Garden Soup

We only have this once or twice  year – when the garden is at its most abundant. We have it with whatever vegetables we have so this recipe is this year’s. It usually varies by one or two ingredients. The boy loves soup so this is an occasion.

2 onions, chopped

4 tomatoes, peeled and chopped

2 beetroots chopped

4 carrots peeled and chopped

A handful of cavolo nero, roughly chopped

3 courgettes

2 big handfuls of peas

2 cloves garlic, quartered

1tsp dried thyme or oregano

Lots of chopping. It all needs to be quite fine. There is something pure about a dish as simple as this so I’m listening to a CD of selections from the King James Bible. You think you know it but there is much that is surprising. Needless to say the boy is not around to help with the peeling or chopping. That said he did do a lot of the digging and watering that gave us these vegetables.

Cavolo Nero is a new crop for us. Cabbage or kale would do just as well. Shred it well. It’s a soup so think about how small it needs to be to sit on a spoon.

Start by gently frying the onions, then add the carrots as they will need the longest. Sprinkle in the dried herbs.  Put in the garlic last. Keep going until it is all starting to soften.

 Tomatoes are  a pain to peel but easier if they are really ripe. Just cut a cross in the top and pour on boiling water. Make sure you pour all the juice you lose, while chopping them, to the soup pan. This is where it stops frying and starts becoming soup.

Add the beetroot and give it a stir, then pour in a litre of water. It doesn’t need stock. It tastes good enough on its own. The beetroot gives it a lovely colour. Add the courgettes and after a  few minutes, the peas and cavalo nero. A few minutes more only so everything is still firm, but cooked.

Salt and pepper. It needs a lot of seasoning. 

Last year we used spinach instead of cavolo nero and added lots of shitake mushrooms. The boy is happy to have this with good crusty white bread and cold salted Yorkshire butter.  And a bottle of Soave.