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All posts for the month April, 2013

Food Miles

Posted by gardenpathfood on April 26, 2013
Posted in: Community Gardens, Eating Seasons, Food, Links to other sites. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

The two websites below link through to two incredibly important concepts of modern living.

The first    http://www.condaminealliance.com.au/news/southern-queensland-country-regional-food-network, is a partnership between our Regional Natural Resource Management Board and the Southern Queensland country Regional Food Network.Southern Queensland Country Regional Food Network - Toowoomba, QLD

Now I know that cities have had produce markets for years but we aren’t so lucky in the country. Until a few years ago, most food grown locally or regionally was marketed in the capital city and did a lot of miles before it came back to us. If it did. Two years ago for example, I knew that 100 km up the road was in the middle of the citrus season and yet we were being sold fruit from South Australia. Go figure.

Now our farmers and marketers are getting smart and produce is being kept for the local market. Congratulations, I couldn’t be more pleased.

And to add to this we now have http://www.chinchillafarmersmarket.com.au/.  This is a local shop who markets whatever local produce they can lay their hands on, plus travelling to the city markets twice a week for us.  The best thing is, they sell produce they grow themselves, that the high school grows and anyone else who has some thing to sell locally.  To top it off, there are often little signs in the shop giving either seasonal or nutrition information on the produce. Another well  done!

Bliss Bombs

Posted by gardenpathfood on April 18, 2013
Posted in: Eating Seasons, Quotes, Spring foods, Spring Jobs, Summer foods, Winter Foods, Winter Jobs, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

There is nothing like a homegrown tomato for intense flavour!

As Mario Batali, Italian chef and multiple restaurant owner says

‘You know, when you get your first asparagus, or your first acorn squash, or your first really good tomato of the season, those are the moments that define the cook’s year. I get more excited by that than anything else.’    Mario Batali

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/

mariobatal215356.html#4lmD58wfCTL0uDTP.99

This year, I have the most beautiful tomatoes. They started producing early,  in late spring with the cherry tomato I had nursed through the winter, then the Romas came on and now I have tomatoes from one of the larger varieties. This year they have all been perfect and lots of them.

I don’t very often try to keep any of my produce any longer than the season. We eat it and then wait until the next year for more, however, having lots of lovely tomatoes and a taste for Italian food, I decided I would keep some for later.

Feeling a bit lazy, I simply boiled down the tomatoes, blended them and then froze the result in muffin trays, storing them individually in small sandwich bags ready for use as a tomato base.  Tomato paste bombThe smell of these little bliss bombs is absolutely amazing and like the tomato chutney I made a year or so ago, will remind me of what tomatoes should taste like during the year.

Since tomatoes can sometimes be a bit tricky if you strike a bad year for fruit fly or disease, and I don’t use non-organic sprays or fertiliser, I sometimes get a little equivocal about growing them, but when I have a good year there is no doubt in my mind why I persist in planting them every year.  I always have cherry tomatoes though,as they insist on planting themselves and do tend to be fairly disease resistant.

I’ll leave you with the quote below which aptly sums up my feeling about store bought tomatoes.

The federal government has sponsored research that has produced a tomato that is perfect in every respect, except that you can’t eat it. We should make every effort to make sure this disease, often referred to as ‘progress’, doesn’t spread.

Andy Rooney

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/andyrooney194051.html#OMHkhq4feTMlKxep.99

Diabetes and a plant based diet

Posted by gardenpathfood on April 10, 2013
Posted in: Food, Health, Links to other sites, Recipes. Leave a comment

Here I am again with Suzi’s blog site but this is interesting for everyone not just those on Insulin!!!!

http://regularsuzihomemaker.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/its-been-awhile/#comments

Popeye all year round

Posted by gardenpathfood on April 10, 2013
Posted in: Autumn foods, Eating Seasons, Health, Links to other sites, Spring foods, Spring Jobs, Summer foods, The plants in my garden, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

I got a bit excited on the weekend when I went to the Hervey Bay markets and found a summer spinach. Spinach is such a useful vegetable but with the very hot summers out here, it didn’t make it past November very successfully. Still, I’d had about 6 months out of it.

Otherwise known as Ceylon Spinach or Malabar Greens, this summer growing spinach like plant (Basella alba) grows best on a small IMG_0019trellis and dies off in winter but is apparently very good at setting seed. Since, I love to find babies in the garden, this plant would suit me well, I thought.

It seemed like the perfect solution, English Spinach, kale and silverbeet in the winter and Malabar Greens in the summer but on a second look and some discussion with the lady who sold the plant to me, we decided it would frost.  It is a tropical plant after all.  I almost put it back and then thought ‘well, it’s going to die back in winter anyway so let’s find the best spot possible in the garden for it, make sure it has a seed bed and watch what happens. ‘ I do have a back up plan though- I planted one at the house in Hervey Bay as well where the winters are much less harsh and the springs and early summer are more humid.  So watch this space…….. and while you are waiting you could also check out these two information sites.

Suzi you will love this one but she does warn you not to use it in your smoothies!!!

http://www.thewellnesswarrior.com.au/2012/02/a-tasty-herb-to-improve-your-digestive-health/

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2660517.htm

A Dish for all Seasons

Posted by gardenpathfood on April 4, 2013
Posted in: Autumn foods, Eating Seasons, Recipes, The plants in my garden, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

You know what?  I grew every vegetable in this vegetable package and they are all in season. There is squash, sweet potato, red onion, butter beans, capsicum, tomato, pumpkin, chives and garlic and I added a tiny bit of chili for extra flavour.

Vegetable Packages

Vegetable Packages

The red around the outside is a little bit of tomato paste, then you wrap it in aluminium foil and pop it in the oven. This is the easiest way to cook vegetables perfectly and there is no washing up.  This is for those times when you just don’t want to think about yet another meal, or you have lots of odd veges and you don’t want to wash up.

This is the best time of the year for tomatoes here, once the hot season is over and before the frosts. I have beautiful, absolutely perfect tomatoes with no blemishes and no fruit fly, but really the summer salad season is over so I need to find other uses than lots of salad. Over the real summer, I had grape or cherry tomatoes which are much tougher and more pest resistant than Romas or Grosse Lisse but now I have wonderful quantities of the larger varieties.  I will be making tomato paste but in the meantime there will be lot’s of tomato gravies and these beautiful vegetable packages with tomato flavour.