Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Garden Tuesday: Cream of Radish Green Soup

I know what you're thinking: "Sweet Jesus on a whole wheat cracker, she's gone off the deep end! Can someone call her dearly beloved and warn him? Will the kids survive this?"

Do you remember how enormous my radishes were last week? I'll refresh your memory.

Yes. It was not pretty. They never grew any bulbs, so it was time for them to go. Since the little piggies loved the leaves, I tried one and found it to not be bitter, so soup they became. My fussiest big eater, son #2, actually had 3 cups of this, and everyone else had seconds and liked it. I didn't tell them what it was until after they'd tried it (other than the 2 little boys, who were in on the secret).

CREAM OF RADISH GREEN SOUP

1/4 cup butter
2 minced onions
3 shredded potatoes
8 cups radish greens, chopped
6 cups water
8 chicken bouillon cubes
1 tsp ground nutmeg

pepper
1 cup heavy cream

Melt the butter in a big pan, and saute the onions with the pepper in
it until soft. Add the water, cubes, potatoes and greens; simmer 30 to 45 minutes. Puree the soup in batches, if you want the greens cut smaller, then turn the heat down to low, add the cream and cook for 5 minutes or so, until heated through. Taste and adjust seasonings, if necessary. Offer grated parmesan as a topping if anyone would like it. Serve with a nice crusty bread or sandwiches.

Of course, you have to see the garden this week.
One of the cucumbers never came up, and we transplanted the seedlings we started inside. The sun is finally out, so we may actually get some growth. I've probably jinxed us now, given that we've had rain 16 of the last 21 days (it was in the paper, not my statistic).

And some of our tardy dogwood trees have decided to bloom.

Happy Tuesday! Come back for Louise's picnic soon!

7 comments:

Paula said...

Oh my gosh, this is so clever! I've used radish sprouts before, but never the leaves like this! Love it. By the way, how rude for those plants not to bulb! My little radish guys have finally gotten their first real leaves. I'm going outside to tell them that they better bulb, or they can plan to be soup! Hey, wait a minute, they can be soup either way! :-)

SissySees said...

Interesting. I don't know that I knew radish greens were edible either...

Gail said...

Oh for a kitchen garden like that!

Mickle in NZ said...

What a great idea. I make a similar soup, adding baby spinach just before blending it, and blue cheese rather than cream (and a wee bit smaller quantity, lol).

Never thought of radish greens. And I've a packet of radish seeds ready for springtime.

What type is the pretty little tree planted between the vegetable gardens?

Oh - and the dogwood flowering is so beautiful. What a lovely garden you have!

pam said...

You are so clever! I can never think of ways to use everything up. I can't believe you still have a dogwood tree blooming!

Katherine Roberts Aucoin said...

You are so resourceful Marji, my hat is off to you. I probably would have just tossed the greens.

I am so surprised that your dogwood is blooming mi late June!

noble pig said...

That's a great idea...I love sneaing something like that in!