The joy of eating from the garden

I recently harvested the rest of my beetroot. I baked and peeled them and we ate a variety of beetroot dishes for the next week. Zatar chicken with beetroot, zucchini and almonds (picture below), borscht (a wonderful beetroot and cabbage soup served icy cold) and beetroot dip. We still have an abundance of zucchini (as I am sure a lot of others in Sydney have at the moment too) and are loving char grilled zucchini, stuffed zucchini flowers, raw zucchini in salads, zucchini fritters (thanks Jamie – great recipe) and the list goes on. The beautiful little 5 month old baby next door is having organic pureed zucchini for dinner tonight (probably spilling more than he is eating). I actually love the abundance of a few types of vegetables. It is one of the joys and wonders of eating what is in season. I love looking forward to persimmons in April and May, figs in summer, and asparagus in spring and greens all year round.

So much to report!

I have so many things to write about - new raised garden beds, transplanting bamboo, thai basil, banana capsicum, my glut of silverbeet and zucchini, tomatoes, ginger, jerusalem artichokes...but I am just stealing a few minutes on a different computer...as my internet connection is not working.  So I will be back very soon with lots of photos.

Stuffed zucchini flowers

I think that I have hit on the best combination of ingredients for these delicious stuffed zucchini flowers.  I completely forgot to take photos...and promise to next time I make them.  This amount can fill 6 zucchini flowers.  This is the only thing that I will fry in oil - just because it is so delicious (and it is a very light batter - almost like a combo between traditional beer batter and tempura).

1. Pick your zuccini flowers (with small zucchinis attached).  Remove the stamen and brush off any dirt (don't wash them though).

2. Make the filling.
Filling: 100g fresh ricotta, 4 slices proscuitto, 1 anchovy finely chopped, thick slice of good sourdough made into breadcrumbs in the food processor, good handful of basil finely chopped, 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp sugar, salt and pepper.  Mix it all together.

3. Heat 1cm of oil in a frypan and heat it up until it is hot.

4. While the oil is heating, make up the batter.
Batter: 100ml light coloured beer, 1/2 cup plain flour, pinch salt, 1 egg white.  Mix the flour and salt, add the beer, stir until smooth then whisk/beat the egg white until it forms soft peaks and fold it into the flour/beer mix gently. 

Dip each zucchini and flower in the batter, let it drip (flower upwards or the filling with fall out...yes that did happen to me), and put it in the oil.  I fryed mine for about 2-3 mins on each side, turning them over half way through with a slotted spoon in one hand, fork in the other.

5. Drain them well on paper towel. Serve with wedge of lemon and a glass of Sauv. Blac is a good addition too.

This was my midday treat for doing a morning of PhD work.  Must get back to it now (requiring a lot of discipline as it is perfect planting weather in Sydney - 22 degrees and sprinkling rain!)

Bon apetit!

Sunday plantings - dragonfruit & herbs for passers-by.

Dragonfruit: Well, here it is.  Considering how excited I have been about the dragonfruit, the photos make it look terribly...well, boring.  That said, once it grows up the post I will give it and starts to flower I am sure it will look much more decorative.  The position I have it in is not really sunny enough - only 4 hrs of sun, so I might move it to a sunnier location.  It likes lots of heat and doesn't mind drying out after it is established. 

I also bought a thyme, oregano and sage to plant along the front fence-line.  The idea is that I will build up a range of herbs that neighbours can use.  I tell our neighbours to take whatever they like from our front yard - some do, but some are too shy to come through the front gate and wander around in the garden.  The lemon tree is right against the front fence, so that will be free to pick for passers-by too.  It is a very sunny spot, so I will be able to grow a range of herbs. 

Sweet peas and Ranunculus

These flowers were given to me by a lovely friend. They were beautiful mauve and white sweet peas and golden coloured ranunculus. When he gave them to me, I grabbed an Italian style sterilizing jar sitting on the sink that I use for preserving and put the flowers in. I immediately said “Oh, that wont do – they are just stuck in there”. My friend replied, “No! It’s perfect!”. Then I realized that it was perfect - the beautiful old worldly bunch of pretty flowers in a country style sterilizing jar.

