Category Archives: Vegetables – All About

Garlic from the Garden

As Garlic is one of the favorite ingredients of Italian cooking I try to plant enough to see me through the year. This year, being new in New Zealand and my soil not 100% yet, I have harvested 180 bulbs only, which should hopefully last me about seven to eight months. After harvesting the garlic, leave it in a cool dry place (never in the sun) for a couple of days until the outside skin and loose soil is well dry. Now remove the excess soil carefully by hand and cut the roots without damaging the bulbs. Take a piece of soft rope and plait the garlic leaves and rope, adding more garlic as you go. Try to have the bulbs such that they have enough fresh air ventilation all the time.  When your string is long enough tie the rope around the last leaves, make a loop and hang it in a dark, cool and dry place.

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Cavolo Nero

Cavolo Nero (Black Cabbage) is definitely my favorite cabbage and I plant a lot of it.  It seems to grow well at this time of the year in Dunedin, with the result that I can eat Tagliatelle al Cavolo Nero whenever I want to.

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See the nice Artichoke plant in the back ground.

The recipe is easy and quick and I off coarse eat this with fresh home made egg Tagliatelle. Take one large bunch of Cavolo Nero and blanch it in boiling water for five minutes – put aside and let dry well. In a large pan put one tablespoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and one tablespoon of Butter. Ad four cloves of finely chopped Garlic , one finely chopped red hot chili (or less to taste)  and six anchovy fillets.  Fry and stir well until anchovies are melted – about five minutes. Now coarsely cut and ad the Cavolo Nero and  two Tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil to the pan and fry and stir for another three minutes until the Cavolo is well mixed with the rest and warm. In the mean time you should have put the pasta in the boiling water to be ready at this stage – drain and mix well with the sauce. Serve with lots of grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padana cheese. Red wine to compliment.

One more thing to do with Beetroot Tops

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I love greens and have no problem with eating vegetarian meals, providing I have a bit of Parmigiano to sprinkle over the top. This recipe has it all, as far as I am concerned. I have polenta, bechamel sauce and beetroot leaves fresh from my garden.  Using my beetroot and turnips as dual purpose plants give me great satisfaction.

Baked Beetroot Tops and Polenta

Pre heat the oven to 200 deg

Prepare and cook the beetroot leaves. See link

Beetroot leaves

Cook the polenta. see link

MAKE GOOD POLENTA

Make the bechamel sauce according to your favourite recipe.

While still warm, layer the bottom of an ovenproof dish with polenta. Sprinkle parmigiano liberally. Spread the greens over the polenta and top with bechamel sauce. Repeat the layers until the dish is full. Drizzle sparingly with olive oil and sprinkle with more parmigiano.

Bake in the oven for 30 min until the top is golden and crispy. Serve immediately.

Turnip Leaves Pasta Sauce (you will never throw the leaves out again)

I did not take a picture but before you throw out your turnip leaves, try this:

Spaghetti con le Cime di Rapa

800g Fresh turnip leaves washed
6 Anchovie fillets (the salty ones packed in oil) use more if you love anchovie
2 Cloves of Garlic
i pinch of dried chili or a bit of fresh, not too hot
Dash of olive oil

Blanch the leaves in boiling salted water until the leaves have wilted. Chop the leaves and stems in to bite sized pieces. Drop the pasta in to the pot of boiling salted water. Start the sauce by putting the olive oil in to a pan big enough to hold the sauce and pasta, add the chili and garlic . When the garlic is soft add the anchovies and stir until dissolved. Add the leaves, stir once or twice while cooking – about 5 minutes should do it. When the pasta is al dente (not sloppy) add the pasta to the sauce in the pan and stir once. Serve immediately with a bit of Parmigiano over the top.

We also eat this sauce as a side with meat.

Sunday Lunch from my garden

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Just out of the oven: beetroot, turnip, whole garlic and rosemary, drizzled with a bit of olive oil, covered with foil and baked at 200 degrees for about 40 minutes.

Sunday lunch from the veg patch. I harvested several beetroots and (accidentally) one turnip. I cut the leaves from the bulbs but left about 1cm to stop the bulb from bleeding, washed the leaves well and put them in the fridge . The leaves will make another dish some time during the week. It took a bit of scrubbing to get the grit out of the beetroot without damaging the skin too much but that is one of the joys of backyard farming – the supermarkets stock things that have been cleaned/preserved/chemically bombed and one does not have to spend so much time on washing!  I put everything in the pan and in to the oven. The taste was wonderful and the thick, rich beetroot juice mixed with the garlic and rosemary flavours on the bottom of the pan was sopped up with a bit of bread. The garlic is soft and spreadable and can be eaten with bread or squeezed out of the skins to eat on its own.  What have I missed? The glass of red, of course!