Favourite Fall Soup: Borscht

B and I spent the weekend in our backyard getting everything ready for the longgg cold winter.  This meant putting away our patio furniture, raking, and pulling out my beloved garden.  It also meant digging up the last bits of my root vegetables: beets, carrots, and potatoes.  With an abundance of beets on my hands I thought it would be an appropriate time to share my all time favourite fall soup recipe… borscht!

I lived off of this when I was a kid.  My grandma was the borscht queen, and lucky for me she passed on her recipe.  I have since added and changed a few things to make it my own, I take her a bowl whenever I make it and she approves, so you know it’s good!

A few tips before we get started:

-garden vegetables are not a necessity but they do make it taste that much better
-wear black… the beets will stain
– the more sour cream the better
-this is a recipe that has really never been written down so I tried my best with the measurements… the more vegetables the better so don’t worry about measuring exactly, just use what you have! You want it to be a dark purple- redish color, if it’s not it means you don’t have enough beets!

Ingredients:

-4 or 5 medium sized beets
-2 or 3 diced potatoes
-1 cup diced carrots
-1 cup cut up beans
-1 cup peas (I didn’t have any when filming this video and it turned out fine, just use what you have!)
-1 diced onion
-salt & pepper to taste
-2 TBSP fresh dill
-1-2 TBSP vinegar (depends on how zingy you like it!)
-1-2 TBSP pickle juice
-3 TBSP butter
-3 TBSP flour
-spice ball: wrap 3 TBSP of pickling spice into a cheese cloth ball. Fasten with elastic
-about a cup of sour cream

Instructions:

Put all vegetables (peeled and cut) and the spice ball into a pot filled with water (about 3 inches above the vegetables). Simmer until vegetables are tender.  Add dill, vinegar, and pickle juice. Melt butter, stir in the flour to make a roux.  Add about a cup of the broth to the roux and mix to ensure it doesn’t clump.  Pour the mixture back into the soup pot, simmer and allow to thicken slightly.  Remove from heat & stir in the sour cream.

Garnish with fresh dill and a dollop of sour cream, enjoy!

What’s your favourite fall soup?!