Sundays with Marlena Spieler

We love to have hearty soups in winter and when we chose to cook this recipe, it was wonderful because were truly playing with vegetables we haven’t usually even glanced at- Turnip, Parsnip & Rutabaga. The title of the recipe in the book is Russian spinach & Root Vegetable soup with Dill- Why does a Jewish Cook book have a Russian recipe you ask? I asked this question to Marlena and she explained it very simply, Jews fled to different parts of the world, Egypt, Russia and even India. This cookbook has glimpses of all these countries via food. This is one such recipe.

Turnip- 1

Carrots- 2

Parsnip- 1

Rutabaga- 1

Potato- 1

Onion – 1

Garlic- 1 clove, minced

Vegetable stock- 1

Spinach – 2 cups, roughly chopped

Fresh Dill- 1 cup, chopped

Salt & Black Pepper

For Garnish

Lemon- Thinly sliced

Yogurt – 1 cup

Fresh parsley – 3-4 T

Dill- 3-4 T

• Chop all the vegetables and onions into chunks and place them in a stock along with vegetable stock and garlic.
• Allow it to simmer for 25-30 minutes until the vegetables are tender.
• Add spinach to the pan, season with salt and pepper.
• Switch off the stove and close with a lid.The steam will cook the spinach.
• Stir dill into the soup.
• When ready to serve, ladle soup into bowl, garnish with lemon slices, yogurt and sprinkle parsley and dill.

The recipe originally used celeriac bulb instead of rutabaga and sour cream instead of yogurt. But we substituted these two ingredients. The result is a filling and heart warming soup. We used low sodium organic vegetable broth. If you use the regular variety, taste before you season the soup with salt.

Check Mel’s Herring Salad and Eileen’s  Polish cake. When we met last weekend, we tasted the cake and it was Fantastic!

We leave you with this quote for Thanksgiving, “We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.”-Frederick Keonig