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Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Pot of Soup and Pot Pourri

When the weather outside looks like this...

we can warm up our insides and the inside of our homes with these:

This is a simple potpourri, and actually it started life as the ingredients of a garland for our Christmas tree that never got made. I started to pack away the dried apple and orange slices, but they smelled so good and I decided to use them as potpourri instead. To make:
Dry apple and orange slices--you can use a dehydrator or your oven on very low heat (when I do it in the oven, I turn the oven on 200 degrees for a few minutes, then turn it off and repeat at intervals until the slices are dry). You can also dry them over your woodstove, but be careful because they could burn--put a trivet under the pan to keep it from being too close to the heat.
Once your slices are dry, break up some cinnamon sticks, add some whole cloves and if you have it, sprinkle some cinnamon oil over the slices and mix it all together. I put mine in a pottery bowl and in a little silver bowl, but a glass jar or other container would work well too.
Now for your insides---vegetable soup!

This soup was made from vegetables I'd frozen or put up this the summer. I mixed squash, green and wax beans, carrots, onions, celery, cabbage, canned tomatoes, and potatoes with beef bouillon, thyme, red and black pepper, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, garlic and probably a few other spices. I browned some cubed venison and added that too, but you could make the soup without any meat. I cooked it until the vegetables were done and the meat as tender.
This isn't a recipe I can give exact amounts for. I made a huge batch--we ate it for dinner and I still had 10 quarts left. I put the leftover soup into freezer bags and put it in the freezer.

9 comments:

  1. Hey Granny Sue!

    Your soup looks good! I'll have to make some soup one day this week! I'm making my bbq beef brisket right now, recipe on my blog under recipes. I can't wait to have some!

    Stay warm!
    Angela

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  2. Oh wow. I can smell that potpourri in the words. I love orange and cloves!

    Soup in winter, perfect. (especially after all that holiday feasting!)

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  3. Angela, homemade bbq sounds heavenly. It's been a while since I made it. Maybe you'll post your recipe sometime?

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  4. It's one of my favorite scent combinations, Susan, and one that doesn't drive my allergies crazy. And it reminds me of my mother, who liked to make clove oranges for the holidays. So the potpourri is a triple win for me.

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  5. It is, Jessica! It's been a while since I'd posted any recipes--and you know the best part? Now I have them on my blog, it's easier to find them than digging through my recipe box! Who would have thought of that benefit of the internet?

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  6. I love making home made soup or chili on a cold day. I usually put ground up meat in mine. I just used up the last of my ground up deer meat in my last pot of soup.

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  7. That pot pouri looks good enough to eat! I'll have to try it myself.

    Jai

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  8. Janet, I think we'll be eating venison daily for the next year--the freezer is full. I can only handle so much of it, but Larry really could eat it every day. I'm a chicken and turkey girl myself, and better yet, no meat at all.

    Jai, it really is simple. You could add other things to it--allspice, nutmeg, rose hips, dried flowers...all sorts of possibilities.

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