Buns, Borscht, Beer, and Friendly Neighbourhood Snow Clearing

Everyone deserves friends and neighbours like ours!! Our friends look out for us (and vice versa).  These particular friends have all the tools you could ever need to borrow (and they know how to use them).  They also fix the lawn mower when it is broken, look after the house and the cats when we are out of town, and help us out with their snow blower after a big snowfall!  Wow!  I just made it sound like they do everything for us.  We do our best to return the favours and look after their house and their adorable dogs.  We also buy the occasional case of beer for them, but I also like to bake for them every now and then...I do like to bake occasionally you know.  I know at least one of them likes the honey seeded buns I make so I can make those, but these lovely Oatmeal Ale Roles I found over on the Flour Dusted site just might do the trick!  They do have beer in them after all! (If you haven't been over to the Flour Dusted site, you really are missing out!

I decided to also make some borscht today, since it was so cold and soup always helps to warm people up.  I like to use the recipe from Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite book.

Love the colour of those beets!

Borscht
From Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite
Printable recipe

• 2 Tbsp Olive oil
• 1 onion, peeled and minced
• 2 celery stalks, trimmed and minced
• 1 large carrot, diced
• 1 thyme sprig, leaves stripped
• Salt and pepper
• 1 lb raw beet, peeled and chopped
• ½ red cabbage, about 8 oz minced
• 3 ½ cups vegetable stock or water
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp sugar
• Handful of dill, chopped
• 4 tbsp sour cream or plain yogurt, for serving

Heat a large pot and add the 2 tbsp olive oil.

Saute the onion, carrot, and celery, thyme, and some salt and pepper for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally

Add the beets and the cabbage along with about 1 cup water.  Let the veggies cook, stirring occasionally for about 10 minutes.

Add the veggie stock (or water) to the pot.  Cover the pot with a lid and let it cook for 15 to 20 minutes until the veggies are tender.

When the veggies are tender, transfer the soup in batches to the blender and blend.  I like to leave my borscht a little chunky so I don't blend it too much.  You can also use a stick/immersion blender as well.

If the soup is too thick, add some water of stock to thin it out.  Server warm with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream and some chopped dill on top.

So sad, I didn't have any dill....but it still tasted wonderful!

Remember to send some soup and buns over to the nice neighbours who used their snow blower to clear the snow from you walk and drive way!!

The adorable dogs, from left: Kobe, Bella, and Cinqo...they are so cute!

So the plows finally came and did a thorough job and scrapped the built up snow off the roads.  Then it got piled up on the sides of the roads...fun...this means we have to shovel a path through these piles to make the side walks accessible!  Just to show how much snow is piled up, I took a few pictures.  Currently we are over the average amount of snowfall for the year and the winter isn't over yet..Oh well.  We will just have to wait and see how much more we will get.

This one on the corner is about 5 feet high!

This one is as tall as that SUV parked there!!!

The one is almost as high as the garage!

 Stay warm and eat well!


Borscht