Food

Dog drool and water chestnuts

Posted by gardenpathfood on December 2, 2012
Posted in: Eating Seasons, Food, Spring foods, The plants in my garden, Winter Foods, Winter Jobs, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

I love the look of water chestnuts in the garden.

There is a period of a couple of weeks in May when the spikes start to die off that they look a little bit untidy, but the exciting thing then is that they are almost ready to harvest, so it doesn’t matter.

Water Chestnuts in December

Water Chestnuts in December

I completely forgot to blog when I harvested the bulbs in June but the year goes something like this:

In June/July you plonk some soil/sand/compost in a couple of tubs and then put in some bulbs which you can buy commercially, but this year I replanted from the bulbs I had harvested. Unlike garlic, you can replant the small bulbs and expect to get reasonable chestnuts.

For these two tubs I only need about 6 bulbs total, but somehow this year I must have left a few in the soil because I definitely have more than 6 plants.

Then, put about a 2 cm covering of soil on top and fill the tubs with water to cover the surface by a couple of centimeters. I keep the tubs topped up, which is not hard in winter, until the shoots start to come through as soon as it starts to warm up in September or October. (This is more difficult than it sounds as both the cat and dog prefer the water in the water chestnuts to their own nice clean bucket.)

After that, I keep them moist and let the rain top them up, and although I never really let them dry out ,  they don’t mind a little bit of exposure.  I am very careful in extremely hot weather not to let them dry out completely.

They look wonderful for 8 months of the year, as you see and I will hope to harvest several kilos of lovely, crisp,  fresh bulbs in early June. I keep these in a container in the crisper and use them as I need them.

The taste and texture of fresh water chestnut is as different from the tinned variety, as fresh asparagus is from tinned. They are a completely different food experience.

Onion Breath

Posted by gardenpathfood on November 17, 2012
Posted in: Autumn foods, Autumn jobs, Eating Seasons, Food, Health, Links to other sites, Spring foods, Summer foods, The plants in my garden, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

November bounty

Onions are very good for you and have been used by many cultures for their health benefits and apparently they are the world’s biggest horticultural crop, after tomatoes.

According to this website:

http://www.vegetarian-nutrition.info/updates/onions.php

health benefits include relief from asthma, coughs, colds, cardiovascular problems and stomach cancer.

So, I will happily be putting my little red onions on my sandwiches, in my salads and anywhere else I can use them.  There are lots in the garden and since I planted them a bit close, I am picking out the bigger ones now to allow the others to grow.

This collection of garden produce above (and the red throat emperor caught by my husband) became Emperor with red onion and tarragon in white wine sauce.

I have only just discovered Tarragon. I didn’t realise what it was that I love so much in the occasional dish we had eaten out, but now I do know, I will be using a lot more of it.

There have been a mile of strawberries this season and this year they have a particularly sweet, toffee smell. We  have them for breakfast every morning, but we have had so many that this lot teamed up with maple syrup and home- made ice-cream for dessert.  I love strawberry season!!

Phoenix rising

Posted by gardenpathfood on October 17, 2012
Posted in: Autumn foods, Autumn jobs, Eating Seasons, Food, Spring foods, The plants in my garden, Winter Foods, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Like a phoenix rising…well not from the ashes but I do decapitate them.

Commercially leeks are usually plucked out roots and all but I cut them off with a sharp knife just slightly below ground level, and they regrow. Normally I let those go to seed to produce babies somewhere in the garden.

Although my leeks, particularly the regrown ones are not as long as commercial leeks (look at the climate I live in), each one I cut usually provides the two of us us with all we need for an additional steamed vegetable.  Instead of letting this one go to seed, I will see if we can cOctober Gardenut it and go for a third use.

I love the look of leeks and onions in the garden.  They provide structure, colour and texture.

Even pure vegetable gardens can be amazingly  decorative and look so different at the change of season but I also love the look of edible plants in the decorative garden.  See my next post.

