Store a watermelon.

Big watermelons are a challenge.

Where do you keep them? They take a huge amount of fridge space and are heavy.

We lived in Esk a few years ago. A watermelon growing area. I miss buying huge watermelons for $2 at the farm gate.

A farmer told us this. Put the watermelon in a shady spot in the garden, until your ready to eat it.

We did this at Christmas a couple of weeks before we bought the watermelon popped it on some straw in the garden.

We didn’t eat it till about 10 days after Christmas.

The one in the photo I bought 10 days ago. From the back of a farmers ute. Very fresh.

I’m using it tonight for a family dinner.

Has anyone got a spare dog? I don’t like cats anymore!!!

Lily in Mum's garden

The cat has been back on my carrot and beetroot seedlings, the ground is all dug up and walked on and there are little presents from the cat.  I need a dog.  My carefully laid bougainvillea twigs didn’t appear to work at all.  Such is life.

It does solve one problem for me, I can plant some potatoes there. The potatoes are underground and the ground is covered in straw which hopefully isn’t very attractive to Mr Pussy cat.

Tonight we had a lovely salad of mixed leaves with rosemary and garlic dressing and a Veal Osso Buco.  I have a brilliant butcher if you live near Nerang go to Hinterland meats at Earle Plaza Shopping Centre.  The meat is amazing, this osso buco was veal not yearling so tiny pieces that cooked so well in the sauce.  It was delicious and I coated the spaghetti  with gremalata not  a traditional one tonight it was made with basil instead of parsley.

Osso Buco is perfect food for busy mums.  I cooked this on Saturday. After I browned the lamb forequarter chops I browned the veal then added a bottle of passata and about a cup of red wine.  Brought it to boil, covered and simmered for 3 hours or so until the oil separates from the meat and the meat falls off the bones.  Preparation only takes a few minutes, I cleaned up while the meat was browning.  Then it went into the fridge for a quick meal tonight.  You can double this recipe easily and freeze half for later.  So very good food for busy mothers.

Sprouting Adzuki Beans

Adzuki Sprouts go really well with Choy Sum.  They are very similar to mung bean sprouts. Though they are a slightly larger seed and take a day or two longer to sprout.

No seed planting today. The beds needed a bit more work and a large pot had blown over and broken. The plant was the money tree that had originally been in the tiny pot. The plant was fine not damaged at all and I had a large pot spare.  So a bit of tlc and  you would never know the plant been in a disaster. I have moved it into a place out of the wind.

But the beds are ready now so lets hope tomorrow we get some seeds planted.

Poached eggs and a large fresh salad for lunch, dinner however was delicious my friend Ann Jenson’s lentil soup. Check out the new recipe.

Happy gardening RosieG

Growing, Growing, Growing and Making Mayonaise.

Carrots and Homemade Mayonaise

Everything is growing. When I got back from Sydney the beetroot are coming up, five of the English Spinach are showing. The radish, the Mizuna lettuce, the silverbeet all flourishing. We didn’t buy lettuce this week there is enough in the garden and the lettuce we pick fresh daily has taste and flavour.

Silverbeet is my alltime favourite leafy green,  tonight I sauteed an onion a couple of cloves of garlic, the silverbeet and a handful of blackeyed peas. With a couple of eggs dropped in. Lovely and very healthy.

Making Mayonnaise,

Beat egg yolk with a little mustard. Add oil very very slowly.  My recipe was one egg yolk and 500 mls of oil. The first batch I made separated, the way to recover the mayonnaise is to simply re-do it using another egg yolk.  Beat an egg yolk  and add the separated oil.  Same problem too quick, it separated.  I am determined to work this out.  Another egg yolk, this time I added the separated oil teaspoon by teaspoon. It worked perfectly I added a good squeeze of a nice juicy lemon and a clove of crushed garlic made it into an aioli.

The secret is slowly slowly slowly add the oil. The finished mayonnaise was thick creamy and tasty.

Growing vegies and impacting your world.

I am loving growing and eating my leafy greens.  I am feeling healthy and hopefully my cholesterol is on its way down.  But there is more to growing, cooking and eating your own food.  I was so inspired by the article linked below Will Allen on 3 acres feeds more than a whole community,  Fish and Vegetables.  But he doesn’t just feed them, He is in one of the poorest areas in America and through his tiny farm he teaches others how to grow their own food, how to eat healthy.

Huge profits are made from food, in Australia our supermarkets hold us to ransom they sell so much that has  negligible nutritional value.  They sell fruit and vegies that are polished and perfect,  grown so they can be packed, handled and stored for weeks and months without damage.

Teaching our children to cook healthy food, and to grow vegetables sets them up for life. I love visiting my daughter in Perth, eating her yummy cooking and seeing her fridge and cupboards full of real food.  I love it when my 16 year old gets in the kitchen and makes brownies or an apple pie.

