Work versus 'work'

Having just spent the last few weekends and the period in between Easter and our Anzac Day public holiday (another long weekend) scraping, sanding and painting my way through the last of our bathroom and laundry renovation (thankfully we had professionals do the rest of it!), I can confirm I won't be auditioning for any home renovation shows soon. After about day 4 of trying to strip of 80 years of paintwork off the bathroom window I have decided if I have to do manual labour I will stick to the garden and looking after 'livestock'. Anyway in between it all I somehow managed to get my garden under control and hopefully ready for winter- so hopefully now there's more time for sitting back and other activities like blogging.

Its funny how the time spent out in the garden digging, weeding and collecting chicken poop for the compost bin doesn't seem like work to me and painting does.... but my increasing efforts to grow and expand the productivity of my own garden and to take on additional growing space is paying off!  This April I have met my challenge and included homegrown food on the table for every day in the last month! (apart from a few days when we have eaten out with friends etc). Last year I came pretty close but this year there was a lot more variety and multiple ingredients.

A summary for the top ingredients for the month of April is as follows:

• egg plants
• capsicum
• tomatoes
• beans

This year these mini heritage eggplants that I grew from seed saved from last years fruit (my first successful attempt to germinate eggplant seed) were my best yielding eggplants. I have mostly been including in various versions of Thai style curry and combined with my regular 'Lebanese' eggplants to make 'Chinese chilli' eggplant' with free range pork mince.

Italian heirloom- Listada Di Gandia - from 'Diggers' seedling stock 

Here are the very last of some sad end of season tomatoes- no good for salad but can honestly say there's no way you can tell the difference in the flavour after they have been slow cooked with a pork shoulder for a couple of hours and popped into a tortilla from our local yet authentic 'tortilleria' called La Tortilleria.

Sad tomatoes- the yellow ones have me stumped- they refuse to turn any shade of red- but seem ripe as is. I didn't knowingly plant any yellow varieties?

Its been a big month for Mexican with my first attempt to grow and harvest tomatillo, a massive success! I have yielded a couple pf kilograms from my two plants at the community garden patch. I have seen them  for sale for $19.99kg at gourmet grocer at the Vic Market. My girlfriend and I are therefore seriously contemplating whether we turn the community garden plot into a tomatillo farm. Last year I posted a recipe for tomatillo green salsa which I have subsequently found not only makes a great topping for tacos, but also for poached eggs and as a spread inside ham and cheese toasties- YUM! other friends have been experimenting as a topping for pork chops and in a 'vegan' Mexican dish..... 

A bowl of tomatillos, 'surprise' padron chilli and the finished salsa.

I think May could be a more difficult month than April- as I am waiting for winter crops to come on board. Thankfully I still have the last of the eggplants, heaps of capsicums and chillies and tomatoes in the freezer. The beans (that went in late) are showing no signs of letting up yet and I have one hen still laying for now!

The $3.80 veggie shop

Last Saturday I spent exactly $3.80 on my veggie shop for the week. That consisted of  a hand full of red onions ($1) and three red capsicums ($1) from the "one dollar, one dollar" ladies at Vic Market and a punnet of "tomatoberry" ($1.80) basically the latest novelty cherry tomato that's been bred in the shape of strawberry- mmmm if only it weren't for the dammed rats I would have had a $2 shop!

I must confess it might be cheating slightly to admit I was mostly cooking for one last week and I did have a few left overs but thanks to the abundance of zucchinis and eggplants coming out of the lane way at the moment I was well set up for the week.

Here's a run down of the week.

On Saturday I pulled up the last of the carrots  from my first planting in the planter box. They were steamed with a zucchini and some chat potatoes (ok cheating I bought them the week before) and served with a piece of fish.

On Sunday I cooked up one of my favourite season recipes Ethiopian roast chicken with roast veg based on a recipe by Cath Claringbold's (founder of Mecca Bah). See below.



