Chris's Weblog – City Chickens

My diary from 2004

Cooking

Chris's Weblog - City Chickens > Cooking

Tomato Soup

October 9, 2008 Cooking ,

I hadn’t made made soup since I was at school. Whenever we wanted soup we bought a tin from the supermarket. However as we had rather a lot of tomatoes and they were ending up being thrown to the chickens I had a look how to make it. Simple. Why hadn’t I done it before? We are a family of stew lovers and over the winter I usually make one at least once a week. On Monday I decided to have a go with a few tomatoes that would be past their best the next day and we were pleasantly surprised by the lovely taste of the end result. Today I had a go with just yellow tomatoes and got a beautiful golden soup. There will be no stopping me now, until I run out of ingredients that is. The next experiment will be butternut squash soup as we have a few of those in store and then pumpkin. I will know better next season. I haven’t worked out yet how to keep it so we are eating it as I make it.

Chop the tomatoes and put into a saucepan. Add a little olive oil and cook the tomatoes for about five minutes. Use very ripe tomatoes for a better taste. Pass the soup through a seive with the back of a wooden spoon to get rid of the skin and pips. Season to your own taste. If the soup is too thick for you add a little water or vegetable stock. Carry on cooking the soup for a little longer stirring all the time. Serve with crusty bread. I know a lot of recipes suggest adding onion, potato etc but I prefer just the tomatoes. I have tried this method with other vegetables, whatever I have to use up and it always turns out to be very tasty.

After The Rain

September 7, 2008 Allotments, Cooking, Vegetables ,

We made our first visit to the plots today after a gap of two weeks. The dense growth was phenomenal and not just on our plots. I think the torrential rain has kept almost everyone away. The butternut squash plants had taken over the nursery bed and the area around it. Tangled amongst them were the Gardeners Delight tomato plants which were devastated by Blight. We removed the tomato plants and all the weeds to allow the squash plant more room. The Runner Beans were heavy with the crop which had gone way beyond the stage that I would normally harvest. I did pick a whole tray though and I shall work through them and freeze what I can. Runner Bean Firetongue turned out having to be shelled as the outer skin, whilst very beautiful, didn’t look good enough to eat. The Borlotti beans also were way past their best and again I picked just a tray and have divided them into ‘good to freeze’, ‘good to dry’ and ‘use for seed next year’. e picked a whole bowl of lovely tomatoes of all descriptions which had survived the Blight as they were safely tucked away in the lean to.

tomatoesbeans

 

 

 

Solace and Mash

November 29, 2007 Allotments, Cooking, Winter

After a nasty bout of coughs and colds Rob and I didn’t feel much like plodding through the mud to take the chicken poo to the composters at the allotment. All the plots are mostly ‘put to bed’ now with some of the plotholders covering all with plastic sheeting. However our spirits were lifted by the site of burgeoning sprouts, hearting up red and green cabbages, new shoots from the broad beans and green healthy looking Parsley still there for the picking. Even the beds which we have been gradually topping up with our own compost from the ‘daleks’ were looking neat and satisfying.

mashRob set to and dug up a couple of fine parsnips and a couple of leeks to take home and make into soup. We shall soon be as fit as fiddles. The visit gave us both a boost and we began to plan for next year with new vigour. I see that Thompson and Morgan are selling the seed potato Vivaldi. I have already ordered my seed potatoes for next year but think I shall have to order some of them, they make the best mash ever. Now if I am planning on ordering more seed potatoes I must have been inspired as we lost almost our whole crop to Blight this year.

 

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Avalon – Butternut Squash

October 19, 2007 Allotments, Cooking, Vegetables ,

roasted butternut squash

Last night I cut up and roasted the first half of the butternut squash and we really enjoyed it. I was surprised to find that there were no seeds inside but was very pleased that we had found something new that we could grow again and enjoy eating. I understand that you can make a nice soup out of them too and look forward to trying that when we have enough which will probably be this time next year. Only one plant survived this year and only two fruit on that. We  cut the last pumpkin today and kept it ourselves having given the other two away. We also cut the other butternut squash and a decent cabbage. I managed yet again to pick enough runner beans for a meal. Rob sowed the last of this year’s broad bean seeds over on plot 18.