Garden Borscht

This recipe appeared as my September Column for my local newspaper, The Hinton Voice. 

[The first year I tried my hand gardening, I killed green onions.  Not only did I kill green onions, I killed THE green onions that my Grandfather passed on to me from the plants that his father had passed on to him (sorry about that Gramps & Great Gramps!).   Thankfully there were plenty more where that came from and I didn’t kill the only plants in existence (whew!). 

If you know more about gardening than I did at that moment (which is pretty much any knowledge of gardening whatsoever) you’ll realize that green onions are practically the easiest vegetable you can possibly grow.  In fact, you could likely plant them and forget about them and they would flourish on their own and take over your entire garden.   Somehow however, I still managed to kill green onions.

  The second year I tried gardening, not only did my green onions live, I was incredibly excited that I was also able to grow tomatoes (another fairly easy starter plant for the novice gardener).  Every year I learned a little bit more, through trial, and error, and several FaceTime sessions with my Gramps. Not only was I actually growing things, I started to get smart about the way that I planted my garden.  Last year I devoted an entire garden to salsa where I grew tomatoes, onions, cilantro, green peppers, and jalapenos.  This year I have a backyard garden filled to the brim with beets, carrots, green onions, and dill.

One evening after picking a fairly decent august bounty from this particular garden, I posted a picture on social media, commenting about how great it felt to be able to “go grocery shopping” in my own backyard that evening.  Someone mentioned that I had all of the necessary ingredients for borscht, and once that idea was in my head, there was no getting it out until I made it. 

While green onions don’t traditionally go in borscht, they certainly earned their place in this recipe – after all, I think we can all agree that I’ve put my green onions through entirely too much to exclude them.]

Recipe makes 8 servings

Ingredients

- 2 L beef broth

- 2 bay leaves

- 2 cups beets, peeled and cubed

- 2 cups potatoes, cubed

- 1 cup carrots, peeled and sliced

- 2 cups cabbage, chopped

- 1 tbsp butter or oil

- 1 cup green onions, sliced

- 2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed

- ¼ cup dill, chopped

- ¼ cup tomato sauce

- ¼ cup white wine vinegar

- 2 tbsp brown sugar

- pepper, to taste

- sour cream to garnish

Directions

Bring broth and bay leaves to a boil over medium heat. 

Add beets, potatoes, carrots, and cabbage.

In a separate pan, sauté green onions and garlic in butter over medium heat. 

Add to broth along with fresh dill and tomato sauce.   

Continue boiling until veggies are soft.

Just before serving, stir in vinegar and brown sugar.

Pepper to taste, then garnish with sour cream and a few sprigs of fresh dill.

- Nutritional Info (per serving) -

Calories – 84    Fat - 2    Carbs – 15     Protein - 2   Fibre - 3

Enjoy!