Winter Soup. Wintersop

Since the winter solstice is just a few days behind us here in the southern hemisphere I thought a post on soup would be appropriate. A colleague and I always joke about the link between overcast/rainy weather and soup. Yes, the fare in my household is quite predictable. Soup would be a safe bet on a rainy winter's day. It is not the rule, but nevertheless a common occurrence. 

One of my favourite soups (both to eat and to make) is what I call Sweet Potato and Chicken Soup, or simply Winter Soup. It is hearty, delicious and packed with anti-oxidants. The last few sweet potatoes from my haul in April went into preparing the latest batch. Yes, the sweet potatoes I harvested between the conifers and fruit trees.

Let me share the recipe with you. It serves 6-8 people, depending on the size of the pot ;-)
 

Veggies, chopped up and ready to go into the pot/Groente, opgesny en gereed om pot toe te gaan

Winter Soup Recipe:

4x medium sweet potatoes/medium patats
4x pieces of chicken/hoender
1x large onion/groot ui
3x medium turnips/medium rape
6x leeks/preie
3x parsnips/parsnepe
8x carrots/wortels
bunch of parsley/bondeltjie pietersielie
chicken spice, salt and pepper/hoenderspeserye, sout en peper

Sauté onions and leeks lightly
Brown chicken and spices together
Add water to cover chicken and onion mix and bring to the boil
Roughly chop all vegetables and add to pot
Fill the pot with water and bring to boil
Turn heat down to simmer for 2-3 hours
Add parsley 15mins before serving

The recipe isn't an exact science, but your tastebuds should guide you. If the soup tastes bitter, add another sweet potato etc.

Winter Soup - ready to be served with fresh bread/Wintersop - gereed om met vars brood geniet te word

Which soup warms your heart in winter-time?

Growing Sweet Potato in the Garden Route. Patats in die Tuinroete

I haven't been posting as frequent as I want because I've been on leave for about a week now, as is normally the case in April. It's such a glorious month, don't you think? The milder weather, all those public holidays and to top it all off; my birthday. What could be better?

Another awesome April surprise was my sweet potato harvest. And boy, what a harvest it was! See, the whole "experiment" started last year mid-winter when my second mom gave me three medium-sized sweet potatoes to start slips with. Yes, I did my research! Unlike the normal potato, which is planted with a seed potato ('moer' in Afrikaans), the sweet potato is planted with slips - or basically stems that grow from a sweet potato lying in water. This is because potatoes are plants that form edible tubers whereas the actual sweet potato is a thickening of  its plant's roots, or that is how I understand it.

By the beginning of October my slips were ready to plant. You know this is the case when the slips are six inches long or more. Most will have roots on them as well. Simply break the slips off where they're attached to the potato and its ready to be planted. This is how my slips looked on 8 October 2013:

Slips started off from 3 sweet potatoes/Ranke wat met 3 patats begin is

Most of them went into the ground on the same day. Since I'm not blessed with limitless space, they had to go in between shrubs, conifers, between small fruit trees and even partially under the massive swamp cypress. 

Small cleared space for sweet potatoes between the grass, ground cover and conifers

The one thing all sources were in agreement with is that sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) should be left in the ground as long as possible. This is due to the plant being native to tropical regions of Central and South America; therefore requiring warm nights and an average daytime temperature in the mid-twenties (centigrade). I decided I would leave my plants in peace until the beginning or middle of April, since March is still basically a summer month in my part of the Garden Route region. I could afford this luxury because I had planted the sweet potatoes so they could crawl into our normal garden, or just form a kind of green, living ground-cover for the soil in the fruit bed. They would therefore fulfill a dual purpose, because not only would I (hopefully) get to harvest some sweet potatoes, but the dense green foliage would help the soil retain moisture in the height of summer. Neat hey?

Sweet potato bed, instead of fruit bed?/Appel, laventel en kumquat skaars sigbaar tussen patatranke

The after photo (7 April 2014):

The fruit bed, sans sweet potatoes/Vrugtebedding na die patat-oes

Did the fruit bed deliver sweet potato-wise? Yes - over and over! I think it is the first thing I planted that wasn't just a success because it gave me pleasure to plant and harvest my own fruit and veg, but also a financial success... I actually put in way less than I got out. Wonderful!!!

Sweet potato harvest from the fruit bed/Patat-oes uit die vrugtebedding

How did the two slips planted six months before fare stuck between grass, ferns and conifers? Well:

Just as the sweet potato harvest was about to start/Nét voor die patats geoes is

Sweet potato harvest from conifer bed/Patat-oes uit conifer bedding

And so, from three average sweet potatoes I harvested 6kg six months later. I am amazed! This is clearly a vegetable I will plant over and over in my garden. Not fussy, no pests, minimal watering, big harvest. The only thing I noticed, once again, is that they shouldn't be planted in the shade. Partial shade is fine, although full sun (6h+ a day) leads to the highest yields. My biggest single sweet potato came from the sunniest part of the fruit bed. It weighed in at a respectable 750g... unfortunately I sliced it into pieces with the spade. Such is life.