My efforts last fall meant my first harvest of the year was carrots!
I have tried doing a fall garden for the last four years, and every year something goes wrong. The first time, I planted cauliflower, broccoli and some lettuces. About a week before the first of it was ready, WE MOVED. Across the country. It was all very sudden. My husband got an offer for the job of his dreams, and they wanted him to start in two weeks, so we threw everything into a truck and left. Some friends ate our garden for us. The next fall we moved into our house right after fall planting time, and our yard had no landscaping. I mean, the weeds were taller than I am. There was nowhere to throw down a few seeds.
The third year, I planted a fall garden. I did spinach, cilantro, lettuces, carrots and probably some radishes and beets. The cilantro went in first. I harvested it, washed it, and froze it in ice cube trays, then stored the little cubes in ziploc bags. It was fantastic to have little cubes of cilantro to toss into soups and things. Whenever I need cilantro it is usually a soggy mess in my fridge because I waited too long, or I have none at all. I haven’t bought cilantro in a year and a half thanks to that harvest. Free. Organic. Cilantro. Year round.
Then I got pregnant and never went back out there again to see what happened to the rest of my fall garden. Last spring I found that the spinach had overwintered and come up, and we ate it and loved it.
Last fall I planted a few things, but mostly carrots. I had a new baby and didn’t have a lot of time to fool with much besides school starting for 4 of my kids, canning (which I swore I wouldn’t do with a new baby to care for), and getting through my normal life, sort of. Some of my carrots took off, despite my neglect, and grew into beautiful, crunchy delights. The thing that most people don’t know about carrots is they get incredibly sweet after they freeze in the ground. Once the days get too short in early November, things stop growing, so there is no worry about them getting too big and gnarly. They just hibernate in the ground until you need them.
These carrots were planted in August and came out of my garden in mid-March. If it gets very cold where you live, you can cover them with a cold frame or some sort of mulch because the ground will freeze, and good luck getting your carrots! The tops of these look scraggly because my kids tried to unearth them while they were frozen in the ground (I didn’t bother with the cold frame this time), and ripped the tops off of most of my carrots. Because of their missing greens, some of the tops were a little yucky by March, but the rest of the carrot was perfect!
So what do I do with my winter carrots? Besides munching on them raw, adding them to salads, roasting them, juicing them and steaming them, I make chicken noodle soup at least twice a month. My sister-in-law shared a delicious recipe a few years ago that I changed slightly, and my kids beg for it every week. I have several bags of turkey leftovers from the holidays in my freezer especially to make this. I also like to make it after roasting a chicken for dinner. The leftovers are perfect for making soup, and the bones are perfect for making broth. I always make the creamy style. To be honest, I really eyeball the quantities. I just chop a bunch of carrots, celery and onion, pour in enough broth to boil the noodles, etc. It is an extremely flexible recipe. I serve it with bread or rolls and a salad. Our family has been known to eat 6-8 quarts of this soup in one meal. I wish I were kidding, but I’m not. My kids will eat. it. all. So much for leftovers.
I know it is April, but much of the country is still having crazy weather. In one day this week it was beautiful and sunny in the morning, then hail, then snow, then rain. All in one day! The other days have been just as strange. And I don’t think we even have it the worst compared to some parts of the country. So soup’s on friends!
This is pure comfort food.
Classic Chicken Noodle Soup
12 cups low-sodium chicken broth (or the really good homemade stuff)
4 stalks celery, chopped
2 tbsp butter
1 pound carrots, chopped
1 large onion
1 or 2 bay leaves
1-2 teaspoons salt (to taste, depending on the broth. My homemade broth has no salt in it, so I add way more than this)
½ teaspoon pepper
16-20 ounces egg noodles
1 cup cream or half-and-half combined with 1 tablespoon cornstarch (optional for creamy-style, but this is what we prefer)
Directions:
To a large stock pot (mine is 8 quarts), add the chopped vegetables and the salt and pepper with some butter and allow them to sweat on medium low*. You don’t want them to brown. Once they get soft add 12 cups chicken broth and the bay leaves. Bring the mixture to a boil. Taste the broth and add salt and pepper to taste, if needed. Add the noodles and cook according to package directions at a rolling boil (I use bite size noodles so it is easier to eat, especially for little ones). For a creamy version, combine the cream (or half-and-half) and cornstarch in a liquid measuring cup, whisking to dissolve the cornstarch. Add the slurry to the soup and simmer rapidly for 1-2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the shredded chicken. Serve and be warmed and comforted.
*If you just toss the carrots, celery and onion in the broth and boil instead of sweating them in some type of oil/fat first, the vegetables will give up their flavor and goodness to the broth and they themselves will be tasteless. Just like when you put them in the water with the bones to make broth. They flavor the broth. Since you are using delicious broth in this soup instead of water, you already have that layer of flavor and want these veggies to retain their flavor for themselves. Together they are called mirepoix (pronounced meer-pwah), by the French because they are the start of most soups.
Mirepoix, a mixture of carrots, onions and celery, is the base for many soups.
