Garden Tomato Soup

Its a cold, snowy day in mid-April and my girls are home from school for yet another snow day. This weather has us thinking about warm soup and hot sandwiches. We decided to make some tomato soup since we still have so many canned garden tomatoes on our shelf.

Tomatoes grew very well in the garden last year. We were harvesting tomatoes into November!

I researched lots of different soup recipes online and came up with a combination of ingredients that are delicious! Here's our recipe:

Ingredients:

2 quarts of canned tomatoes (ours are San Marzano tomatoes)
1 medium onion, diced (from our garden)
1 clove of chopped garlic
2 cups chicken broth (made from out broiler chickens)
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp basil
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Roux:
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan and saute garlic and onion until soft and translucent. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Add the tomatoes and chicken stock. Stir this well and then bring to a boil. Let this boil for about 20 minutes. You want the flavors to combine and the tomatoes to soften a bit.

3. Reduce the heat and add a bay leaf, balsamic vinegar, and basil. All to simmer for a few more minutes. Meanwhile, make the roux in a separate pan.

4. Remove the bay leaf. Use a submersible blender to combine all the ingredients.

5. Add the roux to your tomato soup and whisk until well-blended.

6. Stir in the heavy cream and add additional salt and pepper to taste.

Serve and Enjoy!

The girls and I thought this tomato soup pared up nicely with a hot grilled cheese sandwich.  It was a perfect lunch for a snowy day. And it always feels great to feed my family using high quality food right from our own yard!

Grilled cheese and tomato soup - yum!

Maple Syrup - Season Finale

2018 has been a stellar year for maple syrup production in New Hampshire. We tapped our trees early in February, and the season lasted through all of March. Mother Nature gave us the perfect sapping weather and we took full advantage of it!

Some of us find it hard to wait for finished syrup...

Grand Totals for 2018

We finished up our season with a total of 22 gallons of finished syrup! This number is huge for us. For comparison, last year we produced a total of 4 gallons. This year's production is our largest ever.

We collected 776 gallons of sap with our 39 taps. An average ratio of sap to finished syrup is 40:1. However, we were able to produce 1 gallon of syrup per 35 gallons of sap. This indicates that our sap has a higher sugar content than average.

We boiled 12 separate batches of syrup and several of these boiling sessions took multiple days to finish. Admittedly, we were tired of boiling sap by the end of the season. Boiling sap is time consuming and can be physically demanding.

To produce all of this finished syrup, we used over 2 cords of firewood, plus scrap wood. This was the first year we were able to use dried cord wood in our evaporator. Normally, we forage for dead wood around the property. We haul that wood, split it, and then burn it. This adds a huge physical burden to the boiling task and makes it hard to have long, multiple-day boils.  This year, my brother-in-law donated 2+ cords of firewood to our cause. It was so convenient to have dried cord wood ready to use in the evaporator. Going forward, we will make a bigger effort to have dried wood cut, stacked and ready for syrup season.

The Great Clean Up

Without doubt, the worst part of syrup season is the cleanup. By the end of the season, we are tired and lacking motivation to put away all of the equipment. This year, April has continued to be cold and dreary. We spent a cold, drizzly day cleaning up. This involves taking down each bucket, cleaning them, and stacking them in our garage storage space. We boil the spiels to disinfect them before storage. Next, we wash each of our 4 collection barrels. Lastly, we have to wash and clean out the evaporator. This involves descaling the pan, taking out the fire bricks, disassembling the stack, and storing all of this until next spring.

Matt improvised a bucket rack for easier cleaning.

We literally spent an entire day doing these chores. It's tiring work. We all agree that a sugar shack would be a wonderful addition to our property in order to minimize some of this work. Pipe dreams!

Bee Keeping - New Adventure!

Many people are surprised to learn that bee keeping is fairly complicated. I was one of those people! I have always thought it would be a wonderful thing to try, though I honestly had no idea what I was getting into.

To start, it is recommended that new beekeepers join a local beekeeping club and start going to "bee school." This is a 6-week program where students learn from experienced beekeepers. I spent Friday nights this past winter soaking up as much of this information as possible.

Admittedly, most of the information was overwhelming. I learned that there a many ways to kill my bees. Bees can die of bacterial infections, viruses, mites, pesticides, starvation...the list goes on.  I also learned that most likely, my bees would not make it through the harsh New Hampshire winter. In fact, there is a 60% chance that the bees will die over the winter.

Despite this harsh reality, we decided to go all in and commit to purchasing two bee colonies. Once this had been decided, we had to research which hives to buy and what equipment we needed.

Matt and I have decided to try the relatively new technology of the Flow Hive. This type of hive will allow us to harvest honey without buying all of the traditional honey extraction equipment. It also limits the stress on bees during harvest time. The inventors of this hive have had one of the most successful campaigns ever on the startup site, Indiegogo.

The Flow Hive is a bit controversial in the beekeeping world. This type of hive has made beekeeping easier and more accessible to new beekeepers, like myself. Unfortunately, not everyone understands the responsibility involved in caring for bees. Many worry that having large numbers of new beekeepers will contribute to the downfall of bees, instead of helping their numbers recover. Let's hope that we can keep our bees alive and have thriving colonies!