SUMMER HARVEST

VEGETABLES

A celebration of summer harvest, and it is mainly about vegetables.  Cooking and planting vegetable are fun, and more so to harvest them.  This year I have tomato, spinach, chilli, lettuces, rockets and eggplants growing in my vegetable patch. However, only the spinach is ready to harvest.  It has been good having the spinach-warrigal green, freshly pick almost daily and using them for salads.

Here I am sharing with you about cooking the whole pumpkin one of vegetable harvest which I got from the market.

PUMPKIN

One of the most versatile vegetables is pumpkin, you could do so much with it, cooked from savouries to sweets.  Along ago, I found self-seed pumpkin plant in our backyard, and of course, I kept and looked after it.  It was a good reward, the harvest was so great and enable me to do lots of cooking.  In fact, you could see it in the older post,  type: pumpkin to search.

Baked Pumpkin 

Pumpkin garnished with Austalia Lamb is an excellent dish for any occasion.
It is a treat for us, the dish is good for a Sunday Best; however, it has to prepare with care, and it takes a lot of time too. The flavour is based on the Middleastern cooking.
What you need a whole pumpkin, baked until cooked and soft.
The meat to serve with: Grilled or pan-fried rack of lamb
Spices: cumin, chilli, garlic and onion
Salad or cooked green
Rice Pillaft or Sourdough Bread
Oil to dress.
Rustic and beautiful looking pumpkin served with lamb was a treat for Sunday Dinner.  It was eaten in silence, for a while. Were they hungry? No, not really.  They were trying to work out the flavour.  They were not wrong at all as they were promised of the Middleastern flavours, but they did not find any.  Truly and truly correct.
For the last minutes, I changed my mind, I cooked the lamb with mild spices-pepper and lemon juice.  The lamb was tender and soft with subtle flavour.
The small served of the dish was good enough for them.  Less is more!  Rack of lamb on a bed of roasted pumpkin went a long way, beautifully served for four.

Rack of Lamb on a bed of Pumpkin

Pumpkin soup, cooked from a roasted pumpkin is nutty and delicious, I love to do it that way.  Other dishes you could do from the roasted pumpkin are savoury/sweet scones, pumpkin cake, for filling of raviolo or ravioli, adding to a rich brioche dough to make a lovely colour and a moister texture.  Also, add into pasta dishes, add into spiced coconut sauce to serve rice.  It is almost endless using pumpkin in cooking. 

Tomato
The baby plants were found on the ground everywhere in the backyard, self-seeds, and transplanted in the vegetable patch, you would not believe they have been growing so tall and start fruiting, now I could tell that they are cherries tomatoes.  Started with three seedlings, but a lot more plants growing everywhere and I let them be.  We have six or seven tomato plants now.

The tomato plants have grown larger and start fruiting.

Rayner helped to fix the climber, made sure they stand straight and sturdy enough, often he visited my vegetable patch, checking out what is going on, and loves to be involved in gardening.

A Potted Romano tomato is fruiting and growing very well, it loves the space and the place.

A month after planting

The romano tomato is fruiting already now

The tomato fruits are green, but in two months time, they are ready for harvest.  Love to share pictures with you, and maybe recipes about using tomatoes.

Today, I spotted the cherry tomatoes are starting to ripe, they were yellowish or reddish colour.  And the strand tomato romano is getting bigger, still green though, but they are looking good.

Cherry Tomato

Strand Tomato Romano

Spinach
Warrigal Green.
How to harvest and to prepare warrigal green, as it is similar to spinach in term of the taste, the look and the delicateness, we must treat them the same.

I would harvest them early in the morning, wash and keep in the kitchen for further preparation.

 To clean and use the young tips and the leaves

 Discard the Stems

 The warrigal green, cooking it, put all the tips, the leaves, in a cooking pot, add in 2 tablespoons oil and some water, place the lid of the pot.  Cook over a stove top until tender.

To serve:
Season with salt, lemon juice and oil, served with fish, meat or enjoy as it is.

I cooked a pie using the green added with egg and cheese and using my water pastry.  It's so delicious.

Spinach Pie in Crispy Water Pastry

Recipe for water pastry: type: pastry to search

Healthy Spinach Pie with Crispy Pastry

It freezes well, and it stays fresh to be refrigerated for a few days.

Note: you could use English spinach or leafy green silverbeet which is easy to grow for this dish.  I tried to plant English spinach, but I had no luck, it did not grow well at all.



Zucchini
Everyone loves this vegetable, and zucchini is very easy to grow
It is beautiful to add to cakes mixture.  Chocolate zucchini cake is one of the best.  Fried sliced zucchini with cheese, egg, batter mixture is light and delicious.  Have a composed salad and add them in.  An idea that help you to cook new thing in the kitchen, you may like it.

Freshly Picked Zucchini from a Friend Garden

I was lucky enough to get the fresh harvest of friend's garden-thank you, Irene.  It's just what I needed, to cook vegetable sliced using sourdough bread for the base.  I have enough sourdough bread and wishing to consume it in a different way.  A new recipe was born and the family enjoyed the dish.  What I did was using all ingredients that I got from my pantry and the cool room.  Slices sourdough bread, place on the baking casserole, spread evenly on a layer.  Pour 200 ml of hot milk and wait until all milk has

A Platter of Zucchini Sliced

absorbed.  Add the zucchini mixture on top-spread evenly and level it well and bake in a hot oven at 175 degrees fan forced, for 45 minutes.
Zucchini mixture: 3 cups sliced thin zucchini, 7 small sun-dried tomatoes, 1thinly sliced onion, oregano, 1 cup grated tasty cheese, 2 tablespoon vegetable oil and 2 large eggs. (All ingredients mixed together, fresh, not pre-cooked)

It worked beautifully and it made a tasty vegetarian dish.  Serve hot or room temperature.
It freezes well, keeps in an airtight container to stay fresh.


Freshly Baked Zucchini with Egg and Cheese

Leafy Greens make beautiful salad to go with the Zucchini Slices

Zucchini Sliced

We appreciate the harvest, and love cooking and creating new dishes from.
Other Recipe you may like to have: stuffed zucchini, find it in the older post.  Type: stuffed zucchini to search.



Until Next Post
Susy