Introduction | Wombat News | Awards | Book News | Schedule for This year | The July Garden: what’s ripe, what to plant...and ALL about peas! | Miracle soup
Do kids still share their iceblocks? Or their lamingtons at morning tea?
It’s funny how memories leap out at you. I was eating one of the best scones I’ve ever tasted at Wellington High School last week, served by the students who were catering for the SLANZA Conference, and suddenly the memory came flooding back of sharing one of Grandma’s date scones with friends at school.
No one in our group ever brought a treat from home without sharing it around...a bite of the slice of apple pie for every one of us, or a nibble of moon cake. And if you bought an iceblock every one in the group was offered a chunk, so you became expert in biting off exactly the same amount as everyone else.
It meant the iceblock’s original owner didn’t get much herself, of course. But it also meant that every day there’d be SOMETHING to share between the seven of us. And somehow there was a heck of a lot more pleasure in sharing an iceblock, than guzzling down a whole one yourself.
I’m not actually advocating sharing iceblocks. Horrible unsanitary process it was too, and we probably shared a good few of our viruses as well as our paddle pops. But it was all part of the general community sharing of the 50’s and early 60’s. We were emulating our parents, in a way...the grapes and strawberries passed over the fence from the Lewis’s, or the hunk of wild pig after the men had gone out hunting; the vegetables from Mr Doo on the other side (most of which my mum had no idea how to cook) as well as moon cakes from him, too. And even though neither of my parents was a gardener there were mulberries to give away, and paw paws that grew like weeds, and Chinese cabbage that WERE weeds and popped up wherever a bit of ground was dug for flowers.
My early years here were full of that sort of sharing, from the friends who helped us build our house (a friendlier, not to mention cheaper, way to do it than borrowing money to pay a builder), just as we helped them build their’s; the gifts of seeds and cuttings that started my garden and orchard; the rabbits I’d swap for chickens with Jean down the road.
There’s still a fair bit of that sort of thing around in country areas- we ate Laurie’s pumpkin in our lunch time soup, with a spoonful of Carol’s tomato relish for extra savour, and Sue left yesterday with a big bag of chokos, and the limes that will become the historical association’s annual dinner’s dessert.
But increasingly people grow less, cook less, preserve less, so there aren’t surpluses to give away. Increasingly, in the cities at least, there isn’t even spare time to give to others either. Our lives are poorer for it. Come to think of it, it wasn’t just bites of paddle pops we teenagers were sharing back then. It was friendship and community.
Wombat news
The garden is wet. The grass is lush. The wombats are fat. (The lyrebirds are so corpulent they look like Christmas turkeys). The wombat droppings are fat too, a sort of slushy green. Some mornings they’re frozen and have white whiskers and yesterday when I went for my early morning walk a small pile of Feisty’s droppings was still steaming on the front stone steps, fresh from a warm wombat bum.
I have a feeling it’s a bit too cold on the paws and damp some nights to be the wombat idea of paradise. But I’m pretty sure that even if it’s not absolutely perfect, life for the wombats at the moment is pretty good...
Ps it’s not bad for us, either
Awards
At the moment I’m short listed for eight awards, I think. Which might possibly be a record, of some sort anyway...
The Hans Christian Anderson Award -
This is an international award for a contribution to children’s literature. It’s only awarded once every two years. It is the most wonderful honour to have been nominated for Australia, and I am very, just incredibly honoured and grateful....
MACBETH AND SON
Shortlisted in the Younger Readers category, CBC awards 2007
THE GOAT WHO SAILED THE WORLD
Notable title in the Younger Readers category, CBC awards 2007
Shortlisted in the Fiction for Older Readers category, YABBA awards 2007
JOSEPHINE WANTS TO DANCE illustrated by Bruce Whatley
Notable title in the Early Childhood category, CBC awards 2007
Notable title in the Picture Book of the Year category, CBC awards 2007
Shortlisted in the Picture Books category, YABBA awards 2007
2007 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA)
Australian Book of the Year for Younger Children (0-8 years)
HITLER’S DAUGHTER
Short listed in the Fiction for Older Readers category, YABBA awards 2007
DIARY OF A WOMBAT:
shortlisted for the Bilby Awards, 2007
THEY CAME ON VIKING SHIPS:
shortlisted for the WAYBRA, 2007
The Koala, Bilby, Yabba and Waybra awards are voted for by kids...so to everyone who has voted for the books... again, thank you, thank you and thank you! Can’t tell you how much it means!
