Submitted by: agcomm,  Thu Dec 18 12:35:24 1997


Prairie Fare: Fending off Mother Nature's Fury . . .  with a
Ladle  
 
Graphic accompanies this column in hard copy and is available on
the World Wide Web at
http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extnews/newsrelease/graphics/
 
     Residents of the Northern Great Plains, select your weapon.
You know what comes after the holiday season: a months-long duel
with Mother Nature.  
     My weapon of choice for battling the winter blahs, even
during the mildest of winters, is a soup ladle. My soup of choice
would be old-fashioned vegetable beef, if I could replicate the
soup my mom made when I was a kid. But what they don't tell you
is that not only can you never go home again, neither can you eat
what you ate when you were at home.  
     I remember coming home from grade school and encountering
the aroma of Mom's vegetable soup on the doorstep. She used all
sorts of vegetables, even turnips and parsnips, if memory serves.
But the key ingredient was the soup bone. Back then we ate beef
that we raised, and Dad always made sure the local butcher left
our soup bones extra meaty.  
     Mom's vegetable beef soup would have probably gone off the
fat-content chart. When chilled, it was a solid mass of cubed
vegetables and gelatin with a saturated-fat crown. But when
piping hot, its taste was to die for. 
     When we ate soup the first night (we always had it two days
in a row), Mom would set the steaming soup bone on the table on
its own platter. I never thought much about it back then (what's
that saying about not knowing what you have until it's gone?),
but now those soup bones have taken on almost shrine-like status
for me.  
     I'd slather butter onto saltine crackers and then fork
cracker-sized chunks of the tenderest meat imaginable off the
bone and onto the saltines. I'd pop these morsels into my mouth
just as the butter was starting to melt. Today I'd probably ruin
those bite-sized sandwiches by dousing the meat with hot pepper
sauce and foregoing the butter or opting for some fancy-schmancy,
high-fiber, low-fat snack crisp.
     But then again, maybe that's not so bad. For all of my grade
school years, two of my classmates might have been able to fit
into one pair of my pants. My healthier lifestyle since becoming
a teenager probably has meant that there's enough spare clothing
material floating around out there to outfit a family of four for
the entire 12 weeks of Christmas. 
     Well, enough talk about soup I can't recreate. Here's one I
do make that eats like a stew, and the orange peel imparts a
subtle sweetness that's a nice surprise. Wild Rice Soup
     Yield: 6 servings
     Ingredients:
     2 tablespoons butter
      cup each diced carrots, onions and celery
     3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
     3 cups hot chicken broth
     1 cup cooked wild rice, drained
     1 cup cubed cooked chicken
      teaspoon thyme, crushed
     1 cup stemmed fresh button mushrooms, cubed
     2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
     1 tablespoon olive oil
     2 teaspoons white wine Worcestershire Sauce
      cup fresh or frozen peas
     2 teaspoons minced orange peel
     3 tablespoons slivered almonds, toasted
     salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
     Procedure:
     Melt butter in Dutch oven and add carrots, onions and
celery. Saute' about 5 minutes; add flour and cook about 5
minutes more, stirring constantly. Add broth and stir to loosen
roux from bottom of pan. Add wild rice, chicken and thyme; let
simmer for about a half hour, stirring frequently. Meanwhile,
saute' mushrooms and parsley in olive oil and Worcestershire
sauce about 5 minutes; add to soup, along with peas, orange and
almonds. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to
taste before serving. 
     What's Your Take on This, Julie?  
     The upper Midwest is a home to wild rice. Actually a
grain-bearing form of grass grown in water, wild rice was first
introduced to French explorers by Native Americans and called
"wild oats." Wild rice is generally more expensive than white
rice, but its chewy texture and nut-like flavor appeal to both
home-style cooks and galloping gourmets.  
     Available as both pure wild rice and mixed with long-grain
rice, wild rice provides carbohydrate, protein, B vitamins and
some iron. Rinse wild rice twice before cooking, and remove the
particles that float to the top of the rinse water. A cup of
uncooked wild rice yields about 3 cups of cooked rice.
     In my family, wild rice was a holiday tradition, cooked and
served with butter, salt and pepper. If I added any extraneous
ingredients, it wasn't considered wild rice and the serving bowl
wouldn't be emptied.  
     A bowl of this tasty soup would be emptied, however, even if
it does contain "extra" ingredients. Unlike creamy versions of
wild rice soup, this recipe is lower in calories and fat. A
serving of this hearty soup provides about 200 calories and 11
grams of fat, or a little over 2 teaspoons of fat per serving. A
serving also provides B vitamins, some vitamin C and nearly 70
percent of the recommended daily vitamin A.  
     The fat adds flavor, but if you prefer less fat in your
food, you could eliminate the olive oil, and use a non-stick pan
sprayed with cooking spray to saute' the mushrooms and parsley.
To round out this nutritious and nostalgic menu, fresh-baked
bread (made from frozen dough or in a bread machine to speed
preparation), baked apples and milk may comfort you on  a
blustery day.      
                              ###
NDSU Agriculture Communication
Sources: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136
Julie Garden-Robinson (701) 231-7187