All the snow had melted. The ground was clear for probably 10 days. Teeny-tiny plants were popping up in the bed next to the house, self-seeded from either the spinach or the Asian greens that grew there last year. Maybe both.
Close by the seedlings, dandelions loomed like Godzilla over the population of Tokyo. Eventually they’ll get pulled out, but for now I just let them grow so I could pick them for the boiling bag.
Here are there in this south-facing bed, the rhubarb was peeking up above the soil. The deep pinky-red spears and low, dark-green leaves made a stark contrast to the dark, wet soil. It made me think about lovely cobblers, and batches of compote for my homemade yogurt, and maybe a few rhubarb-raspberry pies.
Speaking of raspberries: They weren’t exactly budding, but they were definitely thinking about it. Although DF cut them back quite severely last fall, I was pretty sure they’d rally the way they did the last time he implemented his scorched-earth pruning policy.
And then the snow came back.
The first time it was amusing. Oh, look, the weather still thinks it’s winter! It accumulated a bit but melted by the end of the day.
The second time made me a bit grouchy. Seriously? It melted and I figured that was it.
The third day I was downright mad. Yes, I know we need the precipitation and it’s only April, but come ON. Yeah, you BETTER melt, you unwanted ice crystals.
Report from the fourth day: It is almost 4 p.m. and it’s been snowing all day. And sticking.
Yes, I know it’s Alaska and it can snow any time it wants. But dammit, Mother Nature, what about my rhubarb? Don’t you care at all????
The only possible response was soup.
The snow improves the taste
On Easter DF did a beef roast on the Weber grill and I baked some potatoes in the slow cooker. I was about to wash the cooker when DF suggested we just throw the latest boiling bag in overnight. That way, we could dream of soup all night long.
This particular batch had a lot of onion skins (typical for this time of year), chicken bones, an apple core, some ribs from romaine lettuce that DF is growing in a pot in the kitchen, potato peels and those dandelion greens.
Accompanying that was a container (also from the freezer), which contained liquid drained from home-cooked lentils, cans of green beans and hominy, the carrots we canned last year, and the small amount of water that I used to rinse out the quart jar of home-canned turkey the previous day. (We made two turkey pies, and DF had his very first experience* making pie crust from scratch.)
The result was a broth with great, silky mouth-feel; however, the taste of corn overrode all the other veggies. Hominy is pretty aggressive stuff. So I took another batch of broth from the freezer, one with a strong flavor of turkey. Ultimately the hominy had to yield.
I sautéed onions and some of the celery frozen from last year’s garden and dumped that in, too. A bunch of seasonings followed: garlic, basil, dill weed, cayenne, thyme. Later I would add thinly sliced carrots, diced potatoes, home-grown peas and some leftover lamb from the freezer.
The slowly simmering potage is making the house smell delicious and taking my mind off the snow outside the window. Thus it will nourish us twice: once with its aroma, and again later on when we ate it with lots of crackers (or maybe a batch of biscuits if I wind up getting inspired).
Still irritated about the weather. But at least I’ll be well-fed.
Readers: Go ahead and tell me about how nice the spring is shaping up in your part of the world. It’s fine. Really.
*He is a better cook than I am in some ways, but he still regards me as a pastry savant. And now that he knows how much work goes into making and rolling out top and bottom crusts for two pies, he may love me even more.
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As a native Midwesterner, I feel your pain. I HATE late season snowstorms. But, it’s a great excuse to make soup. 🙂 (Just for the record, I tend to bake when the weather is bad, which doesn’t do my waistline any good.)
I was this close to making some rolls, but I did have to get some actual work done today in addition to all the souping.
Doesn’t mean I won’t make one of those Lightning Cakes after supper, though.
The snow is supposed to hit Fairbanks tonight, with 5 to 10 inches of accumulation. It is already windy and damp. Made soup yesterday, which will be dinner for three days, but this morning found scraps of five different cheeses hiding in the freezer I was cleaning out. Saved from Christmas platters and potlucks, I think, but now thrown together into a fancy mac and cheese. So for the next three days, mac and cheese for lunch and soup for supper. We now use Bonza pasta, made with chickpeas and no flour, which means no blood sugar spikes for these two older folks! Let it snow, we are ready! (We even have chocolate to make hot chocolate if it gets too cold!)
I think maybe we got the same weather front, moving north on its way to Fairbanks. Sounds like you’re ready for it. Food like that tastes better when it’s cold.
Incidentally, I’ll be in Fairbanks at the end of the week. My friend and I are attending the 8 x 10 Festival. Hope the snow is gone by then. By any chance are you attending 8 x 10? If you’re interested in saying “hi” in person, either there or somewhere else, drop me a line at survivingandthriving (at) live (dot) com.
Would love to meet you in real life but it will have to wait. I was over-enthusiastic about cleaning out a crawl space and am now writing this lying on my side in bed because I threw out my back. (I wish I could throw it out and get a new back!) Our weather is great, the snow was not as heavy as predicted so roads are clear now.
Ouch! Having had back issues myself, I know it can be both painful and boring just to lie there wishing you could sleep for two weeks and wake up HEALED.
I do get to Fairbanks from time to time, so perhaps another trip. Hope you feel better as quickly as is possible.
It turned chilly here for Easter, the high was in the low 70’s past weekend, A/C was turned off and Windows were opened for the fresh air….. and I had to wear a long sleeve shirt to my Saturday morning run group! 😉
It actually is rare for it to be this lovely in late April, the humidity will rear her ugly head all too soon, and we’ll be back in the bosom of our air conditioned homes.
Stay warm Donna, and I hope the Rhubarb makes it!
Spring?!?
It’s autumn!! Beautiful days down here in Melbourne.
I didn’t know you could do baked potatoes in the slow cooker. You may have changed my life.
You can bake squash in it, too. But I’m more likely to do spuds — and, again, do more than we need so we can have homefries the next day.
Wonderful! It’s been so long since I made real soup — as opposed to just boiling up a few chicken bones — that I’d forgotten how magnificent a grand pot of soup can be!
Your soup sounds delicious!
I won’t say anything about the 78F temperatures this afternoon here in Northern California, or that I have my front door open at 9pm with just the screen, enjoying the mild evening.
It was delicious. The blowing snow outside the window made it even more so.
I make my pie crusts in my food processor; the Crisco website has a good recipe with three different variations. I use butter-flavored Crisco for flavor, a trick from my mother-in-law. The food processor makes it SOOO easy!
When I was a child, I loved rhubarb-apple pies from A&P. So much so that my sister made one from scratch for my bridal shower, and that was 23 years ago!
Spring has sprung here in the northeast. My car was covered with lime green pollen this morning.
It’s 26 degrees here, so probably no pollen — yet. I have the Costco brand Zyrtec at the ready, though.
Never thought about rhubarb apple pie. Hmmmm…..