My Winter Vegetable Garden

I took a few shots the other day of what I am growing in my garden.  I am getting quite involved with learning about gardening; I have taken out many books from the library and have been learning some interesting things. Some might say I've become too involved.  I had a dream the other night that I went outside to check on my garden and someone had harvested (stolen!) all my vegetables. It was such a vivid dream that I thought it was real and I was so upset!!  I was happy to discover my vegetables sitting happily in their planters the next morning.

Since it is winter things are growing a little slowly.  Luckily we have had a very warm winter this year so they are doing better than that could have been doing.

My Cavolo Nero has grown tremendously and is ready for picking.  The Bok Choy is ready for harvest and the celery is on it's way too.  I like the idea of using the Celery as a come-and-cut-again vegetable like some of the books suggest as you never really need the whole plant or even the half that they sell in the stores.  Every time I purchase a half or whole it ends up going to waste.  I did read a tip recently which has helped me stop the wastage: dice the celery and freeze it in a re-sealable plastic bag.  It's such a simple suggestion that I can't believe I didn't think of it myself earlier!  I guess one can't think of everything.

I am getting a little frustrated at how slowly my seedlings are growing.  I bring them inside every night so they avoid the cold weather and take them outside in the morning so they can get as much light as they need.  Still they grow like snails!  I even call them my babies and that still doesn't help! Gah!

Anyway, here are the pictures I took of some of the plants.  This is only a fraction of what I have planted in containers! We rent a place so we can't really dig up the front yard to make a vegetable garden.  We don't have a backyard either.  I just make do with the space I have as tidily as I can.

Sage and Silverbeet/Swiss Chard

Oregano

Little Lettuce

Row of lettuce.  The plastic bottles act as cloches

Cavolo Nero and a Dill plant tucked in there

Kale (Squire), Perpetual Spinach, Bok Choy, Celery

Close up of Bok Choy

You see that painted corrugated iron there in some of the pictures?  Well what the snails do is they slither up there and actually reach out and eat my Cavolo Nero!  Half their body is on the wall and half is suspended in mid air and their mouth is on my vegetables, eating.  The cheeky buggers!  I usually pick them up and send them sailing into the distance.  I feel a little mean crushing them, plus I don't want to get my shoes dirty.

Hope you enjoyed my pictures!

Fruits of Labour

I picked a couple of capsicum/bell pepper from my garden the other day.  I was quite thrilled!  The first one I used straight away in my salad for my lunch that day.  The second was used for a stir fry for dinner the next evening. 

From this....

...to this

A purple variety of capsicum

They have been very easy to grow.  I used a 30L pot, placed some potting mix in there and a little seedling.  I water the plants every day in the evening and try to fertilize them every 1-2 weeks once they are fruiting.  They have quite a long growth cycle and take about 18 weeks to produce fruit. Each plant has produced at least 4-5 fruits so far and typically most plants will produce about 6-10 plants. The plants grow fairly tall for a plant in a pot so you will need to stake them when they start to produce fruit as the fruit weighs down the plant.  Put the pot in a sunny spot and enjoy the fruits of your labour!

Home Grown

I've been a busy girl around the garden lately.  A few months ago I planted quite a few seeds such as kale and capsicum and cherry tomatoes. 

Some of the things I planted are in containers in my yard and some I planted at my mother's house in her bigger veggie patch.  Here's the loot I picked up from Mum's place a few days ago:

Red Cabbage, Red Russian Kale, Curly Kale, Cherry Tomatoes, Big Beef Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

Mixed Mesculin Salad

Growing your own vegetables is unreal.  They taste so much better than store bought produce and you can control how you grow them.  I try and grow mine as "organic" as possible. All I do is water them and on some plants use organic fertilizers; I don't spray them with pesticide or anything else untoward.  Most vegetables are so easy to grow and the only care they require is regular watering!  The only thing you really have to bear in mind is whether you are growing them in the right environment.  For example, there is no way basil will grow outside in winter.  It likes warm, sunny environments.  I particularly have enjoyed growing cherry tomatoes this season.  I'm telling you, they taste AMAZING compared to what you purchase in stores.  The flavour is so intense and sweet.  I grew all my cherry tomatoes from seed so for about 1-2 punnets product per week all it cost me was the time watering the plant and about $2 for the seeds!  What a bargain!  Mesculin is easy as pie to grow.  I scatter the seeds on soil and cover with a fine layer of soil; water regularly and then harvest several weeks later.  The plants last quite a long time if you cut the outer leaves.  They're known as a "cut and come again" vegetable.

My favourite herbs to grow are Thyme and Basil. Both are super simple to grow.  The Thyme plant I had I picked up from the garden centre as a seedling.  It has thrived and given me plenty of stems to harvest for recipes.  The basil I grew from seed.  It takes a little bit more care but still is very easy to grow and I use it a lot in salads and recipes.