Sometimes sitting at my desk it seems impossible that people outside the valley are actually reading the words I write. And then suddenly an email arrives about awards like the ones above, and I wish it were possible to email you all, with so much gratitude.
Book News
I think I’ve exhausted the book news just writing about the awards....
Gold, Graves and Glory, the fourth book in the Dinkum Histories series (an eight volume history of Australia for kids, plus an adults who want a history that’s both fun and tells you how people lived, not just a conglomeration of names events and dates) is out. Published by Scholastic books, and hilarious illustration by Peter Sheehan.
The Shaggy Gully Times (another adventure into magic with Bruce Whatley) is off being printed, and will be out in October! The Dog Who Loved a Queen is out next month, the true story of the Mary Queen of Scots beloved terrier. And I have just finished the first draft of A Rose for the Anzac Boys, a book set in World War One, and based on a true story, or rather many true stories, all drawn together into fiction. It was a grim book to write, and at times I wondered if it was a book that was even possible to write. But I think- perhaps- that it has worked.
Still a lot more revision to do on it though. It’s due out April next year.
Which means the most recent books are still:
Pharaoh- adventure and romance from 5,00 years ago, about the boy who united Egypt into one nation
My Pa the Polar Bear – the 8th in the wacky Family Series, illustrated by Stephen Michael King
The Goat Who sailed the World... the true story of the goat who sailed with Cook up the east coast of Australia and around New Zealand.
Schedule for the Next Few Months
August 2007: Book Week talks in Sydney (just a few) Contact Lateral Learning for details (bookings@laterallearning.com.au).
13-16 September: Albany Writer’s Festival, W.A.
17- 18 September: talks and workshop at the Fremantle Children’s literature Centre, W.A., including a workshop on how to use the picture books like Diary of a Wombat and Josephine Wants to Dance and the historical novels like MacBeth and Son and Pharaoh in the classroom.
Sunday 4 November Open Garden Workshops at our place...rain, hail or drought these will go ahead, even if someone has to wheelchair me around the garden with a broken leg!
Ps I’m sorry- really sorry- that I can’t do more than one trip away from home each month these days. I would love to read stories at your preschool, or open your fete, or give a garden workshop. But I get about ten requests like that a week- and often much more. Sometimes I can’t even cope answers and apologies for events I can’t do. So please do understand if I can’t come to your event...or if it takes me a few months to get to your letter (assuming the wombat doesn’t chew it up first).
The July Garden
A slightly embarrassing moment last week, when someone at a dinner party said casually ’ I don’t suppose there’s much fruit ripe down your way now?’
‘Well, there’s a bit,’ I said. ‘Avocadoes, custard apples, navel oranges, blood oranges, mandarins, citrons, tangelos, clementines, cumquats, calamondins, chestnuts, macadamias, medlars, still a few quinces and pomegranates, lemons, Tahitian limes, kaffir limes, red tamarillo, orange tamarillo, lemonade fruit, grapefruit, Lady Williams apples and some Sturmer pippins though the birds have eaten most of them, oh, and a few pecans, masses of chilacayote melons this year, and...
At this stage I finally noticed a glazed look on the face of everyone at the table. Just a bit too much information (again). Asking me what’s in the garden is a bit like bit like asking a hypochondriac ’how are you feeling?’ and listening for half an hour for the answer...
What to plant:
Flower garden: advanced seedlings of white and purple alyssum, calendulas, everlasting daisies, Iceland poppies, pansies, primulas, violas, wallflowers, cuttings of lavender, wormwood, daisies and native shrubs,
Frost free areas only: coleus, gerberas, impatiens, nasturtiums, petunias, zinnias, ornamental shrubs
Tucker garden: broad bean seed, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage seedlings, winter lettuce seedlings, radish, spinach, garlic cloves (press them point upwards into the soil), artichoke suckers
Frost-free areas only: any veg you can get your hands on! Plus fruit trees and passionfruit vines too.