Inspirational article

http://zacharysuhar.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/will-allen-planting-the-seeds-of-the-future/

A Salad from all the new green leaves in the Garden

A salad using every new green leaf

Baby Kale

Baby Choy Sum

A Salad from all the new green leaves in the garden.  Baby Kale, Baby Spinach, Baby Mizuna Lettuce and Baby Choy Sum.  It was the taste of the Baby Choy Sum that inspired me to create another garden bed.  It was so delicious, I had to have more, and the thing I love about Choy Sum is the yellow flowers.  If I didn’t grow more Choy Sum I would never get those gorgeous edible flowers.  Choy Sum to me  looks like it should grow beside the stream in an English Meadow.  So I have to grow more.

We ate it with a middle eastern inspired Goat casserole which had the rest of the chick pea sprouts.  Chickpea sprouts can be used anywhere that you would use cooked or tinned chickpeas. But these are fresh and green very healthy.

To Chargrill Capsicum bake whole in a hot oven till skin is charred, drop in a plastic bag, place in the fridge till cool. Tear the skin off throw away the seeds and break the capsicum into smaller pieces.  Place in olive oil and vinegar with salt, pepper and slivers of garlic.  This can just stay in the fridge and come out every day till its eaten.

Leafy Greens Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

10k race today, a light healthy breakfast of toast, avocado and fenugreek sprouts.  After the run a lunch of poached egg topped with a drizzle of olive oil, salt, pepper and mustard and cress.

Later in the afternoon I thinned the carrots, the small sweet tiny carrots went into dinner.  But the best pick of the day had to be the pumpkin. Large sweet nutty yellow pumpkin.

This week I will make a dairy free vegetarian lasagna with pumpkin and silverbeet, and what about a pumpkin pie, I definitely think so.

Beetroot leaf and Chickpea salad.

The great thing about Beetroot is whilst you are growing beetroot underground, you are getting leaves above ground.  Beetroot leaves taste like beetroot just lighter.  Delicious in a salad with sprouted chick peas, purple onion and apple cider vinegar dressing.

The Chickpeas are protein and carbohydrate very good for the women planning to run 10k tomorrow morning.

Raw Hummus bi Tahini

Fourteen Days of Green and Leafy,  what a challenge, the first thing I realized was that I needed to plant more seedlings and seeds. The second thing was that I needed more. What to do?  Sprouts have been the answer, so quick, so easy to grow, and so fresh.

Hummus is one of my favourite dips, I usually use cooked chick peas but you can also use sprouted chick peas.  Sprouting the chick pea makes it as edible as cooking it, it’s taste is similar but lighter and fresher.

3 cups of Chick Pea Sprouts into the blender. A clove of Garlic and a good pinch of salt. Roughly a 1/3 cup of Lemon Juice and 1/3 cup of Tahini, In raw Hummus I use a couple of tablespoons of virgin olive oil. Traditionally Hummus has a swirl of olive oil on the top, putting it in with everything else adds a sweetness to the dip.

Blend it all till a smooth paste,  taste and adjust flavours.  Serve with chopped carrot sticks, broccoli, any vegetable you like.

Sprinkled a little mustard and cress on the top. Beautiful.

Leafy greens and a Shoulder of Pork cooked for tomorrow.

Picked lots of small leaves. Beetroot leaves, mini silverbeet leaves, a couple of nasturtium leaves, radicchio lettuce, little bit of parsley and my favourite marigold flowers.

We had a lazy Chicken Curry (made with curry powder)  So lots of fenugreek sprouts went into the leafy greens.

Tomorrow is a busy day after work  I am going down to Broadbeach to pick up my running number for Saturday mornings 10k run in the Gold Coast Marathon.  So tonight I am cooking a shoulder of Pork for tomorrow.

Shoulder of Pork is delicious cooked slow.  Right now this meat is incredibly cheap $3.99 a kilo and I will get at least two meals from this 3kg piece.

I always get the butcher to give it more scores.  Pierce the Pork randomly through the top.  Push slivers of Garlic and Rosemary through into the meat. This gives amazing flavour.  Rub the top of the meat with plenty of salt, a  little olive oil and left over bits of Rosemary.

Turn the oven up to full heat.  Put the Pork in and leave it on full heat for fifteen minutes.  Turn the heat down to 170c or 150c in a fan forced oven.  Cook for two hours pour over a cup of apple juice or a cup of white wine.   Cook for a further hour.   If we were cooking and eating this on the same day,  even though shoulder doesn’t normally give crackling cooked this way you will get a beautiful crisp top that if you love crackling you won’t be able to stop eating.

Follow the same procedure for  a leg of Pork to get beautiful crisp crackling. Its the salt and the high beginning heat that bring the crisp crackling and make that lovely Pork fat so edible that you can’t stop eating it.