Summer Vegetable Soup

This week we are in Finland.

Kun menee sutta pakoon, tulee karhu vastaan. 

That means "When you flee from a wolf, you run into a bear" This has nothing to do with this post. I just Googled "Popular Finnish proverbs" and I liked this one. It's supposed to be mean to not give up on one situation for another. I don't get it either. 

FINLAND. The biggest deciding factor in choosing Finland was, and this was backed by some super scientific thought, that it's cold in Finland. It's currently cold in Texas. So I figured the food would be agreeable with the climate. Granted I'm currently wearing shorts in January so maybe I didn't think this one through. I rarely do.

Choosing a cookbook for Finland was pretty easy. My three choices at Half Price were a $40 book that wasn't going to happen in any world, a $30 book that focused on Finnish country cooking which involved a lot of wild game like reindeer, and the $10 book I ended up buying. The price was right! Also, the book I ended up buying uses American measurements (in yo face metric system!) and is actually a book on Scandinavian cooking. It's titled "The Art of Scandinavian Cooking" by Nika Standen Hazelton. It was written in the mid-sixties but the recipes seem to hold up pretty well so far. There's an intro to each country, with a little synopsis of their dietary customs and traditions. It's a fun read.

The first recipe is Summer Vegetable Soup, even though it's not Summer. And people say GMOs are bad...how else would I make this recipe in January, hippies?!

The ingredients

1 quart water

1 tbsp salt

1 cup Frenched green beans. I chose fresh green beans for health reasons but if you don't love yourself, canned beans are good, too. I also cut them myself. This would have been a billion times easier if I had a food processor but I recently gave mine away because I never used it. Foiled by my generosity once again!

1 cup sliced carrots. Again, the food processor would have come in handy.

1 cup cubed peeled potatoes. I almost always cook with red potatoes. They are lower in fat than white potatoes and higher in potassium and anti-oxidants than their paler counterpart. It's just science!

1 cup fresh peas. I couldn't find fresh peas so I used frozen. I made up for it by using fresh everything else, though!

1 cup cauliflower buds

1/2 cup chopped spinach

2 to 2 tbsp flour

1 quart milk. I did not use a quart of milk, no one needs that much milk. Except for baby cows but we aren't bovine. I used about two cups, so about half a quart.

3 tbsp butter

1/4 cup chopped parsley

Bring water to a boil. Add beans, carrots, and potatoes. When they are half cooked, add peas, cauliflower, and spinach. When veggies are almost tender, make a paste of flour and a bit of milk; stir in. Then add remaining milk and simmer for ten minutes. Remove from heat and add butter and parsley.

It was forty degrees the night I made this and it.hit.the.spot. I was a little worried about it being bland but the butter and sweetness of the peas and carrots added some great flavor. It was very filling but wasn't too heavy. It probably would have turned out different had I used the full amount of milk but I feel this worked perfectly.

The three year old wouldn't touch it but the nineteen month old asked for seconds. Seriously, she has the best taste.