Saturday 21 August 2010

Thinning and cropping

We spent a good part of the day on the allotment yesterday thinning leaks and parsnips and cropping cucumbers, gherkins, onions, garlic and tomatoes. I had feared that both the onion and garlic crops were going to be poor. Neither was as good as we have had in the past but my worst fears were not realised. We got modest crops from both though the red onions were poor (the white onions were much better).

The leaks should have been thinned some time ago but hopefully they will now have space to grow, as will the parsnips. We kept the thinnings. I used the leak leaves and the stems of the onions that had bolted to make vegetable stock. This was then used to make a cauliflower and green leaf summer soup. That's the rather fancy name I have conjured up for this recipe. The idea behind it is that I wanted to use cauliflower leaves rather than throw them away. I'm rather proud of the final result as it was a great soup yet most ingredients would otherwise have been thrown straight onto the compost heap.

I'll post up the recipe shortly.

2 comments:

june said...

ooh, i like the sound of a cauliflower and green leaf soup. I eagerly await the recipe!

elfriide tramm said...

i juice cauliflower and broccoli leaves and stems and also young pea stems.

if one doesn't have a masticating juicer, then it's possible to make juice from leefy greens with a blender. just put those leaves and stems together with a water to blender, let it work some time. then put everything through sieve or some special fabric, press it dry and drink the juice. very useful!