All About Peas (and snow peas, mange tout peas, dried peas)
(Yet again probably a lot more than you wanted to know)
'Good peason and leekes, to make a poredge in Lent
And peascods in July, save fish to be spent.
These having, with other things, plentifull then
Thou winnest the love of labouring men.'
Thomas Tusser, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie 1573
Basics:
When to Sow:
Tropical: March - July
Subtropical: March - July
Temperate: Feb - June. Avoid months with cold days as well as frosty nights, as seed may rot if there isn't enough warmth for them to germinate
Cool: July - Oct (though seed may rot if the soil is very cold or badly drained). Then late Jan or early Feb as long as it's not a heat wave for autumn maturing peas.
Germination temperatures: 7 - 24 C, but prefers at least 13 C. Avoid growing peas if the temperature will go above 24 C for more than two hours a day.
Seedlings emerge: 7 - 10 days.
Time to maturity: 12 - 16 weeks for dwarf peas; 14 -16 weeks for climbing peas; 8 - 10 weeks for snow peas - depends on warmth and variety. Peas will crop for several months.
Amount for a family of four: 4 - 6 square metres of dwarf peas for avid pea eaters; 2 - 4 metre row for climbing peas.
Successions: Peas crop for several months if well treated. If your season permits a second crop plant at least a month later.
Essential information: make sure peas mature when the temperature is under 4 C or they won't set; watch out for birds, wallabies and small children who'll eat them raw after school.
I love peas - peas with roast chicken, fresh pea soup, peas through rice, creamed pea sauce on pasta. I even eat frozen peas if I don't have fresh peas - or even bought peas, bland and leather after you've grown your own. At least these evoke the memory of real peas - if not the sweetness and the crunch.
There is nothing like fresh peas. If I ever have to chose my final meal it will contain peas - tiny, almost fragrant, rushed from the garden to the pot.
Peas are one of the least - and most - rewarding plants to grow. They are rewarding because if you haven't tasted fresh peas you'll be stunned by your first picking. The harvest though will probably be less rewarding - it is amazing how many vines you need for a saucepan full of peas.
(Snow peas however are much more generous - and if you can grow peas you can grow snow peas - just pick them before the pods fill. The more you pick the more you'll get for at least a month, if not two - its having to fill all those pods that takes the peas' energy, so you get fewer pea pods with 'straight' peas.)
Peas are an ancient crop, grown throughout Europe, Asia Minor and China as far back as the days of Homer. They were one of the staple foods of medieval Europe mostly eaten dried and recooked as pease pudding - 'pease pudding hot, pease pudding cold, pease pudding in the pot, nine days old.' Another version calls it pease porridge.
Fresh peas gained popularity under Henry V111 and Elizabeth 1, great gourmets (the love of food often goes with great intelligence) although dried peas are still used for such glories as pea sauce and pea and ham soup. Don't condemn dried peas if you've eaten today's tasteless packaged things - if you dry your own you'll find they are sweet and good - as different as your own fresh peas will be from commercial rubbery ones.
When to plant peas
Plant peas so they are setting seed in cool weather. If the weather is over 24 C you won't get peas - though you can try growing a hot weather crop under a pergola.
Any pea can be picked before the pods form as a snow pea - but genuine sow peas are tenderest. Try 'snap' peas too - eat them pod and all. Add pea pods to soup for extra flavour - scoop out the pods at the end of cooking.
Planting peas
Sow pea seeds about 5 cm deep - about as deep as they are wide - and about 2 cm apart. I plant two peas seed together, so they twine around and help support each other - and in case one pea is taken by ants or eaten by snails there'll still be one there.
Climbing peas need a trellis to climb on - the taller the better, as some can ramble up two metres or more. Even dwarf peas do best with some support. I grow our peas two or three deep along a trellis and mulch them well. Once established they don't need weeding once they've clambered up their trellis - they grow above the weeds. Trellis grown peas seem more disease resistant too.
