Shamrock Soup (AKA Potato-Kale Soup)

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, so we made this lovely green soup to celebrate! The flavor is fairly mild, so if you like it a bit spicier, add more red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, or whatever else you like. We adapted this recipe from a cookbook we received via a friend, who got it from her CSA provider. Because you use an immersion blender to create a smooth texture for the soup, prep time is fairly quick as you'll only need to coarsely chop the vegetables before adding them to the soup. Also, the original recipe called for three cups fresh kale, but we like A LOT of kale, so we added quite a bit more. The verdict? Great!

Shamrock Soup (12+ servings)
4 T. olive oil
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
10 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1/2 T. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. salt
6 medium potatoes, scrubbed and cubed
Water and/or broth
4 large handfuls fresh kale (maybe 8 cups? who knows!)
black pepper

1. Heat oil over medium heat, add onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt. Saute until onions are translucent.

2. Add potatoes and enough water (or water + broth) to cover by two inches. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, covered, for 10-15 minutes, until potatoes are just tender.

3. Add kale and cook, uncovered, for an additional 10-15 minutes.

4. Puree soup using an immersion blender (if you don't have one, you can use a regular blender). Season with pepper (and additional salt & red pepper flakes, if desired).

5. Serve it up - perhaps with some soda bread?

Vegetable Pot Pie with Biscuit Crust

We're in the midst of one of the coldest cold snaps in recent history, and that just made us want to hide out inside and drink tea and hot chocolate all day. But it isn't just hot beverages that such chilly weather creates yearnings for...such weather is also an excuse to make up a delicious veggie pot pie! (Actually, I was first craving vegetable pasties, but I was talked into trying something a bit different, since the ready-made pie crusts at the store are made with lard.) Anyway, we got a lot of veggies at the grocery store, so this recipe makes a 13 x 9 pan - if you'd like to scale back, just save some of the veggies and roast them up separately for another night, or cut out those that you aren't as fond of.

Vegetable Pot Pie with a Biscuit Crust (8-10 servings)
1 cup dry white wine
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic
3 large carrots
1 large parsnip
1 medium turnip
1 medium rutabaga
seasonings to taste (salt, pepper, rosemary, sage, thyme, etc.)
1 10-12 oz. bag frozen peas
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can pre-made biscuit dough, or your favorite biscuit recipe

1. Chop onion and mince garlic. Cut carrots and parsnip into 1/4 inch thick pennies; cut larger rounds in half. Dice turnip and rutabaga to ~ 1/2 cubes.

2. Warm 1/2 c. wine over medium heat in a large pan. When it starts to steam, add onions and garlic and cook for two minutes, until onion begins to soften. Add carrots, parsnip, turnip, and rutabaga and 1/2 c. more wine. Stir together, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 400F.

4. Add desired seasonings to vegetables and stir. Stir in frozen peas. Continue to simmer uncovered for 5 minutes, until vegetables are just tender.

5. In the pan, or a separate bowl if the pan isn't large enough, stir together vegetables and cream of mushroom soup.

6. Spray a 13 x 9 casserole dish with non-stick cooking spray. Turn vegetable mixture into dish. Cover with foil and bake at 400F for 30 minutes.

7. Remove casserole dish from oven and take off foil. Place biscuits on top of vegetable mixture (you may need to cut a few of the biscuits in half - also, don't worry if the biscuits don't cover the entire vegetable mixture).

8. Return casserole dish to oven and bake uncovered an additional 15 minutes, until biscuits puff up.