I was thinking the other day about how Northeast Ohio is such a weird place to live. I’m referring to the weather. In my opinion, it goes something like this…
January though March = It’s Hell. Everything is a frozen, cold, Polar-hell. Though sometimes Mother Nature will throw in a nice day (or three) just to give you some sense of hope. And maybe keep you from choking someone…
April: April sucks. If April were a person, she’d be a total tease. Things start to bloom and look all pretty, but then it turns cold, wet, muddy and windy. Along with more smatterings of snow here and there. Just enough to piss you off. Also, while over in England they’re jauntily driving on the left side of their roads, here in Ohio we’re struggling to drive on what’s LEFT of our roads. Potholes. Potholes. Potholes.
May: May’s a total crap-shoot. You never know what to expect. A few days of “summer-ish” weather, followed by more wet, cold, windy shit days. And sometimes there’s a nice hard frost to kill off everything you planted on Memorial Day weekend. One year, I re-planted tomato plants three times because the end of May was a disaster, killing them all off with a bunch of last minute frosts. I nearly gave up.
June through September = Just fine. Everything is great. Gardens are growing, and things are blooming. It’s warm/hot, there’s an occasional tornado, lots of ticks, mosquitoes, horseflies and humidity. Hay cutting, lawn-mowing. Sweaty nights with no air conditioning… What more could you want?
October: Kind of like May, it’s a crap-shoot, but at least you don’t care about anything in the garden dying. At this point you’re sick of caring for the garden and canning tomatoes. Now you’re begin to panic about getting firewood in. And hay. Nights are getting cold…
November & December: Cold and dreary. Things are either dead or dying. The chickens have cut back on their egg laying. Snow begins to fall. And the DARKNESS! Why do we still have Daylight Savings Time? Whyyyy???
Where am I going with this little rant? Well, it’s May, and yesterday was one of those cold, wet shitty days. I was craving hot soup that was healthy and light but with lots of flavor. My ingredients available were onions, new potatoes, broccolini, fresh peas, parsley, garlic, a lemon, Parmesan and some fresh horseradish I had just made. Sounded like soup to me…
I didn’t measure, I just used as much of everything as I liked, and enough potatoes to thicken the soup. I sauteed the onions and garlic first, then added the vegetables and chicken broth. Once everything was tender, I pureed it all with an immersion blender and topped it off with a dollop of the fresh horseradish and a sprinkle of Parmesan before serving. Good stuff.
And how’s the garden coming along you ask? Lovely. It’s under water… And more thunderstorms are in the forecast. So yeah, the mosquitoes should be out before you know it! ~A
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