Blanched Snow Peas with Mint

This week I got my first small harvests of snow peas from my garden — so far, I’m only getting a handful at a time, but they are no less delicious for all of that. And being able to eat them half an hour after picking them is certainly a bonus!

When snow peas are this fresh, there’s really no reason to get too fancy with them. They’re lovely and sweet as they are. However, I find that blanching them, and adding a bit of mint and salt gives them a little extra zing, without taking away any of that fresh taste. On its own, this recipe won’t make a meal, but it can always be a component in a Veggie Ploughman’s or a Breakfast Fry-Up — or indeed, if you were doing a traditional meat and three veg dish, this could be one of the three.

Sourdough Starter

Back at the Autumn equinox, I said that one of my goals for the next three months was to create a sourdough starter. After all, that way I get home grown yeast, which means I can include bread recipes in this blog! And, of course, delicious sourdough bread.

And now, I have success! I began my starter about a week and a half ago, and yesterday, I successfully made my first loaf of sourdough. My starter incorporates another home grown ingredient in addition to the yeast: I used Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s trick from River Cottage Everyday, of using a bit of rhubarb to get the fermentation process going. The rhubarb isn’t from my personal veggie patch — it’s from a communal plot at the community garden. I also drew on this starter receipe from Hugh, though I didn’t follow either exactly to the letter.

Potato, Leek, and Bacon Soup

I made this soup a couple of months ago now — I meant to post it a lot sooner, but life got in the way (including a holiday to New Zealand, which was fabulous). It’s a good time to share this recipe now, though — cold weather is just setting in in Sydney (well, it’s cold to my wimpy bones, anyway), and this is a wonderfully warming soup. It’s also great comfort food, and a good alternative to the traditional chicken soup — I actually made this one after my beloved had been sick for a week: the soup was his one request of me as he began his transition back from dry bread to normal food. Because I was making it for him in these circumstances, I made the omnivorous version of this soup, but it’s very easy to make a vegetarian or vegan adaptation — just leave out the bacon, replace chicken stock with veggie stock, and obviously, if vegan, don’t add the cream or parmesan. This is, however, a great example of a meal where a tiny bit of meat (and a bit of dairy) does give an amazing lift.

I did consider whether I should post this recipe at all, as once again the only home grown ingredients are herbs — sage and rosemary. But my garden was in a bit of a transition phase when I made it, with most of my summer crops done and my autumn crops not yet ready to harvest, but that was no reason not to keep doing my best — even if that best is just a few herbs. I did have my own leeks late last year, and although small, they were glorious, and my mother in law has potatoes coming along nicely in her garden, but they weren’t ready for harvesting in March.

Rocket and Roasted Sweet Potato Salad

Back in January, when the weather was hot and dry, I planted some sad-looking rocket seedlings, which I was half-sure would die from exposure to the summer sun every day. But with a bit of mulch and shade cloth, they managed to survive, and I now have a very productive rocket patch that I haven’t been using to its full potential. But, no more!

I threw this salad together for the purposes of using the rocket, and I was completely blown over by it — not only was it delicious, it was also incredibly filling. I made it on Sunday night to take to work for my lunch on Monday, and it kept me feeling full and satisfied all afternoon. The rocket also held up well overnight — it wasn’t wilted, and tasted fresh and crispy. Obviously, I ate this salad cold (actually, room temperature, because I took it out of the fridge a few hours before lunch), but it would also be good eaten while the sweet potato was still warm.

Luxurious Kale and Chilli Omelette

This three-egg omelette made with Blytonesque lashings of cream is not for everyday — but it is a great treat if you find yourself in the fortunate position of needing to use up a lot of eggs and some leftover cream in a hurry. Or if you just want something indulgent. The crispy fried kale gives it a lovely extra bit of texture to contrast the soft fluffy egg/cream mixture, while the chilli means it has a bit of a kick. This is good to have as a weekend brunch, or on those days when you’re out of bread, so fried eggs on toast isn’t an option.

I suppose a lot of people would call this a frittata rather than an omelette, but I tend to think of a frittata as something that (a) takes longer to cook and (b) uses chunkier fillings. Still, my method does involve popping it under the grill for a few minutes to finish, which is frittata-like — though mostly I do this because I’m terrible at flipping things. If you are good at flipping, you may want to do this instead of using the grill (you’ll probably waste less electricity that way).

Quick French Bean and Green Mango Curry

I’ve really only recently started making curries for myself, and now I wonder why I put them off for so long — they’re perfect for a quick and easy meal. This particular curry was made out of the need to use up a whole bunch of French (dwarf) beans that I’d harvested from my garden. I had one green mango left over from a chutney-making experiment (which I’ll post about in a couple of months, when I can finally taste the results), but by the time this entry goes up, there probably won’t be any Australian-grown mangoes left in greengrocers. You could, of course, used tinned mango, or substitute a different fruit — tomato (tinned or otherwise) is fine, but you could also get creative with whatever is in season.