Feeding your peas
Peas need good fertility to thrive, though too much nitrogen will promote leaf at the expense of the peas and may inhibit the fruit set. I scatter a handful of dolomite every square metre just before planting. This gives a better crop and probably helps the amount of nitrogen fixed in the soil too.
The old fashioned technique was to plant peas in rows of trenches filled with compost - about as wide and deep as the length of your thumb, or just scatter compost down a row and press the pea seed into it. The young peas will be given a boost by the compost and you can give them fortnightly doses of liquid manure, preferably plant rather than manure based - not too high in nitrogen.
If you don't have compost try mulching the peas well when they first emerge and scattering on any of the quick fix fertilisers. Don't feed again. By the time they are flowering the 'quick fix' will have been absorbed - or disappeared to air or ground water - and the slight nitrogen deficiency will mean more pea flowers and better setting - and fewer pests. Peas will tolerate a mildly acidic soil.
I find peas respond best to a loose mulch between rows, like hay or corn stalks instead of grass clippings or leaves. Denser mulches promote stem rots and mildew during wet weather, particularly in cool conditions where evaporation is low and dews may be heavy.
Peas can also be hilled with compost or soil - or mulch - if you have the energy. This will give you a better crop (peas are very susceptible to heat and drought and this insulates their roots and helps keep in moisture), and the peas will be less likely to fall over with wind or the weight of moisture on their leaves after rain or watering. Peas also need ample oxygen in the soil - they do badly on compacted or waterlogged soil and mulch is a good preventative and cure for both.
Other ways of growing peas
Peas on a stake.
Hammer a stake into the grass, top it with an old bicycle wheel - or radiate more stakes out from the top. Plant pea seed in compost around the stake - three rows deep. Train the peas up the stake then along the spokes, trailing them over and around till they twine thickly over the lot.
Trailing peas
Plant peas in a window box or hanging basket - and let them trail down. I grew snow peas that way this year - it was the only way we could keep the wallabies from eating them and the lyrebirds from digging them up. They cropped for a couple of months. Three large hanging baskets gave us a meal of snow peas every day - till we got sick of them.
What varieties to plant
I prefer climbing peas - the short varieties still tend to collapse - and who wants to crouch down to harvest them.
Bounty - A short variety, with masses of peas and able to withstand humidity and heat - very resistant to powdery mildew. A good pea to grow where others won't.
Greenfeast- A popular variety, one metre all.
Novella - A leafless pea, short variety, resistant to powdery mildew.
William Massey/ Melbourne Market - A fast maturing early pea.
Roi de Carouby - delicious French climbing variety with purple flowers - purple flowered peas are usually hardier in cold conditions.
Snow peas
These are picked before the seeds begin to form.
Mammoth sugar - Two metres of massively cropping vine.
Snap pea/Mange tout pea
These are eaten pod and all. Pick them when the pod is well filled, but don't leave them too long.
Dwarf sugar snap - about 45 cm tall.
Sugar snap tall - about 2 metres high.
Peas as Nitrogen Fixers
Peas are nitrogen fixers - or at least the bacteria associated with their roots are - about 80 kg a year. Note: the nitrogen fixed by the peas will only be available after the leaves, stems etc have decayed back into the soil. If you are using peas for green manure slash them just as they start to flower, otherwise they will toughen and most of their nutrients go to the peas, not back to the soil. Don't bother digging them in - just use the nitrogen rich mulch around other crops.
We grow masses of peas - not just as vegies, but as fertiliser and soil conditioner - arches of peas in any 'spare' bit of the vegie garden or dwarf peas between rows of other veg, sweet peas and perennial sweet peas sprawling all over the place. I reckon a good half our nitrogen needs are 'fixed' by our pea crops.
Keeping pea seed
Peas are one of the truly foolproof seeds - just let your peas dry on the vine and choose the biggest, best and earliest or latest maturing. Peas are self pollinating, so are fairly safe to come true to type, but separate them from other pea varieties just in case.
Snow peas and mange tout/sugar/snap peas can be treated the same way - just leave the pods on the vine till they start to look dry and transparent - you'll realise what I mean when you see it happen.