Parsley, Parsley everywhere

Posted by gardenpathfood on October 9, 2012
Posted in: Autumn foods, Eating Seasons, Food, Health, Links to other sites, Recipes, Spring foods, Spring Jobs, Summer foods, Summer Jobs, The plants in my garden, Winter Foods, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

I’m told that you never let parsley go to seed, so every now and again it needs to be cut back, especially in spring.

Tabbouleh using quinoa

So, fighting off the mating brown snakes in the garden, I did that and then decided to make tabbouleh with the cuttings.

I’m not a great fan of tabbouleh usually, especially the commercial variety but I found this recipe  at http://allrecipes.com.au/recipe/4827/quinoa-tabbouleh.aspx

and it is really good.  It uses quinoa instead of burghul and quite a lot of lemon juice.

Parsley has a lot of health benefits including being full of anti-oxidents but you can find them out for yourself by visiting http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/parsley.html

Wholefoods in October

Posted by gardenpathfood on October 7, 2012
Posted in: Eating Seasons, Food, Recipes, Spring foods, The plants in my garden. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Today’s Haul

This was the basis for our dinner tonight.  All of these things are most definitely in season at home at the moment.  As my husbands says ‘Something that cooks up as dark and fresh looking as the silverbeet, has to be good for you.’

I usually add a tiny bit of fresh lemon juice to the kale and silverbeet after cooking since I like the tang that it adds.

This lovely fresh asparagus requires nothing of course and can be eaten raw in salads or very lightly steamed with the other greens.

We usually eat the leeks lightly steamed but I know a lot of people only eat them in casseroles.  We love them just as they are as a vegetable in their own right.

What do you do with leeks?

It’s all in the eyes

Posted by gardenpathfood on August 3, 2012
Posted in: Food, The plants in my garden, Winter Jobs, Work Season. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

There was a douzy of a frost this morning and for the third morning in a row, no hot water, since our solar hot water system had frozen up again.  The gentleman of the house went off to work smelly and not particularly happy.

Potatoes and chokos getting ready for spring

This is the reason I don’t plant out potatoes early in the year in this place. Further north I could get two crops in by planting in March and September but here, I buy the seed potato when I can get it and leave it in a basket in the shed, along with the sprouting chokos until the frosts are almost gone.

I should be able to plant soon though, as a good layer of hay and soil over the sprouting potatoes will protect them until the frost is gone.

In fact, each year I do have a little crop which sprouts from volunteers left in the ground from the year before so I spend the winter anxiously covering them with mulch every time it looks like the frosty mornings are back but it is worth the effort, as I love those little baby potatoes that you get with your own crop and which are never the same when you buy them.  They are like tasty little soft nuts and are wonderful in a stew or casserole, or served with butter and herbs.

Take a leek

Posted by gardenpathfood on July 30, 2012
Posted in: Autumn jobs, Eating Seasons, Food, Health, Spring foods, The plants in my garden, Winter Foods. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

I think the leek is a seriously underestimated vegetable.! Seriously! Underestimated!

A retooned leek

Everyone I speak to about leeks says ‘They’re supposed to be good in a stew or something aren’t they?’  Yes they are good in a casserole, or a warm vegetable salad, but they are even better as a simple steamed vegetable with a little bit of pepper for extra taste.

Leeks make wonderful soups, whether they are part of a potato and leek soup for example or as a clear soup on their own.

They have the distinction of being a great diuretic, so if you do have a bit of bloating, a bowl or two of leek soup or leeks for dinner at night regularly will probably help. This is definitely a tastier way to go than taking pills, unless you really have to, of course.

In the garden, the leek is easy to grow and always looks good, nice and tidy.  I usually plant them in mid-year as seedlings, and they take 6 months or so to really produce. The good thing about them is that they can stay in the ground for ages, and you can pick them off one at a time.  The other good thing, is that sometimes you can get a retoon.  I don’t pull them up, I cut them off at the base and as you see in the photo, they will reshoot.  The ready-to-eat leek in the photo, is one that reshot from last year.

