With next year’s crop in the ground and the sugar beet harvest under way, farmer’s wife, Henrietta Balcon, provides ‘the best’ quick tomato soup recipe, as she looks ahead to a season of cold days and warm kitchens…

October is a quiet month in the farming calendar. We have done the drilling. We are still harvesting the Sugar Beet for British Sugar, which unlike us, has loved the rain during the summer. The Beet harvest will continue until the factories shut at the end of January/beginning of February.

The Game season is now open, so partridge is on the menu and early pheasant. In the garden we have beetroot and the early Brussel sprouts, (love them or hate them!). There are pumpkins for Halloween, healthy kale, leeks, turnips and chard plus winter squash.

Soup is coming back into fashion with the cooler days and the clocks changing at the end of the month, making the evenings darker. Mary Berry makes the best quick tomato soup recipe I have ever come across. You come in cold and it takes literally fifteen minutes to make. Everyone loves it.

I am totally dairy free, due to an allergy to dairy, so I have decided, from now on, to give you dairy free options in all my recipes. We are so lucky these days, as 20 years ago it was such a struggle if you had any allergy, with very few, if any, options from mainstream food. There are now so many alternatives to choose from and they are all so good.

WITH THANKS TO MARY BERRY’S QUICK SOUP RECIPE.
TOMATO SOUP MADE DAIRY FREE – THIS OPTION IS SHOWN IN THE RECIPE BELOW (ideal for firework night!)

Ingredients

  • 10 sun dried tomatoes in olive oil
  • 2 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 3 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
  • 500ml chicken or vegetable stock
  • 1 tbsp caster sugar
  • 150ml of milk or 150ml dairy free milk
  • 150ml double cream or 150ml dairy free double cream
  • salt and pepper to taste

Method

Find a large deep saucepan and place it on a medium heat.

From the sun dried tomato jar steal a tablespoon of the olive oil, then top up the jar with fresh olive oil.

Add your 10 sun-dried tomatoes and the chopped garlic.

Stir for a few minutes until the garlic turns a bit brown coloured. Now add the tinned tomatoes, stock and the sugar.

Season with salt and pepper and once boiling reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

With a hand blender, blend to a smooth soup in the pan. Stir in the milk and cream and taste to see if you would like more seasoning.

Serve hot with crusty bread. It’s such a good lunch dish.

Picture: stock image

This article extract was taken from the October 2024 edition of The Country Smallholder. To read the article in full, including Henrietta’s satay sauce and lemon curd recipes from the farm kitchen, you can buy the full issue here.

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