Zucchini and Lebanese eggplant (note one plant seems to be on steroids)

And later in the week I cooked up a yellow curry. I normally don't use the all in one sachets (but oriental merchant- the curry import people were having a crazy sale at their stall for  Chinese New Year). Despite the made in Thailand pedigree it tasted more like 'Japanese' Curry-  but with the bonus is was minus the palm oil! (the blocks of Japanese curry is full of it! so banned from my place).



More zucchni and eggplants ready for Thai curry with chili and Thai basil

This week I am hoping for a similar effort (I think just over $5). My one item a day challenge has been a cinch. To add to that- Boss laid her first egg post babies which was also a nice surprise because she is still moulting.


Ethiopian Roast Chicken:

The first step for the dish is mixing up a Berber spice rub for the chicken as follows:

• 1tbs coriander seeds*
• 1tbs cumin*
• 1tbs black peppercorns*
• 8 cloves*
• 1tsp ground cardamon
• 1tsp ground ginger
• 1tsp all spice
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• dried chillies to suit
• 2tbs sea salt

*roast whole seeds in a hot pan before mixing with finely chopped chillies and sea salt and pounding with a mortar and pestle (adding in the pre-ground spices at the end)

Take a whole chicken (or for shorter cooking time use chicken pieces- skin on. I used thigh pieces on this occasion). Rub with olive oil and spice mix. Depending on how generous you are with you measuring out of the spices the mix should do about 2 smallish chickens.

The next step is to prepare the other ingredients used in this dish:

• coarsely chopped eggplants, zucchini. and red onion wedges
• cherry tomatoes
• jar of marinated goats cheese (eg. Meredith brand)
• red wine vinegar (40-50ml).

The original recipe suggests baking the chicken and veggies in separate roasting pans. But I took a short cut by using a large roasting pan with a rack. I placed the chicken on the rack and the veggies (eggplant, zucchini, red onion) underneath. Generally the veggies don't take as long so its wise to kick start the chicken and add the veggies in later (10 minutes or so if using chicken pieces - slightly longer for a whole chook- the veggies should take around 30mins).  Prior to placing the veggies in the oven coat generously with oil oil (or use some of the oil marinating the goats cheese) and for a bit of extra flavour you can sprinkle on more of the spice mix.

Bake the chicken and the veggies at around 200deg C. Five-ten minutes prior to the veggies being ready, add the tomatoes.

If cooking the chicken separately collect the pan juice and add to the red wine vinegar. With my cheating version I just splashed the vinegar over both the chicken and veggies prior to serving. After you have turned off the oven mix some pieces of the marinated goats cheese through the veggies and leave to warm in the over for a couple of minutes.  If using the two pan method, splash the vinegar and pan juices over both the chicken and the veg as its being served.



Ethiopian roast chicken with summer veg.

Its all about the beans.

Its been a while since February's last post - and before you know it- its March. Despite the absence of posting, my challenge has been more or less met- with something out of the backyard on a daily basis.The eggs came and went as a welcome contribution- and today I found out why- Spazz has gone back to her moult. The tomatoes are still struggling on- and hopefully the warm weather this week will help them along. I am pleased to say three of the guerrilla capsicums survived the picking raid and grew, so I am looking forward to a stir fry with the first one today! The first of the eggplants have also been picked and eaten along with the last of the jalapeno peppers. But whats really been keeping up the challenge are the beans!  steamed beans- meat and three veg style, steamed beans in salads, stir fried beans and beans in Thai curry.  One of my favourite seasonal recipes is this Chinese style Jill Duplex recipe for wok-fried green beans with chili pork. This recipe works just as well with free range chicken mince and it can also be slightly re-worked into a Chinese chili eggplant dish or a combo of beans and eggplant! The only trick with the egg-plant is to slice it into matchsticks and fry up  in small batches first in oil (I use peanut). This allows the oil to soak into the eggplant -not exactly healthy  but delicious. The egg plant is just set aside and mixed in later. I grow 'lebanese' eggplants as they lend themselves to Asian style cooking.