Swiss Chard Soup

Last year I grew swiss chard in the vegetable patch. It did remarkably well and we've been used it as a substitute for spinach, which worked very well. Here is a picture my husband took the last year. 

What I love about the swiss chard is that it matches our house really well, with it's red stalks and green leaves. Maybe I will change the paint in my living room to match it (just joking!). We've tried all kinds of things like eating it as a salad, making what Germans call Rahmspinat, in fried rice, with noodles, in cutlets and in patties. 

Preparation time: 30 minutes; makes 1 litre

Ingredients:

1 medium	Onion
2 tbsp.	Oil
2 cloves	Garlic
500g	Swiss chard
1 L	Milk
1.5 tbsp.	Flour
1/3	Vegtable cube (Knorr)
	Salt and pepper

Method:

Making this soup is really easy. Start by chopping your onions. They can be chopped any way you like because you will blend your soup at the end. Heat a saucepan on medium high heat. When the pan is hot add the oil and then the onions. 

A note here, if you use a stick to blend your soup don't make your soup in a non-stick pan, because your stick will damage the teflon coating. 

While the onions are frying coarsely chop the garlic and add it to the pan. You should stir the onions every now and then to prevent them from burning. While everything is cooking chop your Swiss chard roughly. 

You should chop the stems a bit finer than the leaves. I chopped them in 1 cm pieces. 

Then add the leaves to the pan and stir. Put the lid on the pan and let it cook until the leaves have wilted. You will notice because you'll have a whole lot less of leaves in your pan!

Remove the lid and sprinkle 1.5 tbsp. of flour over the leaves. Stir the flour in and keep stirring until all the flour is incorporated and cook for another minute so that the flour gets cooked. Next add the milk, salt, pepper and vegetable cube. I use a Knorr cube, which is huge so I used about a third. You don't want to add stock to your soup. I don't actually know why, but the only definite piece of advice my mother gave me to making this soup is "do not put any water in it". 

Heat everything through and then puree your soup. The quickest and easiest way to do this is to use a stick blender. If you have a metal one you can just stick it directly into your saucepan and puree the mixture. If you do this be very careful. Make sure that your blade is fully immersed all the time and start out on your lowest speed. Any mistakes here will result in hot soup flying all over your kitchen and possibly all over you. A safer way to do this would be to cool down the soup and then puree it. If you are transferring the soup to a liquidiser you should definitely cool the soup down before liquidising it. 

Once pureed reheat and serve hot. 

Vegetarian stuffed zucchini

I planted some seeds this year that were to yield some edible flowers. I was so looking forward to them but when it came round to it I just did not have the time or energy to use them. So I let them just grow. Turns out that one of the plants was a zucchini plant and it did really well. I have two plants and have not bought any zucchini all summer long. It's been a challenge to find different ways to cook them. But today I harvested two fruit and since it was such beautiful weather, probably the last of the season, I decided to stuff them and grill them on the BBQ. So in case you are looking for a different way to cook your zucchini, or are just looking for something fun and vegetarian to throw on the grill, this is for you.

Preparation time: 1 hour; serves 4  (as a side)

Ingredients:

1/4 tsp. Garlic powder

2	Zucchini
1/4 cup	Shallot, finely chopped
1 clove	Garlic, finely chopped
1	Medium tomato
3 tbsp.	Olive oil
2 tbsp.	Bread crumbs
1/2 cup	Parmesan, finely grated
3 sprigs	Oregano
2 sprigs	Thyme
1/4 tsp.	Garlic powder
	Salt and pepper

Method:

Split your zucchini lengthwise and scoop out the inner flesh leaving a pretty thick shell. Remember that zucchini gets really soft when cooked and so if you want it to keep it's shape the shell has to be a bit thicker. I noticed on my zucchini that on the inside there were two different colours. It was very subtle but the inner part where the seeds were had just a slightly different colour. I scooped out along this line. Roughly chop the scooped out zucchini.

Finely chop the shallot and dice the tomato. My tomato has such a funny shape because it also came straight from my garden. Hence the beautiful red colour.

