Saturday morning, I got up early with my older nephew and let him think that he'd conned me into doing his paper route with him. We delivered to over a hundred houses together, and had a great visit as we took turns running up to houses and leaving the papers in the mailboxes.
After that, we all went to watch my younger nephew play hockey. I can hardly believe that hockey season has already started, but they were playing scrimmages to determine which level of team each kid should be on. I was pretty impressed at the skill level of some of those kids, but something tells me my nephew won't have a career in hockey. God Bless him, it appears that he has taken after his auntie Janice when it comes to sports. For most of the game, he was the kid on the outskirts of the players, standing with his stick upside down, looking up and counting the banners that hang from the rafters.
We also went to the farmer's market, which is one of my favorite things to do. We parked a ways a way out, walked through a park to get to the market and then spent a few hours wandering around.
I love this statue; but I wish I had photo shop, so that I could clear away the clutter in the background of this shot.
There was a huge selection in locally grown produce and crafts. I bought a buffalo horn walking stick for my nephew's upcoming birthday. It's as ugly as sin, but I know he'll love it. Then I stocked up on as much fresh produce as one person could possibly use. Green beans, fresh beets, peas, yellow zucchini, corn and these funky tomatoes.
They're called zebra tomatoes. A little chewier than most tomatoes, and quite a big sweeter. Yum.
Today I set out to use some of it, and made a big pot of corn soup. I started off with Pastor Ryan's recipe, but switched it up some. I like that he cooks so much by scratch, and that he isn't so hung up on using the exact recipe. I also thought it was brilliant to use the corn cobs to make stock.
I did like he said, and scraped the corn off of 8 cobs. I added about half a stick of butter (he used twice that), and baked it in the oven at 400 for about 45 minutes. While that was baking, I broke the cobs in two, tossed them into a pasta pot for easy staining, added 4 litres of water, a couple of whole garlic cloves, some spices (paprika, tumeric, fresh oragano and chives) and then let it simmer for a couple of hours before mixing it with the corn.
Because I like soups to be pretty substantial, I cut up a leak and 4 small potatoes and chucked them in. I let that simmer for about 20 minutes, and then used a submersible blender to chop/blend some of it together before adding a cup of half and half to the mix. I think it's safe to say that it could very well be the best corn soup I've ever made.
Yumm!! This definitely goes into my list for church soup suppers this coming Lent. Thanks!!!
ReplyDeletethat soup sounds AMAZING! *drool* don't get enough fresh produce around here, I must say...
ReplyDeleteA ways, a way. I thought I was the only person who said that and that statue rocks. I didn't notice the background until you metioned it.
ReplyDeleteThose zebra tomatoes are amazing. They are gorgeous. Your corn soup sounds wonderful. What a great fall meal :)
ReplyDeleteis chewy good when it comes to tomatoes?? I normally think gristle when I think chewy ;-)
ReplyDelete...Still eating the soup. It's still really good, although, I'm starting to wish that I'd put some of it in the freezer.
ReplyDeleteLOL, Carma. My sister said the same thing about tomatoes to the vendor. I would say that it's good in this case. These tomatoes have a bit thicker of a skin to bite through, and seem a little less meaty. It's hard to describe, so I went with chewy.