Here are a few pictures of the other things I grow in containers:

Strawberries

Coriander

Basil

Purple Capsicum

Thyme

Oregano

Sage

Dill

Yellow Capsicum (to be)

Lettuce

Silverbeet/Swiss Chard

Mesculin Salad Mix

Hope you enjoyed the little tour of my garden!

Zucchini Pasta

I tried this dish for the first time a few weeks ago. I'm not a huge fan of regular pasta; I'll eat it but I won't seek it out if you know what I mean. I do love vegetables though so this was a perfect stand in dish for me. I've used zucchini before in place of pasta when I've made low carb lasagne. This was definitely a tasty addition to the low carb "pasta" repertoire. Have this dish in place of your normal pasta and serve with your own special pasta sauce.

Zucchini Pasta

2-3 large zucchini

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Freshly ground sea salt and pepper

Freshly grated Parmesan

1. Using a vegetable peeler, cut the zucchini into lengthwise ribbons.

2. Cook the zucchini strips in two batches. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. When it is hot, add the zucchini ribbons and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. Cook, tossing and stirring the zucchini, for two to three minutes, until softened and beginning to turn translucent. Adjust salt and add freshly ground pepper to taste, and transfer to a serving dish. Repeat with the remaining olive oil and zucchini.

My New Favourite Vegetable

My new favourite vegetable is Kale: Brassica oleracea var acephala.  I like the name Kale better - much easier to say.

Photo Credit

For some reason Kale isn't very common in New Zealand.  I haven't seen it sold in conventional supermarkets, or standard fruit and vegetable shops.  I buy mine from a special organic whole food store. I'm not sure why it's not popular here; it is quick and easy to grow.

I'm actually trying to grow my own kale at the moment, only one lone shoot out of twelve I planted two weeks ago.

Grow little kale, grow!!

Kale is thought to be the first cultivated brassica.  It is regarded a superfood; one cup of steamed kale has more than enough vitamin A and vitamin K for an adult for the day.  It also contains considerable amounts of vitamin C, manganese and dietary fibre. Anti-oxidants such as lutein and beta-carotene are found in kale; they protect our body from oxidative stress and health problems related to oxidative stress. Of these anti-oxidants, lutein in particular is important for eye health and helps prevent or slow down development of age related macular degeneration and cataract.

One thing to watch out for if you eat a lot of kale is oxalates.  If they become too concentrated they can crystallize in the body and cause kidney and gallstones.  I did read that asparagus contains asparagine which helps break down oxalates, so really it's a matter of a balanced diet of different fruit and vegetables and not having too much of one thing.

Kale can be stored for two to three weeks in the refridgerator and freezes well, however it is best used within a week.  The longer it is stored, the more bitter its flavour becomes.  I usually purchase 2-3 bags and use it every day in salads and smoothies and it is usually used within a week.  I have my own hopping greedy compost maker aka Daisy that will eat the tough stalks that I don't use on the curly kale, so there is no wastage.

I like Kale because it's more fibrous and holds it's shape well when cooked;  I use it to replace spinach in a lot of recipes.  I do like spinach, but I get a whole bag of it from the store and it cooks down to the size of a tennis ball.  It also makes my teeth feel funny after eating it (weird I know).  Kale barely shrinks if you lightly steam it and my teeth feel normal after eating it.


Some ways I enjoy kale:

Kale chips
Sauteed with garlic, onion, vegetable stock
In smoothies or "green monsters".  I usually use about 10-15 leaves.
Lightly steamed and tossed in salads
Chopped and steamed then tossed with pine nuts and feta cheese

If you have not tried this vegetable yet, go get some kale today!

In My Lunchbox

Steamed Kale, Radish, Tomato, Grated Carrot, Yellow Pepper, Avocado, Sea Salt, Pepper and a side of chicken breast (not shown).

Yum, I love big salads.  I find that if I use a variety of vegetables and a couple of juicy ones (like grated carrot and tomato) I don't need any other dressing apart from salt and pepper.  The vegetables just taste so good.

What was in your lunchbox today?

Today I got my hair cut.  I woke up this morning looking like Medusa, then I couldn't be bothered straightening out my hair.  I went to work with it tied up in a pony tail, but looking boofy.  By the afternoon I was fed up with it and went to the hairdresser on my break and got it cut.  She didn't do as good a job as my last hairdresser but it was better than when I went in for sure.  I am happy with it for now, but I think I will go back to Laurie next time.  He made my hair look fantastic!

I don't have a workout to post today.  I got up a little too early then went back to bed and when the time came for me to actually go to the gym, I was all dozy and couldn't get up.  I will have to do both my workouts tomorrow - focusing on clean & press and deadlift.

Ta ta until then!

