Author: Robinne Weiss

Plant out!

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100_4005 smIt’s Canterbury weekend here, and that means it’s time for all the vegetables to head to their prepared spots in the garden. In theory, the frost is over and summer is upon us!

The approach to plant out weekend is always a bit stressful. Plants are overly large for their pots, and there’s a temptation to plant out too early (and Murphy’s Law says that if you plant out before Canterbury Day, it WILL frost). It’s a mission just to keep the plants watered in the greenhouse. And with all the plants crammed together in one place, all it would take is one hungry possum discovering the greenhouse, and the entire garden would be destroyed for the year.

And then there’s the task of making sure all the garden beds are ready to receive those plants in time for plant out weekend. I start mapping out each weekend’s jobs in late September so that I’m not caught with half a dozen beds still full of weeds at plant out time.

This year, plant out went beautifully. The weather cooperated—it was cool and cloudy so the transplanted plants and I weren’t stressed by heat. The beds were all ready to go, and most of the plants were in good shape.

And now I get to rest, right?

Ha!

Now the early crops are desperate to be weeded, the berry beds are sprouting full of thistles, and I’m probably 10 days from being inundated by strawberries, gooseberries and currants.

Never a dull moment!

Broad Beans

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100_4007 smI had never eaten broad beans (aka fava beans) before moving to New Zealand, but now I can’t imagine early summer without them. They’re uncommon in the U.S., and even here where they’re grown by the hectare, they’re often considered “old people’s food”. During my brief stint selling vegetables at the Leeston market, I never sold broad beans to anyone under the age of 80.

But his attitude is unfair. Broad beans are more versatile than that. They have a bold, almost floral flavour that needs no embellishment. When young, the beans are sweet like peas, and they grow starchier as they mature. Somewhere between sweet and starch, they are at their best.

The “usual” way to eat broad beans is to blanch them, peel the skin off each bean, then serve them or cook them into a dish. Nothing wrong with that, unless you’re the cook, who has to shell and peel all those beans.

We prefer to make the consumers do half the work. We blanch the beans and serve them as finger food. They make a lovely appetizer—pop them out of their skins right into your mouth. Paired with a nice Sauvignon Blanc and eaten outdoors on a summer evening, they are no longer “old people’s food”. They become urbane and sophisticated. Something to be savoured with intelligent conversation.

And if you’re more the beer and burgers type, broad beans will oblige. They make a mean green burger that goes well with cheese, mushrooms and ketchup. Light enough for a lager, strong enough for a stout, broad bean burgers go with just about anything.

Broad beans—a versatile legume that’s not just for old people.

 

Not a Spanish Omelette

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100_3995 smContinuing with the egg theme…because I’m getting three a day now, and hardly know what to do with them all…

My husband introduced me to this dish before we were even married. He called it a Spanish omelette.

It is not a Spanish omelette. It’s more akin to a Texas omelette, but without the beans.

But it’s not even really that.

But whatever you call it, it’s good! And simple to make.

Chunks of roast potatoes topped with scrambled eggs and a thick spicy tomato sauce.

This dish can be served at any time of day, and can take on whatever flavours you want in the tomato sauce. This week, I made a sauce rich with an entire colander full of spinach, fistfuls of fresh basil and oregano, and heavy in paprika (including some smoked paprika, too). Sometimes I steer the sauce toward Central America, with cilantro, sometimes toward Greece with feta cheese and olives. The potatoes and egg are flexible, and will happily nestle under whatever you pour on top.

Best of all, it tastes like junk food, but is packed with nutrients and leaves you feeling satisfied. A real stick-to-your-ribs sort of meal.

Scromelettes

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messy but good

messy but good

I know there are many people who add things to their scrambled eggs, but for me, scrambled eggs have always been nothing but eggs and a little milk. If I wanted to add things to my eggs, I made an omelette.

Though I’m not particularly fond of eggs, I’m quite good at making omelettes, thanks to a summer job through my teen years that had me cooking breakfasts for hungry actors at the PA Renaissance Faire.

But the other day I exceeded my omelette abilities. I had so many yummy vegetables and so much cheese to put in our omelettes that I knew the egg wouldn’t hold it all.

So instead I made what we called “scromelettes”—scrambled eggs with omelette fillings mixed in. The result was delicious, if not so pretty as a perfectly folded omelette. Beyond the bonus of being able to use more filling, I was pleased to realise I could sautĂ© longer-cooking ingredients before putting the egg into the pan, ensuring that everything was perfectly cooked.

Would I serve scromelettes to company? Probably not, but they’re a great option for times when your omelette just won’t all fit in a neat package.

Favourite Kitchen Tools: Scholtès stove

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100_0316 cropI prepared our dinner mid-afternoon and tossed it into the oven on delayed bake so we could come home this evening after piano lessons to a hot meal, and I figured that it was time for another Favourite Kitchen Tools post.

When we remodelled the kitchen years ago, we went for the cheaper flooring and cabinetry options, but we splurged when it came to the stove. It is the most-used tool in the kitchen, after all. It has been worth every cent. The previous stove was a barely functional old thing that had a habit of electrocuting mice (ztztztzztztzt…Is that burning fur I smell?—it was awful!).