I think that I enjoyed those flowers so much more because they evoked a whole lot of warm memories of my grandparents along with their gardens, the smell of oil heaters and a leg of lamb baking, lemon meringue pie, roses, eating peas straight from the pods and the list goes on. .

Beautiful Zucchini

I harvested my first ever yellow zucchini last night. They were beautiful and just perfect. Last year I grew an heirloom variety of zucchini called Tromboncino (I think) and it was very different to the ones that I have grown this year. Last year’s grew like a pumpkin, sprawling over an area of about 5 metres and then producing very long and skinny pale green zucchinis.

This years zucchinis were more of a 'normal' plant.

Anyway, it was with great joy that I picked the first couple. It never ceases to amaze me how satisfying it is to grow your own food. I know it isn’t really me, but rather the complexity of how plants, soil, climate and humans interact (and I think that wonder for our amazing world is a part of my fascination)….but nonetheless I feel awfully clever when I bring in some sort of produce from the garden.

Also, I bought a dragonfruit yesterday!! And a lovely black planter box to plant it in the hottest part of the garden. But that is for next time.

Plantings inspired by my stay in Vietnam

I wrote in a previous blog about how much I loved my visit to the food markets in Nha Trang.  The variety and colour of the produce was simply incredible.  I also loved the fruit stalls on each street that I walked down. 

On my way from our hotel to the house where our Nha Trang relatives live there was an old lady, who always wore a conical hat who tended a tiny hawker stall loaded up with mangoes, dragonfruit, logans, durian, rambutan, bunches of small firm bananas, paw paw, babaco, pineapples - all laid out on banana leaves and woven bamboo mats. 

She took great care to rearrange the fruit each time someone bought something and it always looked like a work of art, slightly different each time I passed.  She was a very quiet lady and although I would have loved a photo of her, it just didn't feel right...so you'll have to imagine!

I became quite addicted to dragonfruit - the variety with white flesh and tiny black seeds.  Since I have been back I cannot stop reading about growing dragonfruit!  Each morning I had dragonfruit and paw paw with a squeeze of lime juice (before my rice noodles).  Dragonfruit are quite a special offering to the ancestors, so quite a few shrines have dragonfruit surrounding them.

Anyway, my reading about Dragonfruit has made me quite hopeful that I can grow it here in Sydney.  I have a hot, humid backyard with fences painted very dark brown/grey.  The variety with red flesh seems to be more consistent in Sydney according to the very helpful staff at Daley's Fruit Nursery.  It is also quite compact - being a climbing cactus, which is great for my tiny space too.  Here are a few photos of Dragonfruit, and as soon as I receive mine in the mail I will keep you up to date with it's growth.

Gardens and plants in Vietnam

The gardens and plants in Vietnam were so beautiful.  Here is a little sample.

Vietnam

Well here I am in Vietnam visiting family in Nha Trang.  We all went to the food markets yesterday and it was just amazing. I will post photos when I return of the food and plants.  It is the basically the way Vietnamese people go to the supermarket (although they tend to buy fresh every day or two).  Having Phuong (my sister in law) around means that we get to see a side of Vietnam that we would otherwise have no access to.  It was a huge undercover market with thousands of women (all with wonderful faces) selling every imaginable fruit, vegetable, meat and seafood in beautiful hand woven baskets.  Baskets of chillies, coconuts, dragon fruit, watercress, logan fruit, mangoes, potatoes, durian, bananas, mung beans, bamboo shoots, and the list goes on.  The meat was incredible - every part of the animal you can imagine.  Tongues that looked like they were from a dinosaur, intestines metres long, trotters, heads of every possible animal (civet cat, pigs, hedgehogs).  The colour, noise and atmosphere is something I almost want to bottle to keep with me forever.