Yellow soup

This soup can be made with conventional red tomatoes and zucchini-style courgettes, in which case it will be Tomato and Courgette Soup. The source is Elaine Borish's excellent "What shall I do with all those courgettes?" and for pictures see here.

Ingredients

4 medium crookneck squash, chopped (remove seeds if very ripe and use more squash)
2 medium onions, chopped
2 tablespoons sunflower or olive oil
2 large "Lemon Boy" tomatoes, skinned and chopped
1 litre chicken stock or vegetable stock
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh herbs e.g parsley, basil, chives, chopped

Heat the oil in a large pan. Cook the onions and squash on low heat for 10 minutes, covered,stirring occasionally. Add the boiling stock and cook for a further 20 minutes. Tip in the tomatoes and hit the pan with your whizzy stick until smooth (or allow to cool slightly and run the mixture in a food processor / blender). Add the rest of the ingredients and cook for a further 5 minutes. Serve with a garnish of your choice or allow to cool completely and serve chilled. Serves 6.

A Pain in the Crookneck

For the second year running we have grown Yellow Crooknecks....
they have rapidly become a  favourite.
We had three plants to start with...
one didn't thrive and eventually went to the "great composter in the corner"....
but the other two grew well...
very well...
very well indeedy!!
They are...
HUGE!!

The crooknecks are the two, huge, dark green plants...The gap on the right is where the third was!

They are triffid-like...

And underneath those leaves the triffid hides its mouth....

with droopy yellow tentacles...
and I'm beginning to dream about the things!
Rank upon rank of marching, yellow, gooselike gourds!!


We have used Yellow Crookneck instead of courgette in any dish that will take it...
and in many, many others.
We aren't going yellow through jaundice...
it's them thar crooknecks*!!!

Not more Crooknecks!!!!..... please!

Not that I am complaining....
oh no!
Crooknecks are creamier and more dense in the flesh than a courgette...
slightly sweeter, too...
so we started using them as a courgette substitute because our real ones were very late.

They are great sliced and fried...
they are nice raw with mayo...
they are wonderful in a courgette and tomato soup...
which, as Pauline decided to use Lemon Boy tomatoes...

A Yellow Crookneck squash with a Lemon Boy tomato.

was an all yellow affair... quite a visual/taste experience...
and great cold, too!!

A large pan full of chunky yellow soup!

And this serving for one barely dented the surface...

Pauline also made a yellow Ratatouille for bottling...

Ratatouille using Yellow Crookneck

and a very yellow version of a marrow mustard pickle...
That looks wonderful in the bottle... all glowing!!

Yellow Crookneck Mustard Pickle

Then Ken posted a Stuffed Courgette Boat recipe...
right... another use...
so we did a version using the crooknecks...

Cheese stuffed Yellow Crookneck....

and that will be repeated, too!!

Stuffed Yellow Crookneck served with fresh "Moonlight" Runner Beans and new "Charlotte" spuds.

Fortunately...
very fortunately...
we have this book...

"What will I do with all those Courgettes?" by Elaine Borish

...and all the recipes work with Crooknecks!!

*And possibly all the Lemon Boys...
we seem to have a yellow theme going this year....