Thursday, January 22, 2009

Poor Girl's Borscht



Yesterday I was whining to Braja at work that I only had cans of beets and sauerkraut in my cupboard at home. She suggested I make borscht. I have never eaten borscht, but it is a fun word to say, so I said it a bunch of times then looked up borscht recipes on the internet. Most of them start with some kind of beef joint or marrow bone or some such grossness, and none of them included sauerkraut. I thought it might be an interesting soup adventure for some other time, like when I had some fresh beets on hand and the 4 hours required to simmer the cow leg or whatever... So I came home and said to my family (as a joke), "I'm making Borscht for supper!" And neither one of them knows what borscht is, but they both automatically screwed up their faces. Keith finally asked what it was and I told him, it is a traditional Eastern European soup made primarily from beets and cabbage. Delia started making gagging noises and Keith looked noncommittal. So I gave up on them.

Today when I got home from work to an empty house, I entered the kitchen starving and was faced with the same sparsely populated cupboards. So I rooted around for a can of Bean With Bacon soup that I thought was in there somewhere, but found instead a can of German Potato Salad. Ok, I though to myself. I'm hungry, this looks good. So I dumped it in a bowl and started to eat it, but decided it would be better heated up a bit. Then inspiration struck. I added my can of beets to the potato stuff, and it looked SO PRETTY! All pinky purpley and valentiney, and the beets taste so good in the sweet/sour potato salad sauce. Then I thought, "What the hell!" and dumped most of the can of sauerkraut in there too. Added a bit of chicken broth to make it more like a soup, heated it right up, and VIOLA! It was so yummy and filling on this cold winter's day that I ate most of it right up. There's just enough left for lunch tomorrow.

Everybody say BORSCHT. Come on, it's fun! BORSCHT BORSCHT BORSCHT BORSCHT

4 comments:

Emma said...

While I applaud your creativity and ingenuity when faced with your culinary dilemma I must say ewwwww. PS I HATE beets. xoxox Emma

A Chicken said...

You can buy potato salad in a can? How intriguing....

Cynthia said...

Wow. I'm not sure I'd be as adventurous. Good for you. I LOVE your food styling with the Valentine's, by the way.

Anonymous said...

This is what I have always admired about you, you can the yummiest foods out of anything.