Hello! Welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–I’m really glad you’re here!
On Tuesday, I wrote a meditation on Lent and Lenten promises. In it, I identified “living simply” as my theme for the next few weeks. To me, simple living is abundant living.
In that post, I mentioned that when rummaging around in my fridge I came up with not two, not three or even four bulbs of celery root, but FIVE–FIVE bulbs of celery root. Now that’s what I call an abundance of celery root! I used two of them to make a delicious celery root soup, here:
I still have three bulbs of celery root to use up. Now–fortunately celery root keeps in the refrigerator beautifully for several weeks. So what to do? Well, when life gives you extra vegetables, make more soup!
First, though–a few words on this under-utilized, but delicious root vegetable:
Celery root, or celeriac, is a cousin of the celery commonly found in the grocery store. It is grown for its bulb that grows underground, rather than the head of celery that grows above ground. Celeriac has stems or stalks, and leaves that resemble a bunch of celery, but are a little more “scraggly” looking. I use them in soups and stews–they have a lot of flavor, but I find them to be more fibrous than its more photogenic cousin.
Turns out, celeriac, or celery root, is a powerhouse vegetable, chock full of nutrients and good stuff for our bodies. A serving of celery root provides 80% of our daily recommended intake of vitamin K, 21% of vitamin C, 18% of phosphorus, 13% of potassium and 3 grams of fiber–not bad!
For the first dinner of Lent, I made a pot of lentil soup with celery root–seemed quite appropriate 🙂 And while I usually use several stalks of celery in my soups, this time, I used up a whole bulb of celery root–and it was delicious! I chopped it up and tossed it in along with the onions, carrot and the bit of celery I used, and let the whole thing simmer for a couple of hours. It was great! The vegetables were soft, as you can imagine, so if you’d like a little more toothsome celery root, put it in about 30-40 minutes before serving.
And don’t forget to serve it with some fresh bread!
Tune in again for more recipes and meditations on simple living–until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
