Borscht with light rye bread

Last night I made borscht. I'd never had borscht before so I wasn't too sure what to expect. My mom said my German ex-Mennonite grandma used to make borscht all the time but quit because none of her kids would eat it. I wish I had her recipe, but since I don't I used one from this generic soup recipe book of Sean's. The recipe was for a cold borscht, but we ate it hot last night and tried it cold tonight. I think it tasted much more beety cold, but maybe that was due to the soup improving with age factor and all.

Making the borscht was really easy. It called for a bunch of veggies--cabbage, beets, leeks, onions, a parsnip, and a can of diced tomatoes. I didn't follow the recipe exactly but threw in as much of each veggie as we had in the fridge. It was supposed to simmer for an hour and a half but I accidentally let it boil pretty hard for a long time. Once done, it seemed way too thick so I thinned it with chicken broth. We pureed it using our new stick blender which was so awesome. Never again will I mess around with trying to pour hot soup in and out of a regular blender, getting burned and ending up with half the soup on the floor. Anyway, it was thick and smooth and pretty good I think, and Sean's light rye bread was super delicious to eat with it. We garnished it with garlic infused Greek style yogurt and dried dill. If I don't get my grandma's recipe, the next time I make it I'm trying the New Basics version that includes a shortrib. Yum!

Sean's light rye bread was our first adventure using our super fancy new Japanese bread machine, ZOjirushi. It has a picture of a happy elephant on it and is nice and quiet when it kneads. The recipe came out of the recipe book that came with the machine. The bread turned out perfectly with a nice texture and crust, and it looked like a real loaf of bread, not those odd footballs that your traditional bread machine makes. In less than 24 hours we've almost finished the loaf, it was that good.