Cooking with your garden produce

Here is a delicious and simple soup that uses either cucumbers, squash or a mixture of both. It can be eaten hot or cold. I prefer hot.

Barbara B's Cucumber Soup
Take a few garden cukes, peel and chunk up. You can use the pickling cukes if you grow them. or chunk up some peeled squash of any sort. Chop up a big onion and put all in pot and add broth to cover. (I use non-salt veggie cubes to make broth but Barbara uses chicken broth cubes)Simmer until cooked. The cooking time depends on what combo you have in the pot but about 15 minutes should do it. Salt and pepper. Add a bit of fresh dill. if you grow it. I added a shake of cajun spice. Cool the soup and puree well in a blender or food processor. Place in a container and put in fridge. This is your basic soup.

To serve, take out about two thirds cup for each person and combine with a third cup of bettermilk. Serve hot or cold. That's it. How easy can it get?

Tip. We often get our first frost on September 20. Last year it was much later. Often the perennials bloom on, tough guys that they are. All the annuals which turn to black pulp have to be pulled and composted. I just leave the other plants alone. I empty my large ornamental ceramic pot, rinse it with the hose and bring it inside and scrub it. Slug eggs can hide in the rough ceramic material and so a good scrubing is needed. Ceramic pots will not survive outside in out deep freeze winters. I also pull the blackend annuals out of the large plastic pots and window boxes. Then it depends how much time I have. Sometimes I have emptied these containers on the compost but in a hurried autumn, I just leave them alone.