Fullest Potential

I enjoy using things to their fullest potential; especially food resources.

I will admit that I am not personally a fan of eating liver and other organ meat from animals... Don't expect a new spin on liver pate from me...  Beef heart stew is not on my menu...

I AM a proponent of USING all the parts of an animal, but chickens need protein too.....  I'll stop there...  I am also a huge fan of using vegetables to their fullest potential! When I can think of a new or unusual way to eat a common vegetable, it is truly a thrill!

 I believe that using our resources to their full potential encourages sustainability, responsibility, frugality, and just - general awareness.

This afternoon I was blessed with two bunches of radish from a friend! I planned to roast the radish roots themselves, but as I was looking at the beautiful greens attached to them, I knew I just HAD to use them somehow! Radish leaves are somewhat spicy, like the radish roots... To me, their taste is somewhere between turnip tops and mustard greens.

Being the Southern country girl that I am, I've been craving greens. Since we have a cool front coming in and are expecting it to be cool tonight, I turned to soup... Ok, Ok... I decided to make soup as penance for the homemade onion rings I made last night to go with our venison steak... But ANYWAY, soup it was to be.

I looked up a recipe for radish top soup, and then followed my usual cooking method: not following the recipe at all. (I know... Sometimes this works better than other times... Thankfully it worked beautifully this time!) 

So here is my recipe for Radish Top Soup. If you try it, please let me know what you think!

Radish Top Soup

2 T butter
1 medium onion
1 medium bell pepper

2 C chicken stock (Homemade, of course! :) )
1.5 C water

2-3 medium potatoes (I used 3 because I was afraid my husband wouldn't like the soup...But he did!)
2-3 C fresh radish greens (I had large greens from 8 radish)*
2 medium grated radish
4 oz cream cheese
Salt and black pepper

BACON (Homemade, preferably!)

Melt the butter in a pot, add chopped onion and bell pepper. Saute until tender. Add chopped potatoes and greens. (Since the greens I used were rather large, I chopped off the largest parts of the stem. Then I chopped the greens in half and that gave me two large handfuls.) Add grated radish. Stir to coat with butter. Add chicken stock and water. Season to taste. Simmer for 30 minutes. Stir in cream cheese.

Dip out vegetables (leaving most of the liquid in the pot) and place in food processor or blender. Add 1-2 ladles of liquid from the pot. Blend on high until smooth. Return to pot and stir into remaining liquid. Simmer until ready to serve.

Meanwhile, cook bacon until just crisp. Crumble and use as garnish.


*This is what I used in our soup. My husband and I both think I could have used more radish leaves to get more of that spicy delicious flavor.