A Day of Cooking

Where I live January tends to be the coldest month of the winter. This year has decided to make no exceptions. I think January is probably even more difficult to get through because there are no cheerful Christmas lights or warm family gatherings to look forward to anymore. It's just kinda the daily grind... and then Mother Nature drops another foot and a half of snow. Not Awesome.

This past weekend there was a pretty decent snow storm that lasted a lot of both Friday and Saturday which made doing anything at all pretty unappealing. On Sunday however, my Husband and I needed to get groceries and all either of us really wanted right then was piping hot homemade soup.

We decided on our two favourites, French Onion Soup, and Borscht. We realized at the time that this was going to be kind of a task to get everything done, but to have enough soup for the next week or two would be worth it!

Cooking up onions and beets, and then the pots of finished soups simmering on the stove!

For the Borscht we used:

4 Cups of Shredded Beets
3x900ml Boxes of Beef Broth
1 can (1.36 Litres) Tomato Juice
3 Medium Yellow Onions
1/2 Cup White Vinegar
2 Tbs Sugar
2 Tsp Black Pepper
1 Tbs Dill

Chop the Onions and fry until slightly browned in a frying pan. While the Onions brown, pour the Beef Broth and Tomato Juice into a Large Pot and set the stove to Medium - High. Add the Onions to the Beef Broth and Tomato Juice once they've browned. Fill a Medium Sized Pot with water and bring to a boil. Add the beets to the boiling water and turn down the temperature to medium. Cook until the beets have lost most of their colour. Strain the beets and add them to the hot beef broth and tomato juice.

The Vinegar, Sugar, Pepper, and Dill should be added to taste. I sort of wrote in about how much we used, however. We've made this soup a few times now and I think every time we make it we do things a little bit differently, but it always turns out to be delicious!

We decided also to make Perishky or Sauerkraut Buns to go with the Borscht. We fried Onions and Mushrooms with the Sauerkraut to make the filling, and I didn't know what kind of dough to use (and by this point was pretty tired...) so I just made a pizza / bread dough recipe that I already knew I could make as I've made it a few times before. It's actually the Jamie Oliver Pizza Dough Recipe and I think it tastes really good and is really easy to make!

For the Filling We Used:

About 2 Cups of Chopped Mushrooms
1 Medium Sized Onion
1 1Litre Jar of Sauerkraut

We fried the Mushrooms and Onions separately from the Sauerkraut as the Sauerkraut just has to brown slightly and we wanted to cook the mushrooms and onions a bit longer.

 I think maybe next time I will only make maybe one soup at a time, and maybe we'll give the Perishky their own separate day as well... But all of this cooking was totally worth it! And even though we were crazy tired by the end of it, it was really nice getting to spend the whole day cooking with my Husband as we usually sort of just go off and do our own thing. It's kind of surprising how little you can interact with someone on a day to day basis, even when you live in the same little house! So it's really nice every now and again to slow down and do something fun together.

Thanks for reading!
Keep Warm!
xoxo