This one is in honor of Stanza over at CookingOnSundays, who couldn't make it today, but the people must be fed! True to Stanza fashion, this one is a soup made from stuff I had sitting in the freezer in the garage (I don't have a closet) for too long, and that is the way it should be made, but with no onions! Any time you are looking for something in one of your many food storage options and you find there is just too much stuff you have to move out of the way, it is time to make some variant of what I erroneously call Jambalaya. Every year, we plant a garden in the back yard, and impatiently wait for all the little sprouts to sprout, and then spend a portion of each day urging the cats to keep the gophers out, and yelling at the cats that the garden is not a litter box. Then we complain that there are snails and we need to get the chickens to eat them, which ends with us flapping our arms as we chase the chickens out because they are kicking up the sprouts and eating our lettuce. Somehow, a couple months ...

I don't think they exist. Or at least I didn't until recently. Stanza , over at cookingonsundays, has a typically eyebrow raising recipe up this week, which includes a cabbage so large, well, I can't really say since it seems to change size throughout the story, but I'm certain it is bigger than a teapot! I too found a V.O.U.S. this year. It was a giant mangle beet from a farmers market. It only cost me a few bucks, and it was around 18 pounds! You can see Kernal subduing it for me in the above picture. I did a bit of research, and apparently mangle beets are grown mostly as fodder for animals like cattle, but are quite edible. After carrying it home on my shoulder like some prehistoric vegetarian, I chopped it into three pieces. The bottom I juiced and froze in ziplocks for future soup base. The middle I gave to the chickens, who happily stood inside it and hollowed it out. The top I planted, in the hopes that it would grow into a new beet next year. So far, so good.