Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Gardening for food at home, and New Brighton Community Gardens

Freshly picked from the garden, it doesn't seem much and yet it feeds 4, and for less than the $15 you
would give to a  Supermarket (FYI overseas reader, this $15 is a NZ supermarket campaign )

First course, vegetable soup with: yellow zucchini, green zucchini, plum tomatoes, parsley, chives, celery,
carrot, silver beet, onions. The onion are really small but I can't grow them any bigger in the bush so
I grow them in pots.
Chop, add water (rain water for me, so this too is free!) and salt, then cook. You can add a bit of
extra virgin olive oil at the end.

Second basket, more tomatoes, basil, cucumber, radish, lettuce and mizuna.
Make a salad. I just add olive oil, salt and lemon juice so the dressing is not that expensive.
Yes there is a main to go with the salad, a frittata made with free-range eggs (60c each at the farmers market, the most expensive thing in this meal, and I used 4). To flavor the frittata I used chives from the garden, and the usual salt and pepper, a bit of self-raising flour, and olive oil to fry.

Frittata before flipping
Frittata after flipping

Well, no much for dessert, only some rhubarb and a few strawberries (regular and wild),
since the season is almost finished for me.
Still, I am not discouraged: I boiled the rhubarb with 1 tbsp of sugar, added a pinch of agar agar and
made a jelly to be topped with a little yogurt, the strawberries and some edible violets.
Arantxa got the biggest strawberry!

I am very lucky to have a little veggie garden, but even if you don't have a garden there are many community gardens where work and produce are shared, and the results are amazing. Just watch this short video to see a truly inspiring community garden in New Brighton, Christchurch. And my father-in-law is featuring too, walking around the gardens! He is having an operation tomorrow so I would like to wish him the very best. Over to the video now:






Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

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