It’s not fair that the bumper season for leafy greens coincides with right when we start lighting the slow combustion stove every night! I have all the ingredients for wonderful salads going off in my garden. I take a salad for lunch every day, but of an evening these days we are more inspired by soups and casseroles.
But I am loving my lunch box. Lettuces of several varieties, rocket, amaranth, aragula, endive, mizuna, parsley, celery, spring onions, radicchio, sorrel. My continental cucumbers have finished, but the Richmond River whites are more cold tolerant and I still have the last of them to add. And in my frost free garden I can keep cherry tomatoes going all winter.
Added to that, avocados of just about all varieties are right in season, and citrus are in glut, so I can make the most gorgeous salad dressings based on lemons or limes or tangelos.
Local apples and pears are finished now. The fruit to eat fresh is citrus. All our mandarin trees are loaded, and it is the crossover point between early and mid season varieties. Navel oranges are still going strong, and I have cumquats that I don’t know what to do with – does anyone have any recipes for cumquats? That you would actually eat while you had a choice of mandarins or tangelos?
We managed to save a (very few) custard apples from the creatures. One evening the tree was loaded and the next morning it was stripped. It was probably flying foxes getting them – the ones we saved were closest to the ground.
With vegetables, pumpkins are the glut crop, and I am making pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin scones, pumpkin curry, pumpkin casserole, pumpkin and cheese patties. I’m not sick of them…. yet. Beetroot, carrots, leeks, and parsnips go really well in soups and casseroles. I am still picking the very last of the green beans. And I’m really liking sauteing the first of the bok choi in a little butter and lemon juice as our main green side dish.
So that’s the produce I’m basing my cooking around this month.
I really like cumquat marmalade. I don’t personally think there’s much else you can do with them, that tastes any good and isn’t ridiculously fiddly.
and I’m not sure Lewie or I need the sugar in marmalade! maybe i should try a batch though for gifts. Don’t know why I ever planted the tree, but it looks so healthy I don’t have the heart to remove it.
We were given cumquats last year and Pete turned them into the most wonderful cumquat jelly. It makes the perfect glaze for a cake, and I also used it in place of marmalade in some of my Christmas cakes last year. In case it’s of interest, the recipe is here: http://figjamandlimecordial.com/2009/08/16/cumquat-jelly/ (please delete the link if it’s not ok to post).