December Food Swap...

Saturday morning I went to the last Harvest Basket food swap for the year, there were more people there than there has been for a while, it was lovely to chat with other keen food growers. The range of produce which people brought to swap was gorgeous as usual!

I took...

1 jar of Curried Cauliflower and Carrot Pickle

4 jars of Beetroot and Orange Relish.

2 Bunches of Hydrangeas...

I brought home...

1 piece of Pumpkin

4 Artichokes

Cherries

Chervil seedlings

2 Garlic heads

Parsley

2 Zucchini

It's been a great year for the food swap, I'm looking forward to the January swap already!

Beetroot & Orange Relish

There's not many things I'd rather do than spend a day at home playing in the kitchen and the garden, today I had the luxury of a day off work, the weather was beautiful so I headed outside to do some work on some paths I've been making around the vegetable beds in the front yard. Eventually I hope to have just garden beds and mulch paths, no grass, it should be much easier to keep looking neat. It didn't take long for me to get hot and bothered working outside so I headed to the kitchen!

The fruit bowl seemed to be full of things that needed to be used, the fruit shop near where I work had bananas on sale for $1.99 a kilo last week and there's a few left which are starting to look a bit unappetising, just right for Banana, Blueberry Muffins though! The muffins also used some sour cream which was left over from another recipe so that was good.

Next I made some Beetroot & Orange relish, I've made it a couple of times before and  I always forget how messy it is to make until I've started! I cut the ends off about a kilo of Beetroot and grated them in the food processor, put them in a large pot and added the finely grated zest of 4 Oranges.

 The rest of the peel was taken off the Oranges, the flesh diced and added to the pot with a teaspoon each of Cinnamon, Allspice and Ground Coriander. 

Next into the pot were 3 crushed cloves of Garlic, 600gm Sugar, a teaspoon of salt and 2 cups of Malt Vinegar. I gave it all a good stir and simmered it for about 2 hours.

All that was left to do was to pour it into sterilised jars and label it.

Can't wait to eat it!

Meat-free, Wheat-free Monday, A Stack of Flavor!

My lovely daughter Rose made this dish for us all, we loved it, full of fresh flavors, filling and it just looked amazing on the plate.

She peeled and grated about a kilo of Potatoes, added a cup of Gluten Free Flour, a couple of beaten Eggs, Spring Onions and Salt & Pepper. This mixture was fried in a non-stick pan to make Rosti style pancakes.

In the meantime, thinly sliced Eggplant was grilled, Tomatoes were sliced and oven-roasted and Red Onions were sliced and gently fried.

All of this was tossed together with baby spinach, seasoned and piled on top of the pancakes.

We ate and enjoyed every bit and I appreciated a night off!

Thanks Rosie! xxx

A Frosty, Fruity Breakfast...

I'm not usually much of a breakfast person even though I know how important it is, the one thing I can bring myself to tackle in the morning is a Fruit Smoothie.

 Now that bananas have come down in price, the berries are abundant both in the garden and the shops, it seems like a good time to start a healthy Smoothie habit!

I like my Smoothies made with frozen banana, raspberries, boysenberries, blueberries, strawberries and soy milk.

Meat-free Wheat-free Monday, A Berry Nice Pavlova!

This post is part of the Australian Pavlova Blog Hop, hosted by Jennifer of Delicieux

After much impatient watching and waiting we finally have berries from the garden ready to eat, not buckets of them. but certainly enough to decorate a birthday pavlova for my husband!

It was indeed a proud moment presenting this beauty, made with eggs from our charming chooks and berries from the backyard!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVE! XXX

November Food Swap

The weather is finally warming up and I'm planting, planting, planting! There isn't actually all that much to eat from the garden at the moment which left me with a bit of a dilemma when it came to working out what to take to food swap this month, I had used a heap of eggs  making a lovely egg and bacon pie for Friday night dinner, I then put the few that I had left into a Vegetable Slice to take as a contribution to the Harvest Basket anniversary lunch which was on after the food swap, so eggs weren't an option.

 I ended up making some Rosemary and Capsicum Bread Sticks, I took some of a batch of Jam Drop bikkies and a couple of jars of Curried Cauliflower & Carrot Pickle, some Curly Kale and some Vietnamese Mint

I came home with, a jar of Apricot Chutney, 6 Lemons, 3 Pumpkin seedlings, an Angelica plant, 2 Lettuces, 3 baby Artichokes, some Cherry Tomato seedlings and 3 baby Beetroots.

Broadening My Horizons

I had myself convinced until recently that I didn't like Broad Beans, I think I had probably never tried them picked young and cooked the same day, I grew them anyway because other people like them and we've had a couple of meals with them as a vegetable with meat dishes. I wanted to try something different with them and liked the idea of Broad Bean Dip, this simple recipe was not only deliciously nutty but was an absolutely gorgeous bright green.

I picked a small colander full of beans, podded them and blanched them in boiling water for 3 minutes.

After slipping the beans out of their skins I processed them with a good squeeze of lemon juice, a clove of garlic (crushed) and some salt and white pepper, I added some olive oil until it was a good dipping consistency.

Although I do think they are a bit labor intensive with all that blanching and peeling, I have decided that I rather like Broad Beans!