Pickle Soup
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Serves: 4
- 550g/19.4ozs. potatoes (around 4), cut into small pieces
- Oil for frying
- 1 onion, peeled and chopped
- 200g/7ozs. carrots (around 2), cubed
- 2 sticks celery, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
- 2 bay leaves
- 5 cups chicken or vegetable stock
- 3/4 cup dill pickles, chopped
- 1/4 to 1/2 cup pickle juice (to taste)
- 150g/5ozs/ sour cream
- 1 cup/100g/3.5ozs. shredded havarti or gouda cheese
- 1/4 bunch fresh dill (or to taste)
- Salt and pepper
Step 1 - First boil the potatoes until tender but not mushy. Drain and set aside. Add some oil to the pan and fry the onion, carrots and celery until tender. Once the onion has softened I add a bit of water and then leave the lid on to cook for a few minutes to soften the carrots and celery. Add the garlic and fry for a minute.
Step 2 - Add the bay leaves and then the stock. Add the dill pickles, pickle juice and return the potatoes to the pot and simmer for a few minutes. Add the sour cream, cheese and dill and season to taste. Serve with buttered rye bread.
Personal Note
Speaking of pickles, one of my favourite phrases relating to pickles is "getting yourself into a pickle" which of course means getting into a conundrum. And Mr NQN and I are in a bit of a pickle with our house. I wouldn't call this house a money pit although it does certainly feel like we've got a lot of expenses especially with this unseasonably cold winter. A friend once told me that her first year after she moved into her new home was the "Arctic phase" when they had to quickly figure out how to warm up the house.
Our house is a federation house and has the original federation front but an extension added on to this. It has been so cold inside and even though we have heaters and split system air conditioning this doesn't seem to do anything. Mr NQN went around filling all of the gaps especially in the stained glass windows and that helped somewhat but we needed professional help. I've had countless tradespeople in to give us quotes on everything from ducted heating, hydronic heating, solar, curtains to double glazing.
There doesn't seem to be a clear path and of course once they come and have a look they all say, without exception, "This is going to be a tough job" shaking their head. Some proved too costly - the double glazing for just two rooms totalled around $35,000 and that wasn't even doing all of the windows. Our upstairs bedroom and ensuite has 17 windows which looks great but is cost prohibitive to double glaze. Adding curtains to one single room came in at $15,000 for two windows - granted they are huge windows but we weren't quite prepared for that.
Then one day the ducted heating guy came and spent around 30 minutes trying to figure out where the ducts could go. He climbed his ladder and went into the ceiling cavity. He let out a whistle and a tsk, "Hey do you know there's no insulation in the ceiling?" he said. Yup the reason why the heating was disappearing was that there is absolutely no insulation in the ceiling! It still boggles the mind that people could live in this house for 100 years and not even think that insulation might be a good idea. But let's just add that to the other expenses that we need to move this house out of the Arctic phase into the summer...
So tell me Dear Reader, do you have any tips for heating a house? Do you like pickles? Have you ever tried pickle soup?