The lack of recent posting is partly due to nothing much happening in the garden, but mostly due to a week long skiing trip in the French alps! It was beautiful seeing such thick snow, crystal clear lakes and mountains that seemed to go up forever!
Back in rainy Wiltshire, there are signs of progress in the vegetable garden. My rows of garlic seemed to have sprouted within days of planting, and there are signs of potato movement under ground.
My onions seemed to take a lot longer to spring into life, but they are there now and reassuring me that planting them in the less sunny place was nothing to be worried about.
I do find that I am stressing about the garden, and doubting myself that I have done the right things. I guess time will tell.
In France I made a delicious soup from some wonderful assortments of tomatoes and peppers that were in the local supermarket. Here is my recipe (which hopefully I will be able to make again with my own produce!)
Ingredients:
1.5 lbs of tomatoes (an assortment of colours is nice)
5 large bell peppers
4 cloves of garlic
2 pints of good chicken stock
3 tbsp of olive oil
2tsp of fresh ground black pepper
1 large white onion
200ml of single cream
Method:
Slice tomatoes in half, de-seed and roughly chop bell peppers, and peel and crush the garlic cloves. Place all of this in a roasting pan with the oil drizzled over, and add black pepper. Roast on a high heat (about 220 degrees Celsius) for about 40 mins (little charred bits are good..lots of lovely flavour in there). I drained off some of the watery liquid half way through to avoid them boiling instead of roasting.
Remove pan from the oven and leave to one side. chop onion and fry in a stock pot with a little oil until translucent. Crush the tomatoes and bell peppers together using a potato masher, fork, or food processor, and add to the cooked onion. Fry for a few minutes, and add stock, simmering on a low heat for 30 mins. Using a hand blender, blend the soup until rich and smooth. Add the cream, and serve with a crusty piece of French bread. Yummy!
Happy Sunday everyone.
