May Growth in our Kitchen Garden

 

May Growth in our Kitchen Garden



The garden soon after we arrived

The cherry tree when we arrived, just over 3 weeks ago

The cherry tree today

 

Help! We have had two storms that have watered the garden and now that it is really beginning to warm up everything is growing fast and rushing to seed. Nice to see the roses and marigolds blooming, but not so good to see the onions and beets going to seed so soon.

But, its nice to have food from the garden and since we arrived we have been using something out of our kitchen garden practically every day.

The list of harvesting this month includes:

Beets, Celery, Lettuce, Strawberries, Onions and Mint

Beets

Marigolds, onions and beets

I’ve begun picking the beets and I must pick more soon as while some are very good, but others have already shot up and the bulb has become fibrous inside. Beets need to be trimmed top and bottom, but not too close to the bulb as it will bleed when boiled. After boiling you can easily slip of the skins and then they keep well if sliced in vinegar. They are also good grated raw in a salad. Use the leaves for horta, see below.

Celery

The celery is growing well, but again it will shoot before long with this warmer weather. Here they are not forced to grow tall and juicy but used more often as flavoring, though we use a quantity in a dish the Greeks love, pork with celery. I believe I’ve already posted this recipe. It is very like the Lamb Fricassee, see below, but with pork instead of lamb, and celery instead of lettuce. Both recipes add the lemon sauce to thicken the meat in the last part of the cooking.

Lettuce

The lettuce is wonderful at the moment, green and crisp. We are having salad nearly every day, but I’m also using the older plants in horta. It’s good with a mix of other leaves from the garden such as the leaves of the beets and spinach and endive which I’m buying from the grocer.

Strawberries

The strawberries come from a few plants Anestis supplied us with a few years ago. They were planted in the wrong spot but now I’m looking after them and watering them when the ground dries out. They are a smaller variety than you buy in the shops, and the snails love them. To try to beat the snails I’ve surrounded the plants with pine needles (straw is hard to come by on the island.) I’d love to make a strawberry desert with egg whites, sugar and crushed strawberries, but now that I can’t take sugar I just stew the washed strawberries with fructose and Takis adds it to ice-cream and I add pure cream.

(I might make a pie using almonds in the crust, and filled with ricotta topped with fresh strawberries. That would be OK for a diabetic too.)

Onions

 

 

The onions are young and fresh and good in a salad, as long as you don’t mid the aftertaste and your partner has the same salad! Takis used these onions and their tops in place of leeks in his lamb fricassee.

Lamb Fricassee

Takis found some New Zealand lamb which was quite tender, using 1500grs. But even this he boiled first to get rid of the strong lamb flavor. He sauted the onions, use about 4 spring onions and 1 cup of olive oil in a large pan and  then added the chopped meat.

We picked about five large and older lettuce, washed them well and then roughly chopped them. After cooking the meat with 4 tablespoons of chopped dill and 1 cup of water until soft, the lettuces are added for a further 30 minutes.  

Meanwhile two eggs are beaten with 4-5 tablespoons of lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of. cornflour. The egg and lemon sauce is poured over the meat and stirred in and cooked for a minute to thicken.

The amounts give above are for one meal, but being a food producer in his previous live Takis always makes an abundance and we freeze up for later meals. In the case of the pork and celery and lamb and lettuce we omit the lemon sauce, adding when it is defrosted and warmed up to serve.

And, one more gift from the garden.

I’ve begun collecting rose petals to make a pot pourri. My friend Helen does this very well and I’m using her idea of after gathering roses for the house, gradually collecting and adding to the petals in a bowl or basked. Later, when the lavender is blooming I might add these in too. An open bowl in a room is so pleasant to run your hands through when passing, to let out a little more of their fragrance.

The deep red roses have the best scent