A previously cut leek

If you don’t get around to picking them, then they will usually seed in the second year, and the result can be seen in the third photo- from the crop that I planted two years ago.

Not everyone loves the randomness of leaving things to grow where they seed themselves, so you may want to transplant these little opportunity babies.

Self seeded leeks

Wonderful Oriental Cabbage

Posted by gardenpathfood on July 24, 2012
Posted in: Autumn jobs, Eating Seasons, Food, Health, Spring foods, The plants in my garden, Winter Foods, Winter Jobs, Work Season. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

I’m not entirely sure, but I think the ones I have at the moment are called a Napa Cabbage.

Often, I just buy the seedlings so I am a bit dependent on what is available at the time, but I find a mixed punnet of oriental cabbage can be really good.

My main reason for loving these is that like mignonette lettuce, you can just leave them in the ground and pick the leaves from the centre and just about watch them regrow and they are so versatile.

I use them is stir fry, in soups in casserole and even, like spinach, on top of a pizza.

If you grow just one thing in the garden, these would be it and my reason for this is to do with sprays and chemicals.

Our farm was next door to a commercial cabbage grower and after watching him spray every second or third day, I decided I would never eat commercial cabbage again. Those cabbages were ‘spray sandwich’.  Every time there was a new leaf there was a layer of pesticide.  No thanks.

Oregano Invasion

Posted by gardenpathfood on July 16, 2012
Posted in: Autumn foods, Autumn jobs, Eating Seasons, Food, Soil, Spring foods, Summer foods, The plants in my garden, Winter Foods, Work Season. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

All that is left of the poor old oregano

Three years ago, I planted oregano in the raised garden bed.

Be warned, oregano is aggressive so I would suggest that you don’t plant it in an open garden bed. It had taken over most of the second tier of the garden and was busily trying to invade the top.

My raised garden has been looking a little ragged between the oregano and the strawberries which had both run rampant, with a bit of couch thrown in for extra weeding.  I don’t mind the strawberries being wild, but there is only so much oregano you can eat.

Usually, I can manage to keep the couch in the strawberries under control, but the oregano and couch share a very similar root system and became inextricably entwined.  At last, I decided I needed to get tough and I have dug it all out.  Underneath it, the soil was beautiful with worms and grubs and beautiful texture, so I suspect it has acted as a great soil improver, while providing me with more oregano than I could ever use.

I gave some of the runners to an Italian friend who uses oregano on his magnificent pizzas, replanted some and disposed of the rest where they won’t invade anyone’s garden or lawn.

Real thyme

Posted by gardenpathfood on July 2, 2012
Posted in: Autumn foods, Eating Seasons, Food, Health, Links to other sites, Quotes, Spring foods, Summer foods, Winter Foods. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

From ‘In Defence of Food’ by Michael Pollan,   Penguin Books,  p64/65,  2008

‘Indeed, to look at the chemical compostion of any common food is to realise just how much complexity lurks within it. Here’s a list of just the antioxidents that have been identified in a leaf of garden variety thyme: alanine, anethole essential oil, apigenin, ascorbic acid, beta-carotene, caffeic acid, camphene  ‘  (You get the picture, there are  29 more).

He goes on to say  ‘This is what you ingest when you eat food flavoured with thyme. Some of these chemicals are broken down by your digestion, but others go on to do various as-yet-undetermined things to your body: turning some gene’s expression on or off, perhaps or intercepting a free radical before it disturbs a strand of DNA deep in some cell.  It would be great to know how this all works, but in the meantime we can enjoy thyme in the knowledge that it probably doesn’t do any harm (since people have been eating it forever) and that it might actually do some good ( since people have been eating it forever) and even if it does nothing at all, we like the way it tastes.