Soup!! And happy anniversary Growbox Hill!

Ok... Just as a quick hooray... We have now been here a year!! Woot!! And have survived it :) Hoping this year we can really proceed with plans as we want. I had already planned on our first year being checking out the property and seeing what we can do and need... So I consider ourselves right on schedule for year two. This year it's mostly gardening and setting up the yard for yet more future plans :)

So soup. Had a heap of spinach and beans leftover so I decided it was either a pot of spinach soup, or a couple pots of other soups. I opted for a couple pots. A batch of bean and ham, and a kind of Zuppa Toscana.

Had half of a bone in picnic ham left over that's been in the freezer for a while... That went to making up a big pot of porky goodness stock. I quick boiled a couple cups of the dried bean mix I made up in the fall, drained them... And added in porky stock goodness, a bunch of chopped carrots and celery, and a handful of chopped onion. At the end I will add in the chopped up bits of mere poix from the stock, all the ham I stripped off the bone, fortified with goodly bit of spinach and beans.... YUM!!

For the zuppa, I pulled out a bag each of turkey stock and broth from the freezer that I made up off the Tday turkey carcass. Browned up my sausage and pulled it to drain. Used just bacon grease instead of the half pound of bacon to sautee the onion, and since I'm out of fresh garlic, used a palmful of garlic powder. Put in my three pounds of unpeeled sliced up potatoes and the turkey stock and broth... Topped it off with some of the porky goodness stock. Once that finished boiling up I will add a couple cups of milk.. I don't have any cream in the house, so I will be fortifying the milk with a few tablespoons of dry milk solids. Then I will dump the sausage back in and the other half of the leftover spinach and beans.

Between the two not only will we have some gratutious dinner action, but I'm figuring probably 12-16 more portions to go into the freezer for future meals!! Gotta love it when a pile of leftovers and think ahead cooking combine in deliciousness!! Thank goodness for cooking school too. I was a pretty decent cook before, but I learned a tremendous amount of on the fly cooking action.

Future plans for my cooking action will be getting back into safety and sanitation. I want to study up and get my Michigan proctorship... That way I can spread my love for food and my driving need for safe and wholesome food to other people. I want my proctorship so that I can help disadvantaged people get their s&s certs. Like cottage industry, medable makers, school kids... People that can't really afford the classes necessarily, but require that proctor attended testing.  I'm willing to give my knowledge for free if they are willing to pay for their own testing fees. The other nice part? I will already be fully certified for when Growbox Hill starts developing and selling food type products. Which yeah, makes me think about the upstairs kitchen. It's totally yoinked right now anyway, so I'm thinking when we do start working on it, it's going to be done up to commercial specs :)

Time to go stir the soup!!