Weekend Activities

Mike and I will spend a whole day in the garden each weekend and this one was no exception, though we did this in spurts, inter-spaced with bouts in the kitchen as the rain came down in spells.
Mike had done some apple and pear tree pruning on Friday afternoon and kindly left a huge pile of clippings and branches for me and my trusty Masport Silent Mulcher.  An essential tool for minimizing waste which would normally take forever to break down in some unsightly corner of the garden.  Mulching all our prunings enables us to spread it over the ground as mulch to suppress the weeds, or to layer it into the compost bin to provide precious carbon material to our compost.  Before purchasing it, we would spend half a day painstakingly cutting our prunings up into smaller pieces and then 4-5 months down the line, still be picking the sticks out of our compost!  Mmmn, I'm all for working smart - lessening the workload if you can.  The Masport Mulcher uses a little electricity but I figure that is offset by our solar panels heating our water, so I don't feel guilty about using a little extra power to lessen the work load.

In between the rain showers, I made beetroot soup with our chioggia beetroots - wonderful candy-striped beetroot which is amazing when grated raw into salads.  The recipe is worthy of sharing as it is simply delicious! And deliciously simple to make!

Beetroot and Feta Soup

Ingredients

• 3-4 medium (apple-sized) beetroot , grated coarsely, or chopped into small dice
  
• 500g ripe tomatoes, halved
  
• 1 clove garlic, chopped roughly
  
• 1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
  
• 2 tbsp olive or sunflower oil
  
• 500ml good strong veg stock
  
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
  
• 125g feta cheese
  

Preparation method

1. Place the halved tomatoes in an ovenproof dish. Throw over the garlic and drizzle over half the olive oil.
   
2. Roast for 25-30 minutes in a fairly hot oven (190C/375F) until soft and pulpy. 
   
3. Heat the remaining oil in a pan and sweat the onion for a few minutes until soft. Add the beetroot and the stock and bring to the boil. Season lightly with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Simmer gently 7-10 minutes until tender.
   
4. Stir in the tomato purée, use hand or stick blender and process until completely smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary
   
5. To serve cold, chill the soup in the fridge, then divide between six bowls. Using your fingers, crumble a little feta into each bowl. A sprinkling of grated raw beetroot makes a good garnish for the cold version
   
6. To serve hot, reheat the soup until thoroughly hot but not boiling. Divide between warm bowls and crumble over a little feta into each bowl. Serve with crusty bread.
   I find the internet a wonderful source of information - I will come in from the garden with a bunch of something - a quick google will give me a source of inspiration of how to process the produce!  
   I also picked a brown paper bag full of basil leaves which I am drying in the dehydrator - wonderful aroma of basil wafting through the house.  I normally dry them in paper bags in the hot water cupboard but this time, there were too many leaves to dry in this way. The dehydrator has been working overtime this weekend, after dehydrating heaps of apples which were the fruits of Mike's pruning spree.  Alas, not a nice job, cutting out all the coddling moth bits -yuk!   The rest of the apples have been stewed and will be frozen for later use in winter.
   
   The other "fruit" which was processed this weekend was small eggplants and capsicums which I made into caponata - our favourite summertime recipe and one which is a staple  traditional Christmas lunchtime addition  - it is a rich cold "stew" eaten with soft white crusty bread and is made with eggplant, capsicums, olives, capers, tomatoes and onions.  Two lots of caponata now sit in my freezer, awaiting a moment to be revived as a mid-winter treat perhaps!