If it's rainy and the peas are mildewing, haul up the vine, soil and all (keep as much soil on the root as you can) and hang the vine under shelter in an airy place. Pick off any flowers and very immature peas, and the rest will keep maturing.
Pea seed will germinate for about 5 - 10 years after picking. Snow pea seed doesn't last as long. Big fat pea seeds last better.
Companion planting with peas
Grow climbing peas up old corn stalks, Jerusalem artichoke stems or old sunflower stems, or plant them in a ring of compost around a young deciduous tree that will lose its leaves in early autumn when the peas are flowering.
Peas are excellent crops to grow before other vegetables: see nitrogen fixing peas. I used to grow peas commercially with corn - the peas climbed up the corn and the pea slash fed the next corn crop.
Onions or garlic are a good crop to grow in between pea crops if there has been a problem with pea blight or wilt. Growing peas in a bed of perennial chamomile may help kill mildew spores left in the soil - just push the seeds into the chamomile, mulch them when they emerge and then stake them. The chamomile will grow back when you've pulled out the pea vines.
What can go wrong
Birds.
Birds like pea seeds and very young pea plants and will eat the peas out of the pod - or even steal the whole pod and fly away with them. Cover the peas with an old mosquito net or bird netting; spray the plants red with watercolour; pick peas every day so birds don't get in the habit of feasting there. Grow climbing peas with climbing beans to disguise them both.
Powdery Mildew (powdery covering on foliage)
Stake the peas so air can flow around them. In humid areas angle the rows so wind flows down them, not across, maximising the area exposed to the wind. Spray with seaweed spray or compost water as a preventative (just cover seaweed or compost with water and use when it turns pale brown - keep covered so mozzies don't breed there and flies don't visit and sip). In bad cases use half strength Bordeaux.
Always clean up pea debris - all the old leaves and stalks - after a crop of peas - they will probably be infected and may pass on the early infection to the next crop.
Empty pods
This may be frost damage. Wait for warmer weather. Hunt for caterpillars and squash them or use DIPEL.
Bacterial Blight (dark brown edges or splodges on leaves; stem may also develop splodges; both leaves and stem may shrivel.)
Don't replant peas for at least three years in an affected area; use only healthy seed; collect all infected matter from a crop and burn or hot compost; don't pick or weed peas in wet weather; see solutions for powdery mildew. Compost fed plants are much more resistant, as are plants well mulched with rotting lucerne or wilted comfrey.
Snails.
Place pellets in old margarine containers with a little door cut out for snails to enter.
Ants.
Ants love pea seeds. In cool weather cover pea seed with old cooking oil and dust with white pepper or ground chilli. Ants don't like their food hot and spicy.
Rotting seed
Cover with old cooking oil, as above. Don't over water pea seed until the seedlings emerge - it rots easily. Make sure soil is well drained and there is no undecomposed organic matter in the soil.
Dealing with the harvest
Fresh eating: About six weeks per crop. Crops best in cool weather - the flowers don't set in heat. Try planting in January and February for autumn peas.
Storage Time: 2 - 3 weeks in the fridge. Can be frozen or dried. If you are freezing peas dump them for one second in boiling water, then dry them and freeze them. Treat snow peas the same way. Fresh frozen peas taste quite good - better than no peas at all and much better than commercial frozen peas, or commercial fresh peas. Frozen snow peas are rubbery, but not too bad cooked. Just remember that they give out more liquid after freezing, and can make a stir fry a trifle damp. Best added at the last minute and just heated, instead of cooked.
Food value: 335 kj per 100 gms; vitamins A and C; potassium, iron, phosphorus, thiamine, calcium and protein.
Peas take about 12 week to mature, though some like Early Massey will crop faster; if you treat your peas well - and they don't get powdery mildew - you'll be able to keep picking them for at least two months.
Pick peas when the pods are well filled but while the pods are still tender. Older peas don't taste as good. This goes for sugar/ snap/mange tout peas too - and snow peas should be picked as soon as the white flower drops off the end and they are about a long as half your finger and the peas inside are still pin pricks, not true seeds.
Peas are sweetest and less rubbery if they are picked in the cool of the day - best in the morning, or in the evening after dusk, just before you cook them.