Sportsgirl's Sooper Vegetable Soup

I love soup and as it's getting colder here, I made one of my favourite vegetable soups today.  As the recipe says, the first half of the recipe is the "base" (onion, garlic, ginger, pumpkin, potato, sweet potato) and the second half you can add whatever vegetables you like.  I sometimes make this soup whenever I have a lot of vegetables in my fridge that I need to use before they go bad. Today I added carrot, parsnip, spinach, mushroom, tomato, broccoli and red cabbage.

1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
some ginger, finely chopped
bit of olive oil
1 cup lentils (I've used brown and red)
1/2 buttercup or pumpkin
2 small-med potatoes
1 med-large sweet potato
couple of bunches of spinach
1/4 cabbage
1/2 broccoli
6 mushrooms
1 capsicum (pepper) - or 2 halves of diff colours
1 generous teaspoon of red curry paste
salt to taste

Brown the onion, garlic and ginger with the olive oil. Put in the lentils and stir with the mixture for a little bit. Add water - about 1/3 of the pot. Put in the pumpkin, sweet potato and potato (which you have cut up into pieces) and boil for about 30-45 mins. Once the pumpkin etc are all soft, mash until the mixture is a pulp. Add a bit more water. Stir in the red curry paste and add salt to taste. Chop up the broccoli, spinach, cabbage, mushrooms and capsicum finely and add to soup. Simmer for about 10-15 mins. Add more water if needed. You can add more water to adjust the thickness of the soup, but add more curry paste and salt to taste. This soup is quite thick. Feel free to add whatever veggies you like!! When I first made it, I put in whatever leftover veggies I had in my fridge.

On The Buses

Argh! I missed the gym yesterday because the bus after work didn't come! *pulls hair out* Apparently the bus driver didn't even turn up for work that day, so I guess a lot of people missed their bus rides. I was so annoyed because this whole week I've either been too tired to go or really lacking in motivation and today I took all my stuff for the gym and got changed at work and no bus. Gah! I even had a new workout planned in my head and everything *pout* I was so pissed off when I got home. I guess I will go on Sunday *sigh*

I have a new recipe for you guys. It's nothing new, just a quiche :-P I've made it twice now - one last night and one tonight. Last night I just had vegetables in it - spinach, onion, broccoli, red pepper and tomato. Tonight it was mushroom and chicken and it was soooo good!

Vegetable Quiche

7 whole eggs
250g low fat cottage cheese
1/2 onion chopped
enough puff pastry to line your pan (I used 1 sheet of the ready made stuff)
sea salt & cracked pepper to taste
whatever vegetables you want to use
if you want chicken - I used about 250g raw weight and boiled & shredded the chicken
your choice of herbs if wanted

Whisk eggs together and then add cottage cheese, salt and pepper and blend together with a stick blender. Stir in onion, your choice of vegetables and chicken if desired. Line your baking dish with puff pastry (I used a 9" pie dish) and pour egg mixture into dish. Bake at 220 degrees celsius for about 50 minutes then lower the heat to 150 degrees celsius for 10 minutes. Bear in mind my oven is a load of crap so your cooking times will vary. Basically, keep an eye on it! The quiche is excellent for lunches and even a quick breakfast!

If you want to make it even lower calorie, omit the pastry to make it crustless and reduce some of the the whole eggs used and replace with egg whites!

I also made Chilled Avocado Soup last night to have with the quiche and it was sooo good! I served it slightly lukewarm though because I didn't really feel like having stone cold soup. Definitely try it. That blog has some good recipes actually!

Roast Rosemary Pumpkin

I love pumpkin and I tried something new today!

Roast Rosemary Pumpkin

Cut 1/2 a small pumpkin into thin-ish slices and place on tray. Drizzle with olive oil and season with sea salt and cracked pepper. Scatter sprigs of rosemary and halved garlic cloves on the pumpkin and bake in the oven until soft (about half an hour).

The result:














I had it with grilled chunks of lean lamb - yum!

Broccoli Soup and Training

Vegetable soups are one of my favourite foods. I'm making Broccoli Soup for dinner tonight so I thought I'd share the recipe here. The recipe only has a few ingredients but it tastes absolutely delicious! It also has a decent amount of protein which is surprising for a soup, but it does contain milk :-)

Broccoli Soup

1. 600g broccoli florets(prepared weight)

2. 1 onion, finely chopped

3. 450mlwater

4. 1 vegetable stock cube

5. 600ml low-fat milk

6. salt & pepper

1. Wash thoroughly the broccoli. You will need 600G so remove the stems and just use the heads.

2. Chop the onion.

3. In a saucepan cook the broccoli and onion together with the stock cube and the water for 15 minutes Keep the lid on while you do this. (you can get this cooking time down to 10 mins if you chop the broccoli quite small).

4. When the broccoli and onion are very tender add the low fat milk.

5. Blend the soup thoroughly using a blender.

Yum yum!!