in season

All posts tagged in season

Chestnut Season again

Posted by gardenpathfood on June 15, 2014
Posted in: Soil, Spring foods, Summer foods, The plants in my garden, Winter Foods, Winter Jobs, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

1406Jun ChestnutsJune means water chestnuts and this last year I tried something new. I used my old horse trough to hold the buckets with the soil, topping the trough up much less often than I need to with individual buckets.  I’m not sure whether it was that or that I used a course potting mix to blend with the soil I already had from the year before, but I got a higher proportion of nice, large chestnuts. Less peeling for more crunch.

By the way the other produce in the photo is from the garden as well- mandarins, tomatoes, limes, passionfruit and lemons. It happened to be on the bench so I lined it up together.

We have only just finished using the chestnuts from last year, they remained fresh and crisp in sealed containers in the crisper of the fridge for a whole year but this year we will be eating more of them. I have discovered they are also good in salads, adding sweetness and crunch.  Since my husband is one of the few men who prefer salad to vegetables, he will be very happy.

Beanie Babies escape Jack Frost

Posted by gardenpathfood on June 8, 2013
Posted in: Background Information, Eating Seasons, Food, The plants in my garden, Winter Foods. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

It’s been a very warm winter so far and that is the only way I can account for the fact that I still have bulk tomatoes and that there are bean babies coming up in the garden.  You might have noticed that we have been eating butter beans for about 5 months now and in spite of it theoretically being winter, we are still getting a small crop. Beanie BabiesWhen the crop was very heavy, I must have let a few stay on the vine and during a recent dry spell, I found a lot of dried pods with great seeds in them so I have stored them for next summer but….some must have escaped my eagle eye and…we have babies under the frost covers.

For those who didn’t notice that we have been eating butter beans, I am starting some new pages which will record what we are eating/harvesting and what major activities I am undertaking for that month. Look for the page ‘This Month’s Harvest’.

So, the photo below shows the foods which I have been harvesting in this month, although I have forgotten the lemons and limes.  I’ll put them in next months’s photos just so you know.   

June Harvest

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

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.

The Great Pumpkin (*Charlie Brown)

Posted by gardenpathfood on March 3, 2013
Posted in: Autumn foods, Eating Seasons, Recipes, Soil, Spring Jobs, Summer Jobs, The plants in my garden, Winter Foods, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 6 Comments

Linus would be delighted that ‘The Great Pumpkin(s) ‘ are rising from the pumpkin patch but he might not be so happy if he knew that I IMG_0015fully intend to eat every one of them using the multitude of culinary variations available to me. Pumpkin is the most sensual of vegetables.  You can roast it and have that crisp, rich exterior surrounding smooth, creamy, comforting, sweet and deep flavoured flesh. This is wonderful with meat and vegetables and spectacular in a cold or warm salad, especially with grilled or pan-fried haloumi.

Pumpkin is an amazing colour and half the pleasure of pumpkin soup is the satisfying burnt orange fire colour on a  cold evening. Pumpkin can be sweet, it can be savoury, used for dessert or used for a main.

And here, they are so easy to grow.  Basically I live on a sand hill, admittedly red sand, and the pumpkins love it. They come up in places I have never planted them and colonise the back paddock. This morning I traded with a friend for eggs, so I hope her chooks keep on laying because my pumpkins just keep on producing.

I found out the other day that you can eat pumpkins at just about any stage of growth, even when they are quite young and small. If you had a large patch and planted as soon as the frosts are over, you could have a very long season, as pumpkins will also keep for a long time after they are picked, provided they are in good condition when you pick them, preferably on a dry day and you cut it so a small part of the stalk is attached.  I have kept them for months this way.IMG_0014

Yes, pumpkins take up a lot of room, but they have such a long season, great storage and can be used in so many ways that they are well worth sacrificing a bit of space in return for the assurance of great, home grown produce for a many months of the year.

Every year, I make pumpkin soup and one of the best recipes ever is the Moroccan Pumpkin soup recipe I have included on my new recipe page.

Enjoy!

Squish Squash, Eggplant and False Teeth

Posted by gardenpathfood on December 17, 2012
Posted in: Autumn foods, Eating Seasons, Food, Recipes, Summer foods, The plants in my garden, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I would have to say that squash and eggplant were not vegetables I was introduced to when I was young, and it has taken a while for me to learn to cook with them and even longer for my husband to learn to eat them.December harvest

This photo is my harvest for December and you will see both eggplant and a giant squash. These really should be only about 8 cm across, but mine are like small pumpkins.

They are extremely edible though, rather like young choko, and like choko, they only take a few minutes to steam. I suspect they go completely to mush if they are cooked much longer, which is probably why a lot of people hate them.

I have come to the conclusion that the previous generation’s tendency to cook vegetables to mush was probably because so many of them had false teeth and hate chewing.

Eggplant is one of the most versatile vegetables out and the newer varieties don’t need to be salted to get rid of bitterness the way some of the older one’s did.  I still do though, just putting the sliced eggplant in a dish with salt for 1/2 an hour or so and then washing it off before I use it.

The night this photo was taken, I had cooked it by rolling it in egg and rice crumbs, then frying (yes frying) it with crumbed whiting. It soaked up the oil and the fish flavour and was amazing.

I also often use it in rissoles or tacos or spag bog, any mince dish, to reduce the amount of meat and improve the texture.

Vale Kale

Posted by gardenpathfood on December 12, 2012
Posted in: Autumn jobs, Eating Seasons, Food, Health, Links to other sites, Spring foods, The plants in my garden, Winter Foods, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , . 1 Comment

I have had kale in the garden, the first time I’ve grown it but I will definitely be putting more in. I had it planted near the silverbeet and often picked them and steamed them together, putting just a little bit of lemon juice on top before they were served.IMG_0386

Apart from the fact that they both have an incredibly long season and so are a very useful and hassle free vegetable, they look so wonderful in the garden among the other plants.

The kale is the silver plant on the right with young silverbeet to it’s left.

But now the kale is looking a bit worse for wear and it is not just because the bugs are eating it. We have had an incredibly hot couple of weeks and kale gets bitter under hot conditions so for the moment, until I replant in February, it is vale kale.

I will leave you with this message:

Kale is one of the healthiest vegetables  http://www.whfoods.com/

  • Kale can provide you with some special cholesterol-lowering benefits if you will cook it by steaming. The fiber-related components in kale do a better job of binding together with bile acids in your digestive tract when they’ve been steamed. When this binding process takes place, it’s easier for bile acids to be excreted, and the result is a lowering of your cholesterol levels. Raw kale still has cholesterol-lowering ability—just not as much.
  • Kale’s risk-lowering benefits for cancer have recently been extended to at least five different types of cancer. These types include cancer of the bladder, breast, colon, ovary, and prostate. Isothiocyanates (ITCs) made from glucosinolates in kale play a primary role in achieving these risk-lowering benefits.

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!!