Comfort food for hungry farmers

The orange season is here

For the past year I wasn't a very dedicated farmer and I've let my little organic garden wither. I don't even have a proper excuse but I've neglected my planters that once were thriving with tomatoes and eggplants. With the change of seasons I had a change of hearts, I decided I need to rehabilitate my garden and plant new herbs and vegetables that suit the coming winter. I've recruited the whole family for a joint effort. Our main task was to uproot the withered old plants and clean the terrace where the planters stand. My kids were not surprisingly very excited about playing with mud. My youngest son used his little red shovel to dig fiercely whether it was necessary or not. We've planted both flowers and vegetables. I look forward to see how the spinach, broccoli and radishes will turn out. The pansies are blooming beautifully.   

my pretty pansies

After spending most of the morning outdoors making an attempt to be good agriculturalists, come lunch time we were all ravenous. The best food to warm us cold hungry workers was our favorite orange soup of course. It's not made of oranges but from a variety of orange vegetables usually carrots, squash, and sweet potatoes. Each time we get a different soup depending on the ratios between the different vegetables. The secret to a wonderfully tasting soup is roasting the orange ingredients in the oven prior to cooking them. This process is caramelizing the sugar in the vegetables, than we add them to some sautéed onion, add water or stock and let the whole thing simmer for about half an hour. The final stage is mashing with a hand blender the whole mixture till we get creamy, velvety bisque. We love to upgrade the taste with a bit of whole cream and to sprinkle peeled sunflower seeds, the gluten-free option to croutons.

Now I look after my planters on daily basis, I even saw some small shoots already popping from the ground. We had a wonderful weather this week, it rained for days. So the rain started early this year; let's hope it will keep raining.