Home Made Pumpkin Soup and Stock

Today I decided that it was time to use the two frozen chicken carcasses in the freezer to make some stock - they were from previously home cooked roast chooks.

I bought some extra little chicken bits, I usually use chicken wings as they are cheap, but used some other cuts as they were on special and had both skin and bones with the meat which is key.

After browning off these chicken bits in some butter to create some flavour. I then added 3 home grown leeks, a carrot 3 sticks of celery and some home grown garlic and heated them up, after a few minutes I added the frozen carcasses and then covered it all with some cold water and added in some home grown herbs of thyme, oregano and rosemary and then left it to heat up and summer away for over 3 hrs.

Stock cooking

I then strained the stock in a tea towel lined strainer and returned the liquid to the pot where I added butternut pumpkin, a sliced onion and a carrot.

Stock strained

Pumpkin cooking in the stock

After cooking for about an hour I then whizzed it all up and with some added cream, salt and pepper and voila

Pumpkin soup

I reckon that this is the best stock that I've ever made and that also means the best pumpkin soup I've ever made - Winning!

A New Rosemary Plant

Today I got given a number of free things from friends - one of them being a Rosemary Plant! Thanks Wayne!! The other things I got free were Dahlia tubers (thanks Kirsten!)and some empty milk cartons (thanks Ian!).

The first thing I did when I got home was go to put it in a bucket of water and seasol mixture but then I realised that I didn't have a bucket big enough. After asking my neighbours I got one of those giant plastic drinks tubs

While the Rosemary was soaking I found a suitable place for it to live

I dug the soil over and added two bags of compost to help build up the height a bit, I saw so many worms in the soil - it's great to see

I cut about 1/4 to 1/2 off the bush and then planted it, watered it in well and then mulched

Today I also picked another 3 broccoli - here they are with the Rosemary