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.