Self Sufficient, Sort of

Self sufficiency isn't like pregnancy. While a woman is either pregnant or not, a person or family can be self sufficient in varying degrees. No one can maintain a decent standard of living through complete self sufficiency, but we do what we can with the resources available to us.

There's something very satisfying about producing part of one's food. It makes us feel a little less dependent on our nation's food delivery system. We know exactly how some of our food was produced and where it came from.

Often when we sit down to eat a meal one of us will comment on the number of its ingredients that came from Paradise. We count only vegetables, fruit and herbs from our garden and eggs our chickens lay.

One cool evening last week when making cream of tomato soup I did an ingredient check. In the first step, sweating onions and celery in olive oil, everything came from the grocery store. (Our home grown onions ran out months ago.)

In the next step our score improved. Four of the six ingredients were ours: thyme, basil, garlic and the main ingredient, tomatoes. Where are the tomatoes? In the Brown Cow yogurt container taken from the freezer earlier that day. There's no garlic showing in the picture either, but it is in the small plastic container of green stuff. Every summer I make a mixture of basil, garlic and a little olive oil pureed in a mini food processor. When I need garlic and basil I take a container from the freezer, let it thaw a bit and spoon out what I need. The thyme is in the tall jar with the pink sticky note. (It's almost gone, but I harvested thyme a couple of weeks ago for the coming year.)

The other two ingredients are La Chinata smoked Spanish paprika and Better Than Bouillon organic chicken base. The soup is thickened with a little flour. Just before serving the soup I stirred in some half and half and sprinkled on some chopped chives from the garden.

Four homegrown ingredients and seven imported – that's not too shabby.

I didn't take a picture of the finished soup, but here's the recipe. (I didn't use the sugar, so it wasn't included in the count.)

Cream of Tomato Soup

3 T. butter or olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery with leaves

1 quart home-canned tomatoes or 2 pounds chopped fresh tomatoes

¼ t. dried thyme or ½ t. dried summer savory

½ t. dried basil

½ t. paprika

grindings of black pepper

3 T. flour

14 ounces chicken broth

½ cup half and half (or more if desired)

In a large saucepan, saute the onions in the butter or oil until tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in thyme or summer savory, basil, and paprika and cook another minute or so. Add the tomatoes and some black pepper.

Simmer 10 minutes if using fresh tomatoes. Home-canned tomatoes don’t need this step.

Add chicken broth, reserving ¼ cup. Cover and simmer for 10 to 25 minutes, depending on whether the tomatoes are canned or fresh.

Stir the flour into the reserved chicken broth to dissolve. Slowly add to the tomato mixture while stirring. Add a half-teaspoon of sugar if the soup seems too tart.

Puree the soup with an immersion blender. Stir in cream. Return the soup to heat, but do not allow it to boil.

Serve it up garnished with chopped parsley or chopped chives and a dollop of sour cream.