First Post

Hello - this is the first post from a front garden vegie patch.


We live in a small house in suburban Melbourne, with a courtyard-ish backyard, reserved for handstand and soccer practise and a flat, grassy front garden converted into a few vegie patches.
Given curiosity from passers-by and knowing that this garden is a source of fun, fresh food and positive feelings for our family, I thought that I would share what we do and what we get out of it.


Mid summer finds:

- Messy pumpkin vines spiralling out of control, baby pumpkins on the way.
- A battle with bugs and birds to harvest a variety of tomatoes, resulting in a kitchen window stacked with ripening fruit.
- A few enormous zucchinis and attempts to ward of mildew from recent heavy rains attacking our plants.


This week we celebrated our second wedding anniversary - and I had planned a special dinner including:
Salmon Celebration
Small leeks are quartered and then lightly fried in butter and oil, the leeks covering the base of the pan. Champagne is added, and using this to steam salmon pieces lightly on the top of the leeks, then removing the salmon when cooked and adding cream, reducing this to make rich, wonderful sauce.
Chocolate Mousse
2 egg yolks are added melted 60g chocolate, then left over whipped egg whites folded in and left to set in the fridge for a decadent dessert..


But with a young daughter and little sleep, I could not be bothered facing the shops, so I looked in the garden, pantry and fridge and worked something out, creating a tasting plate type dinner including:

- Zucchini flowers stuffed with mint and ricotta, grilled in a low heat
- Bruchetta of onion, basil and a variety of tomatoes, with a sprinkling of fetta over the top - the different colours made a nice effect.
- Left over almond and zucchini tart from earlier in the week
   Almond crust:

~ 150 g roast almonds
~ 150 g flour
- 1 egg
~ 100 g butter, diced or equivalent oil

   Filling:
- 3 small zucchinis
- 2 eggs
~ 1/2 cup ricotta

   For dough:

Chop nuts, not too fine

Mix in butter/oil, eggs and flour.

Knead and roll into a ball, cover with glad wrap and leave it in the fridge for 1 hr

After the hour, press it into a pie mould and bake at 180 degrees for ~10mins

   For filling:

Mix ricotta and eggs and smooth this over baked crust

Place chopped vegie sticks over the top

Cook for ~15mins or until filling sets.

Can spray with olive oil and put in griller to brown the top.

For dessert, we had ice cream, left over from our daughter's christening the week prior - halva and rose flavours... yummy

 - 400 ml sweetened condensed milk 
 - 600ml cream 
Whip together until firm and flavour (big slurp of rose syrup to taste for rose or ~100g halva)
I double to mix because we eat a lot of icecream... though this is a heavy, rich ice cream, and small serves are more than sufficient.
Any flavour works with this as a base - imagination is the only limit.


I think the dinner was well appreciated and I didn't have to set foot in the shops, nor plan ahead, which suits me down to the ground.


Garden tasks for this week:
- Trying to keep mildew on the zucchini plants in check.
- Sowing new spinach, with old plants lost under the out of control pumpkins...  I miss the leafy greens.
- Continuing tomato harvest daily to beat the birds/bugs to any good ones...