Veggie Miso Soup

So I have a lot of items to blog about that have been going on.  I had the opportunity to see FoodMatters, attended the MI Raw Eco Fest, walked in the Walk for Farm Animals, and of course doing lots of fun things around the homestead ;)    I seem to be more productive with smaller posts so I'll break then up.  I've also been getting into the swing of school and studying again.  I'm enjoying it so far and it's great to meet lots of nice new people. 

We stopped into Whole Foods last night looking for a bag of potting soil.  I lost Dave in the store and that usually means he's gone to get a piece of pizza or cup of coffee, so when I finally found him he did indeed have a cup o joe, a bag (that wasn't ours) full of stuff and grin on his face.  He was given this bag of goodies at the coffee counter!  WF is celebrating their 30th birthday this month.  A fun fact from their website 'Whole Foods Market opens with 19 employees, some of whom are still team members as of 2010.'  That's pretty cool.  So  Happy Birthday Whole Foods and thanks for the goodies! 



We hardly ever use paper towels (like this roll can last us over a year at least).  Everything will be put to good use for sure.

So for lunch yesterday I put together a soup.  I've been wanting to harvest some of our leeks in the garden so out I went.  There were lots of green beans, toms, and red peppers waiting.  I brought in our first leeks (yes they are small ;)  and a few carrots too. 

(sorry for the unsharp photo)




I'd love a long mild fall to continue to eat out of the garden.  I will usually make a pot of soup at some point during the weekend, this is what yesterday's looked like, and boy was it good =)



Recipe:
ingredients from the garden-  3 carrots (chopped), handful of small leeks (trimmed and sliced), green beans (snapped), one split tomato (chopped)

ingredients from the FM-  purple onion (a few slices), 3 large garlic cloves (diced), lots of bok choi (white parts chopped, greens cut into ribbons), 3 small purple potatoes (cubed), large handful curly parsley (minced)

ingredients from the pantry/refrigerator-  1 T lemon juice, 1 T South River Azuki Bean miso, 1 tsp celtic sea salt, veggie broth ( I used what we had left about 2 cups), couple stalks of celery with it's greens chopped, black pepper
2-3 cups filtered water

*Lightly saute your carrots, onion, garlic, leeks, and celery in olive oil
*Add the broth, water, potatoes, beans, tomato and bring to a simmer until potatoes are cooked how you like them.  Part way through potatoes cooking add your bok choi. 
*Turn the heat off and let cool a minute or two, then scoop out about a 1/2 cup of broth, to the broth stir in your miso until incorporated.  You can then add this back to the soup (always be careful not to boil miso).  Add the lemon juice, salt, and pepper.  Stir to combine everything, stir in your parsley before serving.  Enjoy!

Last night we finally ordered our apple trees for the spring!  We decided on Cox's Orange Pippin (btw sorry for the misspelling of Pippin in the last post!) and Grime's Golden, both are organic.  I'm so excited =D 

What's everyone's favorite apple variety?  Have you been able to enjoy an antique apple before?

On another note we saw The Town on Friday and I loved it.  It's funny how I really can enjoy a movie about things that I would not condone in reality.  Do you think that's a bad thing?  It's kind of how I feel about boxing movies, I love to watch them, but I don't like to see people have their brains and nervous systems take that abuse in reality.  On the other hand inbetween studying this weekend I watched The Wedding Date and a cheesy Lifetime movie of which I'd seen them both before!  In a romantic movie mood much? ;) ?  I guess I'm pretty much up for most movies ;)