Dark Days: Deluxe Comfort Food

Monday, November 05, 2007

There are few things I like more than a grilled cheese sandwich on a cold day.  I know it’s not the healthiest thing in the world, but it’s so good! Total comfort.  And with a bowl of homemade soup, well…it just doesn’t get any better than that.

Last night I got home from a busy, work-related weekend and all I wanted was something soothing and good.  Making soup from scratch is easy (and soothing all by itself), particularly if you’ve been freezing the spare odds and ends of produce throughout the Summer season.  I started with non-local walnut oil and sauteed some sliced onions, and added in two pints of the duck stock I made and canned a few months ago.  I cubed the last acorn squash and carrots from the CSA share, and some parsnips I recently purchased.  In went some dried beans, both recently purchased and the very last of the beans I grew in the garden.  And then I just started grabbing things out of the freezer - the peppers I roasted and froze, turnip tops, kale, scallions.  Delicious!

And the grilled cheese!  Good multi-grain bread from Le Bus, raw milk cheddar from Green Meadow Farms, and local butter.  I promptly forgot all about having to work all weekend.

The only things not local: salt and pepper, walnut oil, and the bread.  Granted, it is from a local bakery - surely that has to count for something!