Peas are easily shelled (a few decades ago women used to carry bags of peas with them, and shell them as they watched an afternoon concert in the park, or had a cup of tea with friends). If you are going to cook the pea pods, wash them very well if they have been sprayed with fungicide.
Coping with surplus peas
Dry them for soup or stews (just leave them in the sun till hard or let them dry in the pod on the vine); grind the dried peas in a flour grinder or coffee mill for pea flour - add it to stews etc for thickening, or to bread for flavour and protein. Old fashioned blue flowered peas used to be the classic ones for drying and grinding into pea flour - but most peas can be dried, though only the blue flowered ones will give a truly fine flour.
Pea flour chapattis
Add water to pea flour, roll out very thinly and fry in very hot oil. Eat hot
How to cook peas
Fresh peas need nothing else. JUST cover with water - no salt - and simmer for five minutes or till tender. The time will vary - very tiny peas (one of the most exquisite things in the world) only take about two minutes.
If your peas are slightly older add some of their pea pods to give more flavour or add a little honey (not sugar - the taste isn't as good). Older peas need longer cooking.
(I have to hide our freshly picked peas from my offspring - otherwise they're all eaten raw. Very very fresh raw peas are delicious - very tender, very sweet.)
Cooking snow peas
Chomp them raw - they are sweet and delicious. Don't avoid them just because you've tried raw snow peas in salads before and hated them - snow peas need to be eaten as soon as they're picked or they turn rubbery and very slightly bitter.
Steam them till they turn bright green, then take them off the heat at once. They don't need much cooking.
Or stir fry them - just toss in hot oil with a bit of garlic or grated fresh ginger. Again, hoik them out when they turn bright green.
Mange tout peas
Steam or boil for about ten minutes - the older the peas the longer it will take to make them tender.
Whole Peas
This is good for peas that are very slightly past their prime. Cover with hot water, boil for 5 minutes, drain and serve whole on wide plates. You pick up the pods with your fingers and suck out the peas. Peas cooked in their pods are sweeter and more flavourful.
Peas in Cream
1 cup peas
1 cup cream
1 egg yolk
nutmeg
black pepper
chopped parsley
2 tablespoon lemon juice.
Just cover peas with cream. Simmer for about ten minutes. The cream will have greatly reduced by now. Add the other ingredients, heat again gently till the sauce thickens more, but don't boil or it may curdle.
Fresh pea soup
1 cup peas
3 cups stock
6 lettuce leaves
cream
nutmeg
Simmer peas and lettuce in the stock for ten minutes. Scoop out the lettuce. Purée and serve with a dash of cream and a dust of nutmeg.
NB: Don't use frozen peas or bought peas - if the peas aren't young, sweet and fresh the soup will be bland and boring.
Medicinal peas
Peas are said to lower the blood cholesterol level. They are a good source of protein in vegetarian and low meat diets, and excellent for diabetics and those with hyperglycaemia.
Pea magic
If you want to know the name of the person you'll marry, find a pea pod with nine peas in it and lay it under the door or on the door lintel. The name of the next person who comes in will be the name of the person you will marry - or else that person will be very like the person you'll marry.
Alternatively you'll marry the first single person - or dark haired man - to come through the door.
Why you should grow your own
Commercial disadvantages: Peas may be sprayed with endosulphan (see onions), fenthion - a persistent organophosphate with a half life of several weeks, very toxic to dogs and (especially) birds; may inhibit the enzyme cholinesterase necessary for nerve transmissions.
1. Make sure peas will mature in cool but frost free weather.
2. Choose a sunny fertile spot - or at least mulch with compost or feed with liquid or quickly soluble fertiliser (like blood and bone or hen manure) in poor soil.
3. Choose climbing varieties - peas are best staked anyway, so you may well get more for your space with climbers
4. Stake well
5. Pick regularly - the peas will be smaller, sweeter... and you'll get more peas.
Miracle Soup
To be perfectly, absolutely honest, I rarely eat any the food I give recipes for. I’m one of those people who put on a kilo a week eating the ‘average healthy diet’. (My ancestors must have been wonders in the ice age- they’d survive and stay tubby with a stray bone a week to gnaw on). Plus with a heart problem I have to watch what I eat, too. (Note to anyone assuming the heart problem comes from years of munching cream cakes...I have low cholesterol and clear arteries! Thank goodness...if I hadn’t eaten healthy most of my life I wouldn’t be here to write this...)
