Thursday, November 23, 2023

Pumpkin, carrot, onion soup recipe

A delicious, rich, thick pumpkin carrot soup

This is a delicious, hardy soup using one of our many Seminole pumpkins. My husband and I worked together on this soup, which was three dinners for the two of us and two lunch servings. (See my Seminole pumpkin article, which has more recipes for this versatile squash.)

Ingredients:

1 small pumpkin, seeded, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes*
6 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes 
2 large sweet onions, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup grated radishes*
1 tablespoon of fresh rosemary leaves, chopped*
1 teaspoon of fresh oregano leaves*
1/3 cup of garlic chives, chopped*
1/2 teaspoon of dill seed*
1 cup plain Greek yogurt added to the soup and more as garnish
8 cups of water
2 eggs, beaten
enough olive oil to sauté the herbs and the onions
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons of dill, chopped for garnish*

*Fresh from the garden (except for the dill seed, which collected last spring)

Thursday, November 2, 2023

Florida's goldenrods

Goldenrods do Not cause allergies

The insect-pollinated goldenrods (Solidago spp.) with their beautiful flowers have erroneously been blamed for fall allergy season when it's the wind-pollinated ragweed (Ambrosia spp.) with the unnoticeable green flowers that are filling the air with pollen when the goldenrods are blooming. The ragweeds do not need to put any energy into creating beautiful flowers or sweet nectar because the wind will blow anyway. As I understand it, some allergy doctors test people to see if they are allergic to goldenrod pollen even though that pollen is too heavy and sticky to float in the air and there is zero chance of its getting into anyone's nose. 

A swallowtail butterfly is pale in comparison to
the very yellow goldenrod.
Ragweed, the source of the air-borne pollen that gives people hay fever.