After several days of unusually spring-ly weather in these parts (enough to bring our yard garter snakes out to sun themselves, and snowdrops to perk their heads up), conditions today felt a little more like winter-as-usual. Overcast and chilly, I decided it called for a big pot of homemade soup to simmer away on the stove and warm us all up. So I threw together a minestrone -- and a whole lot of it, with onions, carrots, cabbage, celery, tomatoes, green beans (from my big stash of frozen garden beans), kidney beans, macaroni, all in a richly seasoned, flavorful base. Economical, filling, and De-lish.....

While I was chopping up onions for the soup, I went ahead and cut up several extra ones to throw in my freezer. Not only were these onions trying to get sprouty on me, but I've found it really handy lately having a bag of frozen, chopped onion at the ready for busy evenings. Same with peppers. In fact, if I do this regularly with some of our standard pizza toppings, and always have a few chopped and frozen on hand, I could save myself lots of chopping time on our saturday pizza nights. I've had success in the past freezing mushrooms, after slicing and sauteeing them in a little olive oil. Next time I see a fantastic deal on them I want to stock up and do just that, for quicker pizza production.....

Off to hang laundry....