It seems a little nuts that this summer has been mild enough to have us craving soup, but you won’t hear me complaining.  By all rights we should have been experiencing temperatures in the 100’s by now, with crazy oppressive humidity.  Instead, we are seeing mere 80’s. It’s wonderful.  I could love summers if every year was this way. That’s not to say we won’t get punished by a brutal September or October (hey, it could happen….in fact it HAS happened in the past), but for now I am going to revel in actually being able to work in the garden without wanting to die from heat stroke.

But back to the soup.

Before I left for my long weekend away, I made sure to put up several meals that my family could reheat easily and not resort to ordering pizza every night.  At the same time, I was cleaning out the freezers and came upon a whole frozen chicken carcass from a roast chicken dinner this spring and several bags of frozen vegetable scraps (bell pepper cores, carrot and celery tops, onion skins).  An idea was born. A big pot of chicken noodle soup would take care of using up that food before it went south, and would make several meals to leave behind.

To begin with, I let the carcass thaw a bit, but since it was already cooked and mostly just bones and some fat I wasn’t too concerned.  I seared it a bit in a big pot with olive oil to brown it up a bit.  While that was going, I did the same thing with the vegetable scraps in a saute pan.

Once I had both the chicken carcass and the veggie scraps browned up a bit, I threw the scraps in the pot with the chicken and filled it up with water.  Then I dumped several tablespoons of Herbs de Provence on top and stirred it all up.

A few grinds of black pepper and a shake or two of sea salt and then I brought it all to a boil.  Then I reduced the heat to low, put on the cover, and let it simmer for nearly 12 hours.

In the meantime, I picked a decent bunch of carrots from the garden and washed them up to add to the soup.

Yummy heirloom carrots!  I sliced them all up, and since I wasn’t sure if they’d be added the next day or the day after (depending on when I got to finishing the soup) I put them in a food saver bag and packed them tight to keep them fresh.

Nifty, right?  This was not nearly enough carrots, though!  I had to add a whole bunch more that I bought at Trader Joe’s so the soup would be nice and full of them.  I think I used 3 or 4 cups of chopped carrots for my pot.

When my stock had simmered down to where I wanted it to be volume and flavor-wise, I browned up some boneless chicken thighs I’d also found in the freezer clean-out.

While they were sauteeing away, I strained the bones and scraps out of my chicken stock to leave only the liquid.  Then i added the meat.

I like using thigh meat for soups because it is so much more flavorful than breast meat.

While that was going on, I also whipped up a batch of homemade pasta dough using THIS recipe.  I rolled it through the linguine cutter and then cut that into smaller strips and let it dry for about an hour.

I threw all of the carrots into the soup with the broth and meat, and then, for good measure, chopped up some celery and onions and threw that in as well.  I taste-tested for salt and herbs, but I honestly didn’t have to add any.  The slow simmering had made a very flavorful broth.

The pasta went in a handful at a time to keep it from sticking together.

At the end it looked and smelled divine.

The kids LOVED it.  I was able to freeze several quarts of it for them to enjoy while I was away, and enjoy they did!

Neve has been calling this the “Summer Chicken Soup” so as to differentiate it from the Garlic Chicken Soup we make all winter which is so medicinal for us.

I loved it because I went in with no recipe, just a knowledge of what I hand on hand and how I wanted it to taste.  Improvisation in the kitchen is really fun for me, and this was no exception; particularly because so much of it was grown here and made completely by hand.

I’ll certainly be doing this again!

I know I’ve been woefully quiet over here.  Lambing officially ended with the birth of our last lamb last week (more on that soon! I promise!), and then I slept for days.

Since then I’ve been preoccupied with the garden, and I am very late getting it all established this year.  It’s now a mad rush to get everything into the ground right now in an effort to catch up.

We also were dealing with lambcam having been hit by lightning, causing it to be down for about a week.

On top of it all, Neve, my super – helpful shepherd apprentice, turned 11 this week.

She’s a dynamo with the sheep and goats.  She helped deliver nearly all the lambs this year, and got to check “getting a lap-full of amniotic fluid and blood” off of her “life experiences” list. Grossness aside, she’s loved every moment of it.

But back to the garden.

Lots of lettuce is growing out front, along with radishes, beets, carrots, peas and beans. Even the broccoli still looks to be doing great, and I’ve never had much luck with it before.

My quinoa sprouts are getting bigger by the day, and the leeks seem to be doing really well also.

The rose bush next to the beehives looks amazing this year.  I’m sure the bees like it, too!

This crazy jungle is actually my raspberry plant.  I got it as a small, single cane plant two years ago, and it has gone wild with growth.

It is just now starting to flower, so I am hoping for a bountiful harvest in the coming weeks.  Even so, we have discovered that our entire property is just filthy with wild black raspberries.  For the first several years we were here we thought they were just prickery weeds and pulled them out wherever we found them.  Happily, that hasn’t put even a dent in the amount of them all over.  They are currently in flower (lovely drifts of white amongst dark green leaves everywhere!), and soon we will have more berries than we can eat.  There are also plans to add a terraced bed alongside the back garden for strawberries.  If we get them into the ground this fall, we should see plenty of fruit next spring!

The other thing taking over? Honeysuckle.  It has created a natural wall all around the front chicken yard, and when the wind blows it carries the sweetest scent.  This may be one of my favorite things right now.

Speaking of chickens…..my awesome friend Lisa gave me two new chickens – these will lay blue eggs. We’ve named them Petal and Posy.

Next to the back vegetable garden I’ve started a small flower garden around this lovely twig bench.  I love this spot because it’s about halfway between the house and the pasture, and on nice days you can sit and watch the sheep. It doesn’t look like much now (except that we need to get the weed whacker out!) but we’ve surrounded it with lovely white quartz rocks we’ve found all over the farm, and there are three peony bushes starting to spread along with a few dahlia plants and some alysum.  I’d like to get some lavender in there as well, but we’ll see.  The area directly behind the bench will soon be planted with cherry trees that we hope will fruit abundantly in a few years.

In the back vegetable garden I’ve left the volunteer sunflowers where they’ve sprouted.  I think they will be nice among the squashes and corn.

The cucumbers are sprouting!  I planted three different kinds: one large variety for eating out of hand and chopping into salads, and two pickling types.  I’ve got trellises for them this year, as well as for all of the other large vining squashes.  I don’t have a lot of square footage for them right now, but there’s plenty of room to go UP.  Everything except for the big watermelons and pumpkins will be trellised.

Sadly, this is what all of my tomato plants look like.  They are still rather small, due to my very late start.  I may try to find some bigger plants to put in with them so we are not waiting until August to see fruit!

BUT, I at least got my basil planted at the appropriate time.  It would be a crime not to have fresh pesto this summer!

I have planted several of these all around the gardens, along with lemon thyme and rosemary.  I’ve been reading up on what I need to do to try and keep them going through the winter so I don’t need to buy new each year.  I’d like for the lavender at least to grow and spread out a bit.

I’m pretty excited about the direction the property is going.  We are learning that there is a lot here already that is wonderful, and we are doing what we can to improve the soil and plant growth.  It’s very slow, but it’s going to be so worth it.