Preparing Vegetables for Soup and Gazpacho

• tomatoes
• any color bell peppers
• 5 giant garlic cloves

Bring 2½ quarts of water to a rolling boil. Fill a big bowl of ice then add water. Drop the tomatoes, a couple at a time, into the boiling water for 10-12 seconds - stirring.

Immediately scoop them out with a slotted spoon and into the ice water. Stir and then leave them for several minutes to keep the flesh from cooking. Do this with the garlic, for the same amount of time and the whole peppers too, but the peppers will take about a minute or longer in the boiling water, to loosen their skins. Follow by immersing them in ice water also. Once the tomatoes and garlic are peeled, the peppers peeled and seeded, chop them well, into a big bowl. Add the other chopped, fresh ingredients. Celery, onions and green onion.

Drizzle with 2-3T EVOO and whatever seasonings will be best for your future recipes. I had 12 cups to freeze in 2c amounts, in each of 6 quart size bags.

Gazpacho

To what's left in the bowl, I added two 5-inch pickling cucumbers and blended it well to make a quart of fresh Gazpacho. I pour some in a bowl and heat it for 30 seconds in the microwave, just to take the chill off, then top with a dab of sour cream, a sprinkle of dill, avocado slices, and serve it with whole grain crisp bread.  

It is SO good! . .Lin

Beef Bone Broth

The other day I saw a couple ENORMOUS beef bones marked Dog Bones.  I though, hmmm, nice.  Penny and Oliver will love these.  Hunks of meat, gristle and tendons still attached, lots of marrow. . .Then unpacking them at home, I realized, these were not for my 40# pups!!  Maybe not even for a 150# 'pup!'

So, regardless of the label, I decided when life hands me Monster Beef Bones. . .I Make Bone Broth!  

I've made bone broths a couple times before and this turned out quite different from those.  Previously, using turkey and chicken bones, once the boiling had ceased, and the pot had been refrigerated overnight, in all instances, I was easily able to scrape off a significant fat layer, but with the poultry bone broth, the 'broth' underneath was nicely gelled!  I've heard it's important for good, healthy bone broth, to be thick and gelatinous, rather than stay liquid when chilled.  The beef did not do this, which was a surprise considering the quality of the bones and the amount of marrow each contained.  I need to read about bone broths though, maybe that's something inherent in poultry but not red meat bones that contributes to the gelling.

These photos are actually from day 2.  I wasn't planning to blog this, so didn't take pictures of the original ingredients, but I started with:

2 honkin' beef bones

2 big carrots

half a head of green cabbage

3 stalks of celery and tops

2-3t black peppercorns

3 big bay leaves

2 onions

6-8 cloves of garlic

½c Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar

I scrubbed and rough chopped all the vegetables.  I didn't leave onion peels or root ends on, since my thought was I may use my immersion blender at the end of the cooking and chilling process, which is what I did.  The blending broke up the peppercorns a bit, but they're still pretty rough and very spicy.

Back to day 1.  I put everything in my 6 quart pot and covered with water to within a couple inches of the top.  I simmered this covered, for many hours, but 4-8 would be good.  Then popped the whole pot into the 'fridge.  On day 2, I removed the bones, cut away the meat and chopped that with some of the vegetables for a special treat for my dogs.  I scraped off all the fat, which wasn't difficult since the whole pot was covered in a ¼-⅓" layer of hard buttery-looking fat.

I discarded the fat and bones, warmed everything for about 10 minutes, then hit it with my immersion blender.  This resulted in a very nice, thick vegetable-beef bone broth.  Almost a half-gallon of it!  This can be frozen in smaller containers for soups or stews.

I'm thinking I may combine about a quart of this with some crushed tomatoes, half & half and more garlic for a nice beefy cream of tomato soup.  Sooo, stay tuned!

Be Creative — Make Your Kitchen Time Fun! . . . Lin