52 Shades of My Veggie Patch: Week 28

Autumn 2013

One last scorching week of summer or proof of a damaged eco system?

Whatever the case, my tomatoes are still coming and it seems I finally have a few more capsicum coming on.

Bolstered by this warm weather, I ventured out today to buy a few more additions to my culinary garden (although these ones will live amongst the ornamental garden). I finally got a fig tree. For a while, when inspecting homes to buy if I saw a fig tree in the yard I would immediately say I wanted the house no matter what state the actual building was in. How ridiculous. Well now I have my own fig tree, which the tag says will grow to 5m x 5m. I will be pruning mine carefully. I also got a new lime tree. The variety is called a Rangpur Lime. It grows well in really cold climates and the limes are not actually green but look more like an orange. Here’s hoping!

Upon the insistence of my son I picked up a Chinese Blueberry bush. I love blueberries but I think we will be needing about 5 more bushes to meet my son’s expectations of how much fruit he will be getting from them next year.

I finally pulled up my carrots and it turns out they weren’t purple ones but actually Rainbow. And completely mutant. Oh well.

High light of my week was the insanely good soup I made out of my mini yellow pear tomatoes. Here is the basic recipe:

What you need:

• 800g-1kg mini tomatoes
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp sugar
• salt
• oil

What to do:

1. Roast the tomatoes in the oven until a few just start to get a little bit of brown.
2. In a heavy base pot saute the onion and garlic, both roughly chopped.
3. Add in the stock, tomatoes and sugar. Cook for about 10 minutes.
4. Puree with a stab blender and add salt to taste.
5. Serve with a nice bit of bread like this Irish Soda Bread I made using rye flour and fresh herbs (Oregano, Rosemary, Thyme and Lemon Thyme).

Monday Made – Spicy Lentil Soup with Pancetta

“A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.”~Abraham Maslow

This was probably the most popular item on the menu for our Food Revolution Day event held a few weeks ago. The competition was pretty stiff, I mean up against Irish Soda Bread or Venetian Carrot Cake, a lentil soup doesn’t seem like it has a chance!

But on a cold day, nothing really hits the spot like Tae’s soup…..

For this soup, red lentils are used as they cook faster. Tae also recommends a tin of cherry tomatoes because they are generally sweeter. If you can’t find them and think your soup is a little tart, add a couple of tsp of sugar.

Nutritionally speaking, this soup is great. Lentils are low GI, protein packed pulses that are a gazillion times better than putting pasta in your soup! It turns out that tomatoes actually improve nutritionally through cooking (must be one of the very few  vegetables that do)! This entire pot of soup adds up to 1000cal, so if  you even just had 4 GIANT servings from it, you are doing very well on the calorific in-take.

What you need:

• 130g pancetta (about 3 thick slices)
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 celery stick, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• 400g can cherry tomato
• 800g can diced tomato
• Pinch of chilli flakes

What to do:

1. Chop the pancetta into small cubes and fry it in a large pot until the fat renders.
2. Add the onion and cook until tender, then the celery, garlic, chilli and carrot and cook for a few minutes.
3. Put in the stock and tomatoes and bring to the boil.
4. Add the lentil and let simmer until they are tender.
5. Serve with a really nice sourdough bread.