Anyhow, I cook because I love it, because I am married to a man who needs high calorie maintenance and does lots of physical work all day, and I love feeding the occasional horde of young people who roam the mountains all day dreaming of the banana cake and lasagne waiting for them in my kitchen- neither of which I’ll even taste.
Which isn’t to say I don’t eat extremely yummy food. When you can’t eat many calories you don’t want to waste a single one of them on anything that isn’t, well, superb enough to make the taste buds sing.
So for once this is a recipe for one of the foods I eat often. I’d love to make a dozen health claims for it(and there’s extremely good evidence to do so) but I’m not a doctor and I’m not even sure if it’d be legal to make the claims even if I were. So lets just say this soup if stunning, good for you, fat free, high in fibre, low carbs and low GI, high in protein, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and will give you the energy to climb mountains if not to soar off to the moon...well, okay, the last is an exaggeration. But the rest isn’t.
This soup does take time to cook. But it doesn’t take much time to prepare. It bubbles while you’re reading or watching a dvd. And it’s worth making a week’s supply, so you can have a variation for lunch and or dinner every day. (Yes, it IS that good!).
Basic Soup
You need:
1 large pot
a bunch celery, with leaves, well washed, and preferably organic
4 red or brown onions, halved (don’t peel!)
2 bulbs garlic. (again, don’t peel! Just chop the whole bulb in half)
2 carrots, washed, chopped, not peeled
4 tomatoes, washed, halved.
1 bunch parsley, washed, not chopped, stems and all but do remove he rubber band if bought from a supermarket.
Bung all in pot. Cover with water. Simmer till liquid is reduced by half. Strain off the liquid. It will be deep rich gold brown and smell like all those boxed soup stocks or stock cubes are supposed to smell, but don’t.
Keep this soup base in the fridge for up to a week.
Ps I don’t eat added salt. If you’re used to a high salt diet you may need to add salt to this.
Ultra Basic soup
As above, but add 1 kg chicken wings or carcasses to the pot. Scrape off the fat when the strained stock is cold.
Soup no 1.
4 cups base
half cup red lentils
2 tb chopped parsley
1 tb of good mixed curry spices
1 cup cooked dried beans, or use a can or two of a bean mix, well drained
Method: Boil everything till lentils have almost dissolved – about 20 minutes.
Soup No 2
4 cups base
half cup red lentils
2 tb chopped parsley
1 tb of good mixed curry spices
1 cup cooked dried beans, or use a can or two of a bean mix, well drained
1 can salt free chopped tomatoes
Method: Boil everything till lentils have almost dissolved – about 20 minutes.
Soup no 3
4 cups base
half cup red lentils
2 tb chopped parsley
1 tb of good mixed curry spices
2 tb chopped coriander
2 tb finely chopped celery
Optional: chopped cold chicken, chopped red capsicum , half cup baby corn or fresh corn kernels scraped off the cob
Method: as above.
Soup no 4
4 cups base
3 cups sliced mushrooms- different varieties give a different but always good result.
2 red onions, peeled and finely chopped
dash of soy sauce
Optional: finely diced celery, half cup baby corn or fresh corn kernels scraped off the cob
Soup no 5
4 cups base
juice of 1 lemon or lime
Optional: finely diced celery, sliced fresh mushrooms, baby corn, chopped coriander
Simmer ten minutes.
And so it goes. If you have pumpkin, add pumpkin. Or chopped chillies, or chopped chokos or grated carrots or basically whatever veg are in the garden or look genuinely fresh and local in the shop. Even some very finely shredded cabbage is good sometimes, or a few spears of broccoli, though generally the cabbage flavours need to be treated with caution.
But this soup is good. It fills you up an leaves you satisfied- genuinely satisfied, the feeling when you know your body as well as you taste buds have been well fed.
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