Hunting for ramsons and two soups for spring

A gourmet at work.

The monster from the forest.

The little boy searches for ramsons.

Last friday my kids and I went to the forest to harvest some wild ramsons. Around here the season for ramsons is almost over because they are starting to get blossoms and getting a bit bitter, so we took the last chance to get some ramsons (We call them "Bärlauch" in german.) My daughter was just sitting aroung and trying to destroy the blossoms and my son helped to harvest the ramsons, but he ate all of the leaves he collected.

At the weekend I made two soups: A cucumber soup and a white asparagus soup.

Cucumber Soup

Ingredients

2 big cucumbers peeled, deseeded and cut in to big chunks (its better to use smaler cucumbers, which are used for pickling and cooking but it's diffcult to find them at springtime)

1 big onion, chopped

2 tbs of olive oil

1 1/2 cups of vegetable stock

1 glass of white wine

1/2 of soycream

a hand full of ramsons, roughly chopped

4 tbs of chopped dill

salt and pepper for seasoning

1. Put the onions and olive oil in at pot at medium heat and cook until the onions become a bit transulent.

2. At the chopped cucumbers and a bit of salt and cook for 4-5 minutes.

3. Add the white wine and waint until the alcohol is gone.

4. Add the stock and heat until it's boiling.

5. Add the rest of the igrendients and puree with a hand-mixer until smooth.

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

the peal of 1 kg of white asparagus (safe the pealed aspargus for your maincourse)

4-6 stalks of pealed aspargus cut into medium siced chunks (you can't see them at the picture because they drained in the soup)

2 tbs of olive oil

1 glass of white wine

1/3 cup of magarine

4-6 tbs of wheat flour

1/2 cup of soy cream

some chopped herbs for garnish (I used dill and ramsons)

salt and pepper for seasoning

1. Saute the aspargus chunks with the olive oil until they've got nice brown marks.

2. Heat 1 litre of water in a pot along with the peal of the aspargus and boil for half an hour. Drain the stock and remove the asparagus peal.

3. Take an other pot, melt the magarine, add the flour, keep stirring and add the wine and the aspargus stock. At last add the soy-cream, season with salt and pepper and reduce until it's as thick as you like it.

4. Garnish white sauteed aspargus and the herbs.