SELF SUFFICIENT GARDEN SOUP

I love every meal that comes completely from our garden, having a bunch of self sufficient meals that I have grown ourselves fills me with such satisfaction and rewards the passion for growing our own food.  This year I have been quite successful in growing, onions, garlic, leeks, celery, beetroots, carrots and parsnips over winter, it has been a daily joy looking down the garden and still having half the vegetable beds full of food, now I have a logistic's issue on where to start of half my summer vegetables, solution more beds!  Who needs grass anyway!

Prep time 10 minutes / Cooking time 15 minutes

This is my first year of successfully growing winter vegetables, I planted garlic, onions and leeks in September and they grew a little then slowed down for winter and come March they have really picked up on the growing and are almost ready to start using young now as the rest mature.  The leeks, beetroot, parsnips, carrots and celery I planted in July have over wintered in the garden beautifully, I did have a mild panic when we had several light dusting's of snow and some big frosts, some of the vegetables froze, however they have all been fine, next winter I will probably bank up the vegetables with straw as a blanket insulator, then chop mulch that in to the beds before spring.

Ingredients

(serves 2-3)

4 carrots peeled and diced

4 parsnips peeled and diced

1 leek finely chopped

3 sticks celery finely chopped

1 potato peeled and diced

1 sprig thyme

1 ltr homemade chicken stock (recipe below)

1 tbsp butter

sea salt and white pepper

Homemade Chicken Stock

(Place everything in a saucepan and gently almost simmer for 2hrs, strain and season)

1-2 chicken carcasses

2 carrots rough chopped

2 celery rough chopped

1 onion halved 

1 leek rough chopped

2 bay leaves

1.5 ltr boiled water

The Soup

Really any garden ingredients you have will make a gorgeous soup

Put all the ingredients in a sauce pan except the salt and pepper and bring to a gentle simmer, cook until the vegetables are fork tender, add the butter then season to taste, you can serve this soup chunky like I have or using a potato masher crush the vegetables a little to make the soup a little thicker with flecks of vegetables or using a stick blender blend to a smooth thicker bodied soup,   Serve with a fabulous hunk of fresh sour dough with lashings of thick creamy butter.