want little or no work outside of the home. What we bought was a four bedroom single family dwelling with almost a quarter of an acre. Ah, good intentions.

Built in 1979, our place has eight fruit trees—two apricots, crabapple, Granny Smith apple, ornamental plum, pomegranate, Meyer lemon, and an orange tree. All the trees—except the pomegranate, a gift from my cousin Cindy last year—are thirty years old. The centers of the trees are decayed and full of termites and ants. The outer edges are producing a multitude of offspring in the form of fruit beyond the imaginings of this city girl.

This summer I had so much organic apricots that I made jar after jar of apricot butter. The recipe I found on line and required only fruit, sugar, and a crock pot. I gave away ten freezer jars of the stuff and froze three pints for us. The last one, I opened yesterday.

Then came January, with a bumper crop of Meyer lemons and unidentified oranges, I am on my third picking of the citrus fruit. My neighbors run into their houses and lock the doors when they see me approaching with bags of lemons. The oranges are harder yet to give away. The lemons are perfect in flavor and juice but the oranges are small and not sour but a tad on the tart side. When I offer oranges the question is always, “Are they sweet?”

“Well, no. A little on the tart side.”

The victim screws up his or her nose and shakes the head a clear, “No, thank you.”

This morning my kitchen counter displayed three pounds of lemons and about thirty pounds of washed oranges. What to do? What to do?

I went online downloaded a lovely article published by the University of California, Davis. All about oranges, it tells of the care and feeding of the plant plus a few ideas about what to do with this sunny fruit. I did a Google, Bing, and Ask search of orange recipes. Most covered orange marmalade. Some recipes instructed the creation of cordials, candied citrus circles, and orange cheesecake. The recipe with the largest amount of orange usage was a marmalade recipe that called for nine oranges and four cups of sugar. That is correct. Nine oranges and four cups of sugar. That is not jam that is a sugar high.

I read fifteen marmalade recipes including a raw marmalade recipe that asked me to cook one-third of the recipe then mix in the other two-thirds cultured with Kefir whey—whatever that is. I was absolutely sure I didn’t have it in the cupboard. Plus the raw dude wanted me use gelatin instead of pectin. Why no pectin? Maybe, I thought, it was a chemical based product but according to UC Davis pectin is made from the white-pulpy part of the orange. Sounds natural to me.

So I decided to make my own recipe. Yea. I know. What the heck do I know about making jam? I made a lot of apricot jam this summer. The way I looked at it, there were thirty pounds of oranges sitting on the counter and heaven knows how many more out on the tree. What did to lose other than time?

Organic Orange Marmalade ala Pam

Into a clean crock pot

• 2 cups of fresh squeezed orange juice
• Zest of 3 oranges sliced in thin ribbons. Okay I was having so much fun with the zester that makes the thin ribbons that I put the zest of 10 oranges in it and it was too bitter so I had to pull out much of the zest. So don’t make the same mistake. If you don’t have a zester then you need to scrape all the white out of the orange peel and finely slice the rind. Good luck.
• Pulp of 10 organic orange sections – no white parts. I used 20 oranges because my crop was small this year. If you buy oranges they will be larger so you will need less.
• Zest of ½ organic Meyer lemon
• Pulp of 1 Meyer lemon—no white parts
• 1 jar about one pound of organic honey
• I had some leftover candied ginger from Christmas and threw that in the crock pot

Heat on low heat until the rind is soft and yummy
Cool to room temperature
3 Minutes Mix in 1 package No Cook Pectin (I got that Wal-Mart last fall)

Ladle into 3 small Ball brand plastic freezer jars or containers you already have
Refrigerate for 1 hour before eating—freeze or give away the rest.