Heat 2 tbsp. of the oil in anything you like and saute the shallots until they become transparent and soft. Add the garlic and stir it in. Then add the zucchini and fry over high heat. I like zucchini when it's done over high heat because it turns golden and it has a much better taste. However, this means that you have to stir it all the time to prevent it from burning. Once the zucchini is cooked add the tomato and continue cooking until no large chunks of tomato are visible. Note that I try not to skin my tomatoes. Skinning them takes away so much nutrients and so much tomato goes to waste.

While this is cooking chop the herbs and grate the cheese.

Once the tomato is cooked remove the stuffing from the heat and add the breadcrumbs, herbs and half of the parmesan. Stir well until everything is combined. Your filling should be relatively dry. If it's not cook it a bit more to get rid of any excess fluids. However, you should do this after adding the breadcrumbs and before adding the herbs and cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you like spicy foods consider adding some chilli pieces or sauce.

Now brush the zucchini shells with the rest of the olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Grill the shells with the cut side down for 3-5 minutes on a hot BBQ (or grill). Remove them and then stuff them with the filling. Topping with the left over cheese. Put them back on the grill for another 5 - 7 minutes or until the cheese is just melted. Note that you don't want to over cook the shell because then the whole thing will just fall to pieces. So keep an eye on your food!

Lavender sachets

Last year I made jars of our homegrown rosemary to give as Christmas gifts. They turned out rather cute. This year I didn't harvest any rosemary but we had heaps of lavender. It's kind of weird that I got such a large amount of lavender because I only have a small patch of plants. It smells really good and everyone is always amazed at how fragrant it is. If there is a slight breeze our whole garden fills up with the sent. When the lavender is in full bloom I add it to butter together with some bees honey to make a most delicious spread. But there is only so much lavender butter that we can eat!

I was going to make these little gifts using an old saree that I thought I had. But it seems like I must have gotten rid of it a long time ago!

However, while rummaging around in my crafts cupboard I found some silk that I had bought on our honeymoon in India. It was originally bought to make a photo album for our wedding photos. Unfortunately this was in the days of film cameras and due to an unfortunate mistake the settings on the camera got messed up leaving us with practically no wedding photos. Thus I lost interest in the silk and stuffed it into my bottomless cupboard. You can actually use any material to make a lavender sachet. The main thing is that the material is thin so that it allows the fragrance to come through. If you don't have any old silk sarees lying around you can use the next best thing, which is quite popular for lavender, and that is cotton.

Here is what you will need for one sachet:

• 13 cm by 15.5 cm piece of plain silk
• 13 cm by 4 cm piece of patterned silk
• 43 cm matching or contrasting ribbon
• Matching thread
• Sewing machine
• Needle
• Pins
• 80 g dried lavender

To make things easier on myself I made sure that one of the long sides of the plain silk and the short sides of the patterned silk was the selvedge edge (i.e. the one that does not unravel). If you can manage this it also looks better.

The first thing you MUST do is to blanket stitch (or zigzag) all around the material to make sure it does not fray. Usually thin materials fray much faster than thick ones and you don't want all your hard work to go to waste because you forgot this simple step and the stitches came away and the lavender spilled out.

Once you've got everything secured you can start putting the sachet together.
Pin the two pieces along the 13 cm side making sure to keep the selvedges on the same side. Make sure that the pieces line up exactly on the selvedge. The other side is not so important since it will be on the inside of the sachet. Note that the good sides should be facing each other on the inside.

 Sew this up using a sewing machine or back stitch. Then you need to sew up the other side to form a "tube". Again make sure that the selvedges are lined up so that you have a nice straight edge at the top. Sew this up.

 Now you have a little tube and you just need to sew up the bottom to form a bag. If all has gone according to plan the selvedges will all be nicely lined up. Now you want to have the pattern down the middle of the sachet. Pin it down in the correct position. You might have to do some fiddling or measuring to get it exactly in the middle. Flatten the seams with your fingers and make sure that everything is nice and flat and that there are no wrinkles. Then pin down the bottom and sew it up.

Now turn it around so that all the sewing is inside.

Fill the pouch with the lavender. Now you don't want the lavender falling out if someone takes off your pretty ribbon. Or if it just happens to come off by itself. So it's a good idea to sew up the top. I did this after putting the lavender in. About 1 cm above the top of the lavender I sewed around with a simple running stitch and then pulled it tight, securing it with a double knot. Finally add your ribbon. And voila, you have a cute little present to give for Christmas!