I love this time of year when I can go out into the garden and pick my dinner. It makes me feel much more like cooking interesting things. I made the roast veg tonight and the salad a few weeks ago. I made way too much of the salad - grating really increases the volume of the veggies. I gave some to each of my neighbors, one of whom has a 3-yr old, so I kept the dressing pretty basic. You could also put in spring onions or Tabasco. I discovered that my other neighbor is a magician! The bowl I gave her the beetroot salad in appeared at my doorstep a few days later with Ferrero Rocher chocolates inside! I wish I could turn beets into chocolate (wouln't that be something to blog about)!
Here are two recipes I have made using whatever I had available in the pantry and the garden. Feel free to experiment and create your own flavors! I tend to use cookbooks for ideas and not follow the recipes exactly. I never would have thought of putting citrus in with the beets and carrots and it was delish! I used the herbs I had available in the garden and kitchen which meant some substitutions - like ginger instead of garlic. I planted about 20 cloves of garlic in the late winter and spring and they are GONE! Aaargh! Rotted, birds, who knows....? I have dug down to where they were and they are gone. I'm going to have to buy garlic
These colours are AMAZING! The only way to see carrots this colour is to pick them. I wash and scrub outside in a bucket or big bowl and put the water right back in the veggie patch. The carrots are Nantes and the beetroot are Bull's Blood and Chiogga. I thought my soil was super-friable but I still have split uglies. It could also be too much compost - they don't like nutrient-rich soil. The previous crop in this spot was tomatoes, and then the green manure over the winter. I would have thought that the tomatoes wouldn't have left much in the way of nutrients after harvesting, even with the green manure crop. I think I may try growing carrots in a big pot with lots of sand in the potting mix next time.
I also cooked the beet greens and stems separately by boiling for about 3 minutes - they're my favourite part of the plant. I find myself strangely not eating enough vegetables when there is nothing in the the garden because supermaket ones have no flavour to me. I put individual portions of the cooked beet greens in ziplock bags and froze them for later consumption.
recipes follow after the jump..
