Homegrown kitchen

When I was growing up I thought I hated tomato soup. The only type to grace our kitchen was from a tin, and I think it was the smell I couldn't bear. I remember being horrified when I saw my mother put it in a mince dish that I liked. She always put it in there, she said, and I thought I'd been tricked!

No more, no more. There is no tinned soup in my pantry, and on Friday I made a vegetable tomato soup.

It was from the blog of chef-and-mum Nicola Galloway of Nelson, NZ, who also blogs about crafts and gardening. It's Homegrown kitchen, and not only is it gorgeous, it has inventive healthy food ideas that really appeal to me, with lots of emphasis on things that (most) children like.

I added chickpeas to make it a bit more long-lasting in the belly. The recipe (see link in previous sentence) looked, I thought, like it might be a bit boring. Not true - I loved it! It's all gone now.

I also made some chocolate almond milk and oat milk from her recipe. I felt inspired at the thought, because I am avoiding dairy (apart from yoghurt and the odd cheese sauce on lasagne) and I dislike tetrapak with a vengeance (all commercial alternative milks come in tetrapak cartons). The milks were quite easy to make, and I'd link to her recipe here but for some reason only the homepage URL comes up when I go to the recipe. The quantity made was small, though, and I only hope I can be bothered with the process every day or two... perhaps I can upscale.