Thursday, Week 4 - Tomato Soup and More Prune Cake

We got so many tomatoes in our delivery on Tuesday, I struggled to think how I could use them all.  Tomato soup seemed the perfect way!  I had 4 people helping me today.  Things seemed much more efficient than usual.  Two people made a big pot of tomato soup each, 1 person helped me make another prune cake so that we had enough for everyone and the other person helped keep things semi-tidy for us throughout the afternoon.  Half way through the afternoon, I suddenly yelled out, "I forgot to take photos!"  and intended on getting my camera out straight away, but somehow got distracted and it was another half an hour before it crossed my mind again so I literally have only 1 photo of the soup in a pot.  Gah!

Tomato Soup

2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
1 whole bulb of garlic, chopped
3 tablespoons of vegetable stock or 3 stock cubes
2 punnets of cherry tomatoes
2 tins of tomatoes
1.5 litres of water
Salt and pepper to taste

We fried the carrots, celery and garlic (we didn't use any onion in this recipe but you could chop up 1 and add it to the mix if you want)  in a tiny bit of oil for a few minutes, adding the vegetable and stirring before adding the tinned tomatoes.  We then poured the water in and added the fresh tomatoes.  After about 15 minutes we put the soup in the blender to produce a smooth finish.

We made the same prune cake mix as yesterday and put it in the cake tin to bake rather than the cupcake tin.  I managed to remember to take a photo after we had handed out half of it!

I also tried to make coconut whipped cream from coconut milk.  I didn't really have time, but I managed to seperate the fat from the water and it is the fridge waiting for tomorrow.  Maybe we will make something to put the coconut cream on!

The soup tasted amazing.  We made two big pots of it and only served up one, so tomorrow I will put the remainder into a container and put it in the freezer to be used up after school one evening during the autumn term.

Prunes are a really great addition to your diet as they are high in dietary fibre, phytonutrients, which protect against free radicals, and also have high levels of vitamin A and beta carotene.  They also contain iron, copper, calcium, vitamin K, potassium and magnesium.