We cook and bake a lot. We do a lot of preserving. We make cheese. We needed a nice cook top and a big oven.

At the risk of sounding like a salesman (that really isn’t my intent)…We settled on the budget-blowing Scholtès made by the Italian company Indesit—90 cm wide, 5 gas burners, and an electric oven. We’ve worked the cook top and the oven hard in the past seven years, and it has done pretty much everything we’ve asked of it. Many days during summer I have all five burners going at once, and I appreciate being able to slide my biggest sheet pans easily into the large oven. It has had its troubles—the display unit has had to be replaced twice. (Turns out it gets cooked by the heat of the oven if you don’t leave the door open once you turn it off.) The tiny burner in the centre of the large central burner doesn’t work terribly well anymore. And the front panel and oven door are made of a supremely difficult to clean stainless steel—no matter what I do, it looks filthy.

Oh, and the operating manual is written in French and Italian…illustrating just how rusty my high school French is after 27 years!

Still, I love my stove. I am particularly glad we chose to go with a gas cook top. I love the way the gas responds to my cooking needs, and I especially love the fact I can cook dinner when the power is out!

Oh yeah, and on nights like tonight, when I can’t be home to cook dinner, the delayed bake is a life-saver!

Too Hot To Eat

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100_3989 smIt was 32°C (90°F) when we got home today. Too hot to eat a hot meal. So it was salads and cheese for dinner.

A luscious green salad of spring lettuces.

A hearty lentil salad with Israeli couscous, dried tomato, spring onion and fresh herbs.

Homemade feta on Mommy’s Magical Crackers.

A perfect summer meal!

 

What’s your perfect summer meal?

(ch)Eating from the garden

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saladgreens1 smSometimes it feels like cheating.

I came home today tired and not feeling like cooking. I had 16 litres of milk that needed to be made into cheese waiting for me in the fridge. Dinner was going to be a slap-dash affair cooked in the wait times during cheese making. I didn’t expect much.

But with vegetables so fresh they’re still photosynthesizing as they go into the pot, herbs snipped moments before cooking, and homemade cheese on hand, even a thrown together meal is bound to be something special.

I whipped up a pasta from whatever was on hand in the garden and could be picked in 6 minutes, threw in some feta cheese and a handful of olives, and had a meal I would have happily served to company.

You just can’t help but eat well when you’re eating out of the garden.

I can, can you?

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100_3986 cropsmFaced with 45 artichokes, there’s really only one thing to do—pull out the pressure canner, and bottle them up for later.

We thought long and hard before buying a pressure canner years ago—it was expensive, and signalled a whole new level of commitment to preserving than a simple water bath canner.

And then, of course, there are all the horror stories about exploding pressure canners. When the canner arrived, emblazoned with more warning stickers than a case of TNT, it didn’t alleviate my concerns.

But now I can’t imagine being without it. We can preserve so much more of what we grow, and not everything needs to be pickled to be preserved.

Pressure canning changes vegetables—the high pressure and temperature destroys their structure and basically turns them to mush. I wouldn’t want to subsist on pressure canned vegetables.

But our summer soup

LINK provides a burst of summer flavour, and wonderfully convenient instant meals through the winter. A few jars of canned green beans mean we can make our favourite Indian charcharis any time of the year. And canned artichokes add incredible flavour to pizzas, regardless of their texture. We could freeze these things, of course, but especially here where the power goes out with such frequency, having some of our preserved food not dependent on a continuous supply of electricity is a good idea. It also saves room in the freezer for those things that really don’t do well in the canner—berries, corn, peas, and of course the bread and baked goods from our baking days.

 

Compost Pile

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100_3973 cropMy husband calls it Mt. Robinne, and sometimes it feels like I’ve heaved an entire mountain onto the compost pile. This is my first spring with the new compost bins. They constrain the spread of the pile, forcing it upward.

Today I put the last of the winter weeds on the pile. From here on out, I’ll leave most weeds lying in the garden paths to act as mulch. This is as tall as the compost pile will get this year.

Good thing, as it reached the height of the greenhouse this morning. The pile will sit there sintering for a few weeks. When I’ve recovered from the springtime garden preparation, and when all the plants are planted out, I will move the mountain again, turning and watering the pile so that it composts properly.

For now, though, I’ll enjoy the respite from mountain building.

Siren Call

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100_2141I fidget at the computer.

Perhaps the greenhouse needs watering.

 

I fling open the office door.

The smell of grass reminds me I need to mow.

 

I type a few words

Then delete them.

Do the goats need their hooves trimmed?

Maybe I should go have a look.

 

I check my e-mail.

I watch a pair of sparrows build their nest.

 

I should be working, but

You know, if I just did half an hour of weeding now

There would be less to do on the weekend.

 

Perhaps an early lunch.

I’ll sit in the sun, bare feet in the grass.

 

And then, perhaps…

 

I will give in, and follow the siren’s call

To the garden.