Thai soup stock made with some of the herbs from my garden, to be frozen for later use.

An annual rite of passage for these plants is to be brought in to protect them from the winter cold. They will adorn my bathtub until spring of the following year. A good amount of the kaffir lime leaves have already found its way into my freezer and a few will go into my stock. The Jasmine and Curry plants are as you can see, in hibernation mode.
I tap the pots several times to get rid of the bottom feeders that cling to the pots. I move them onto stands and spray the underside of the pots with a homemade insecticidal soap, so any remaining creepies, crawl out. I keep it on elevated stands, away from the ground and check for insects for a week or so. Then one more final spray and I bring it in. I downsize the plants to just a few leaves for photosynthesis.
The Thai basil is an annual in this zone, so it is time to strip it of all remaining leaves before frost renders them unusable. I am going to chop up the leaves and mix it with oil and feeze it. Haven’t done it before, so I am curious as to how it is going to turn out. A few of the Thai basil leaves will go into my soup stock. The seeds, I’ll preserve for next seasons planting.

I pulled the lemongrass out. The tender inner core I will chop and store. The tough outer leaves not suitable for cookin, will flavor my stock.

A couple of the Tabasco peppers will go into the stock as well and the rest will be dried.

                     

I put the above highlighted pickings from my garden along with some garlic and cilantro stems in a pot, added 5 cups of water  and made a stock out of it. Cooled and strained, it is ready  for the freezer. Next time a Thai soup will be a cinch, but most importantly I feel like I have put to good use, the last remnants from my garden.

                                                                                                                                                                     I I did not want to throw away the strained flavoring, I crushed it, added a cup of water and heated it to make a secondary ‘frugal’ stock’. Added galangal, a few vegetables at hand and tofu for a simple flavorful soup.

                                                                                                                                                                  

Thanks for dropping by,

Best, S.   

Sending this to ‘A way to garden’ for the fall festival.