Many Ranch Foods Direct customers will be gratified to see all the early season produce arriving from Milberger Farms of Pueblo. Kelly Strong (shown above) sees the benefit of buying local, too, and she helps extend the season for local growers by incorporating what they produce into her popular small-batch soups and basil-parsley-walnut pesto.

 

Her business, Blue Moon Goodness, actually began when she decided to try selling her family's special granola, made with local honey. "It's based on my mother's recipe," she says. "I was making it at home, and people who had it at my house started bartering stuff for it. I traded it out for yoga and with the guy who plows my drive. He said he would rather have the granola than money... We always had really good food growing up. My mother cooked at lot, and she still does."

 

Kelly's gluten free granolas, frozen pestos and jarred soups are all available at Ranch Foods Direct, which it turns out, was one of her first wholesale customers a year ago and helped to solidify the quick success of her business. Following is more about Kelly's background, food philosophies and products.

ON HER SOUPS: "We do a Moroccan vegetable and a vegan green chile. We also plan to introduce a tomato fennel in the next few months. We started out making our soups to sell by the quart and the gallon to restaurants, then we realized we could hot-pack them and make them shelf stable.

 

The Moroccan soup came about because I lived in Morocco as a young woman and I learned to cook with a Moroccan family. When I came to Colorado, I was struck by the chile peppers, which appealed to me so much because they almost seem to have the same spice as Moroccan food has. I love everything about the chiles from Pueblo, and they fit with the way I cook, which is to roast together lots of different vegetables. My Moroccan soup is spicy but in a subtle, aromatic way. I can't tell you how many times I've had kids taste it and say they really like it. It's also a really healthy soup. It contains lentils, which are such an under-rated food. They have natural protein and fiber and they grow easily in a lot of places, which means they aren't expensive. Lentils could save the world, I think."

 

ON USING LOCAL SEASONAL PRODUCE: "When I was in Morocco, I lived in small town in the biggest farming region in Morocco where they are really proud of their food. When you are in a farming community, you appreciate what's in season. You didn't eat artichokes all year round, you only had them in the spring, when they were in season. You were very aware of what was available fresh. We've lost a little bit of that here in America...

Local farmers need a way for their products to live on after the season, and I feel so happy that I get to use local products and support the local economy. When I ship my soup around the country with Colorado Proud stickers on it, it makes me feel like an ambassador, in a way. People don't know about the great chiles we have here, but I make it very clear that these particular chiles are something you can't get anywhere else. The Colorado Department of Agriculture has been very supportive and I feel like Colorado is ahead of other states in this whole 'know your farmer' thing. I appreciate the relationship we have here between the farmers and the food producers.

 

Blue Moon Goodness soups are stand-alone soups but they also work great for what owner Kelly Strong calls "meal starters."

 

"Our slogan is 'just add meat'" she says. Here's some of her suggestions for turning soup into a heftier meal:

 

For the Moroccan vegetable, "get a little piece of lamb, cook it in chunks and add it to the soup along with a squeeze of fresh lemon," she says. "Then serve fresh dates on the side. To have a little plate of dates is a very traditional way to serve it."

 

"You can also poach an egg in it and have it for breakfast. Just bring the soup to a boil, crack an egg into it, and wait until the white is done to your liking. That's a really popular way to cook in Morocco. You can do that with our vegan green chile soup as well.

 

"For the green chile, I recommend adding your favorite cheese and melting that into it, or fortify it with some leftover meat, maybe shredded roast chicken. People also put this soup over rice or over fried potatoes.