Farewell Russia - A cup of Borscht

Russia has been fun but the sun is shining and to celebrate Little Foodies are off to Australia tomorrow, well actually this afternoon. For many reasons, firstly we're bbq'g with our lovely neighbours today. Also because there are many wonderful Australian chefs that we can choose from, for lots of clean, fresh tastes which are going to be perfect for this weeks weather.. See the power of positive thinking... Also my grandfather's brother went to Australia on the £10 tickets many, many years ago, so I'll be thinking of all my relatives.

Farewell Russia with a celebratory cup of Borscht. (Can you guess my favourite thing about the picture... The sun glinting off the spoon. The soup looks cloudy but the sunshine is there in that spoon!!)

Borscht (Russian Beetroot Soup)
I found so many recipes for this it was really hard to choose one but I got the general idea that you needed a heap of beetroot and other root veg and then you made a soup. I think you could play with this recipe a lot.

I got a bunch of beetroot (about 6 pieces) and roasted them in the oven for 1 hour. Let them cool, peeled them and chopped into chunks.
I then chopped and peeled a small swede, 2 carrots, a parsnip, 3 medium potatoes, 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic and a small handful of chopped dill and curly parsley as it's what we had lying around (definitely not authentic).
I threw all of this in a pan with approx three quarters of a pint of chicken stock and simmered for 25 minutes. I then blitzed with my stick blender. Poured into cups, then topped with soured cream mixed with chopped dill.

We didn't get round to making the zyriniki but I think we'll head back to Russia again when the weather is cold. For now the sun is shining and I have a real need to be cooking and eating outside. It's the perfect remedy for madness brought on by cabin fever.