My secret ingredient in this recipe is a dessertspoon full of jam, to enhance the fruity sweetness — this time around, I used plum jam, which I’d made myself a couple of weeks earlier (unfortunately, not with any home grown ingredients, so it doesn’t qualify for this blog). In the past, however, I’ve used an amazing fig and ginger jam, which I get from my local Harris Farm — apparently it’s a local thing though, as I have friends in different parts of the state who can’t get this jam at their Harris Farm store.

Basil and Thyme Roasted Tomato Passata

Back in early January, I was making this with my own tomatoes, but now that my own tomatoes are done, I’ve been making this whenever I find buckets of cheap Australian tomatoes on sale at my greengrocer. As far as I’m aware, it’s practically impossible to buy an Australian-made passata (except perhaps from small boutique producers at farmers’ markets, which are great, but I can’t get to those every week). Fortunately, I’ve discovered this year that making my own is fairly easy, and it’s a good way of re-using glass jars. And even if I can’t use my own tomatoes anymore, I can use my own herbs — in this case, thyme and basil.

This recipe is based on the Roasted Tomato Sauce from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg. I’ve looked to see if this recipe is online at all, so I could link back to the original, but the online versions all seem to be a little different, such as this one from The Guardian, which includes mace and vinegar in addition to the tomato, garlic, herbs, oil, and basic condiments. The main difference between my version and the book version is that I use basil instead of marjoram, and a lot more garlic (because in my opinion, you can never have enough garlic). And this time, I added a sprinkle of ground cinnammon, to add a hint of spicy sweetness.

Rosemary Scones

I made these to bring to an outdoor event recently — I wanted something delicious and a bit different to a normal “have it with jam and whipped cream” scone. It didn’t hurt, of course, that by using the rosemary (sourced from one of the communal plots at my community garden), these scones became eligible for a blog post. I’m also rather proud of these because the recipe is something that I developed myself from multiple sources — I Googled a bit, took a look at which scone recipes got the best reviews on allrecipes.com.au, and looked at some scone recipes in a few cookbooks that I have lying around. I took stock of what I had in my own fridge and pantry, and took note of which dry/wet ingredient ratios tended to work best, and these are what I came up with. And I tasted them, and lo, they were good.

Welcome to my Garden — Autumn Equinox

I’ve got a few recipes up now, so it seems the right time to introduce you all to the tiny plot of land that inspired me to start blogging — my allotment at my local community garden, which is about 2.5 by 4 metres. Right at the back, I’ve got the lemongrass that went into my sage and lemongrass tea. In the back right-hand corner, I have my kale, which made an appearance in my first offering of purple risotto Towards the back on the left hand side, you can see my eggplants, which went into the late summer/early autumn breakfast fry-up and eggplant parmigiana. In the front left-hand corner, you can see my chilli plants, which have featured in far too many recipes to link to at this point, though I will put in a special mention for the extra kick they gave to Jack’s CCK burgers. And at the front right, you can see a two rows of French beans, which featured in the breakfast fry-up and will appear again in a curry that I have scheduled to go up in a week or two.

When I look at this picture, I also see a lot of potential that won’t be immediately obvious to the casual viewer. At the back, where you can’t see, I’ve got some swedes that have just germinated, and some broccoli seedlings that I hope will survive the cabbage moths. Under the A-frame trellis, I have some sweet-pea seedlings, planted from seed, and I’m going to be putting more of them in near the shade cloth on the right (I was trying to grow carrots there, but they didn’t germinate — I’m going to give up on them for now). On the middle-left, you can see a large bag of mulch — I’m hoping to put some garlic in there over the weekend, and some leeks alongside them soon after. That row of black boxes in the middle-front marks where I’ve planted even more swedes — the boxes, I hope, will help protect them from slugs once I fill them with broken eggshells.

Of course, this isn’t the whole picture — I also get most of my herbs from either the communal plots at the garden, or pots that sit on my balcony. I am also lucky enough to have a generous mother-in-law with a thriving garden, and at the moment, I’m getting most of my tomatoes from her (and will soon get some potatoes and sweet potatoes, I hope). In the next three months, I’m also hoping to start growing my own mushrooms in a dark spot in my laundry, and I want to start working on a sourdough starter — I figure that the yeast from a sourdough starter can be counted as “home grown”, and that way, I can start blogging about bread-making (an area I’m only just starting to explore).

Jack’s CCK Burgers (with added tomato and chilli)

A few years ago, I attempted making my own veggie burgers with a combination of lentils and rice, augmented by various herbs and spices, and in spite of multiple attempts with different ingredients, I only ever managed to end up with a bland sludge that fell apart in the frying pan.  Lately, however, I’ve been hearing lots of good things about Jack Monroe’s signature dish Carrot, Cumin, and Kidney Bean Burgers, so I decided to give them a go.

I suspected that for myself, however, I’d want something with a bit more of a kick, so I added a couple of home grown ingredients: a couple of small red chillis from my garden, and three smallish tomatoes from mother-in-law’s garden. I also used fresh basil instead of coriander, simply because I had that growing on my balcony (I’ve never had much success with growing my own coriander). On the shop-bought front, I also added some garlic (I can never have enough garlic) and substituted corn flour for wheat flour to make them gluten free (just in case I ever want to share them with my gluten intolerant friends).