All your garden needs this summer is a STICK BLENDER! Wait...what?
Three stupidly easy recipes to make from your garden
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Yesterday I took a workshop at a beautiful community garden in Byford. The topic was ‘cooking from your garden’ and the plan was for me to demonstrate a few dishes you could make directly out of a veggie patch. I would supply the kitchen tools and pantry staples and we’d pick the greens from the community garden as we went.
The thing is, when you’re mid-way through renovating you own kitchen and all of your pantry staples and kitchen tools are packed away in several boxes along with the last vestiges of your sanity, the task of delivering a cooking workshop becomes significantly more difficult. There is a sink sitting in our study. There is a bathtub in our kitchen. Right now, as I write this to you, there is a pumpkin in the bedroom. I don’t know why it’s there. Many things do not currently make a great deal of sense. There also happened to be no working oven, stove top or grill at the community garden.
If your life is also in some kind of chaotic free fall, I have good news for you. My weekend workshop has taught me a valuable lesson: life can really be (at least a little bit) simpler, if we want it to be.
And you don’t need a fancy stove or a backyard full of the most incredible veggies to cook healthy, fresh meals from your garden. You need only two things: a stick blender, and some green stuff.
Here are three basic recipes (the ones I shared at my workshop) that you can use time and time again, substituting in various bits and pieces from your garden, all year round. They will make you look like your life is totally put together, even if you have a waffle iron sitting on a tub of medicine, sitting on twenty boxes of your own self-published cookbook (which you can buy here, by the way - it’s called Seasoned and is created for gardeners who want to eat more of what they grow. All of today’s recipes come straight from this cookbook, and if you really want to have your life together, you can order ten copies and consider your Christmas shipping DONE).
These three recipes (a pesto base, a vinaigrette and a chimichurri) are all based around pantry staples (vinegar, olive oil, mustard powder, garlic, salt, sugar, pepper), plus whatever you have on hand in your garden - herbs and salad greens. They are infinitely customisable to whatever is in season and you can honestly go outside, pick some stuff and whip them up in under ten minutes. I know this, because I do it all the time.
The pesto base, in particular, is my favourite go-to for a weeknight dinner. You can put a pot of pasta on to boil and your pesto will be ready before the pasta is done.
The vinaigrette is a recipe my dad has made for us ever since I was a little girl. You can play with the ratio of olive oil to vinegar and it will change the consistency of the vinaigrette - more oil = thicker, creamier, more vinegar = runnier and lighter. It’s the best way to dress up ANY salad leaves you have growing in the garden, you can dip artichoke leaves in it or eat it with prawns and avocado.
The chimichurri is a light, tangy dressing that is so versatile - the perfect way to get the biggest flavour bang out of your homegrown herbs.
All you need for all three recipes is a stick blender and a garden with ANY of the following: kale, rocket, lettuce, silverbeet, basil, parsley, oregano, coriander, mint, mizuna, spinach. Here are the recipes. You’ll notice they are only lists of ingredients (many of which can vary depending on what is growing in your garden). You only need the list of ingredients because the method for each recipe is exactly the same: blend with a stick blender until smooth.
The world’s most garlicky vinaigrette
This vinaigrette is the easiest thing to make - I make a batch at least once a week and tip it over every salad we eat. Sometimes I boil artichokes and dip their leaves in it. Sometimes I peel carrots into ribbons and drown them in it. I cut avocados in half, remove the seed and pour it into the cavity left behind, then scoop out the flesh with a little teaspoon. I dip fresh broccoli florets in big bowls of it. Credit to my dear old Dad for this recipe; it is his creation, his brainchild, his legacy and thanks to him I will smell like a garlic clove for the rest of my life.
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