vegetable gardens – ALMOST ITALIAN

In My Kitchen, June 2018

Winter announced itself rather dramatically last week with a fine frost, the first of the season on the first of June. The last of summer’s basil wilted in disgust while the bright yellow zucchini flowers on the remaining happy plant closed their petals tightly in protest. New hungry birds are now visiting our back door, competing with our gregarious King Parrots. Can I detect a different kind of plea in the warble of the magpies lately? One has taken up the morning watch, staring at me through the kitchen window, singing for his breakfast.

Late winter tomatoes, mostly yellow, ripening in the window

On the second day of winter, Mr T picked most of the remaining tomatoes which now happily sunbake in our north facing windows. As the sun streams in during winter, thanks to the passive solar design of the house, I am enjoying the taste of these winter jewels. The small yellow pear tomatoes seem to ripen very quickly this way.

Gentile pasta from Gragnano, Napoli. Delizioso.

I’ve been experimenting with different pasta varieties, then the recipes are posted in my Pasta della Settimana series. This pasta brand, Gentile, from Napoli proved to be quite tasty and different in texture. More about this soon.

Orecchiette Napolitane, un tipo diverso dall’ orecchiette Pugliesi.

I’ve been de-cluttering madly but when this old plate turned up at the local second hand emporium for $5.99, I felt compelled to nab it. Nicely crazed with age and a little faded, the stamp on the back reads ‘Jabez Blackhurst’ and the design is Rhine. The dish was made in 1867 in Tunstall, England. I have given it a quick clean but I enjoy a serving dish with a bit of patina and history.

There was an over supply of jam in my kitchen pantry after I made this season’s fig and quince jams. Time for those old fashioned jam and coconut slices, a treat after working outside in the garden or renovating. They went in a flash and the oats suggest at least one healthy element. This lot was made with spiced plum jam through the middle layer, and tasted a lot like Christmas.

Left over pizza dough always means foccaccia a day or so later.

We recently gathered the pumpkins from the vegetable garden. I let them stay attached to the vine until late Autumn so they continue to ripen and harden. As they are self sown, I never know which varieties will turn up. This year, we had more Queensland Blues.

Pumpkins live on the outside table under shelter.

Limes are funny things. When you want them in summer for drinks and Thai food, they’re scarce. In winter they thrive in our garden. Other than lime delicious pudding and the occasional lime syrup cake, I tend to use them instead of lemons. I’m resisting making lime marmalade due to the aforementioned jam build up but might consider an Indian lime chutney. Good lime recipes are invited, dear readers.

And now for some Happy Birthday snaps and an insiders look into my kitchen when my kids and grandchildren are around. We are now 14 in total, and so it’s often a busy event for me when they come here for dinner. Three of the grandchildren celebrate their birthdays a few days apart. I still like to make three cakes and each year, the cakes are getting stranger. The children love it.

Three crazy cakes for Noah, Charlotte and Daisy.

Thanks Sherry once again for keeping the IN MY KITCHEN series going, despite the difficulties involved ensuring that all the participants are now GDPR ready. Rest assured Sherry, that mine is now displaying the appropriate privacy warnings for our European readers.

Pasta of the Week, Pantacce and Borlotti Beans with Rugola. I Can’t Believe it’s Vegan

Lots of Italian food is vegan by nature and vegan by tradition but you never see it labelled as such. And that, in my opinion, which is neither humble or otherwise, is a good thing. I can’t stand labels. Most of the food you will read about on my blog is vegetarian, but I rarely mention that word in the post. I firmly believe that once we do away with labels- vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, omnivore, ethically farmed (hallelujah) and heaven forbid, Paleo- the culinary world will be a better place. A good recipe tempts the taste buds with the summary of its parts and its visual tease.

I’ve tasted very good vegan food in restaurants without that little colour- coded ‘v‘ in the corner to guide me, many a fine Italian antipasto and primo, as well as lovely traditional Indian, Greek and Middle Eastern dishes. Last Saturday I joined the throngs at the popular A1 bakery in Brunswick and ordered the Ful Mesdames platter. It was comprised of a large bowl of semi mashed warm Ful,( dried fava beans recooked) dressed with a few chick peas, olive oil, parsley and sumac, sitting on a wooden board full of extras, gherkins, pink turnip pickles, warmed middle eastern bread cut into quarters, and a generous side salad of tomatoes, lettuce and onion. It was a surprising bargain for $8, a dish that would generously feed two people. No v word in sight. The stuff that parades as vegan around the cooler traps of Melbourne is either bland or highly processed and appeals to those whose taste buds are still transitioning from childhood to something else. The newly converted may need a label to spur them on. The best vegan food is never described as such. Look at the wonderful Italianesque recipes of Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers of The River Cafe fame, whose simple vegetable based recipes make me drool at the thought, sending me running to the kitchen garden. Again, no v word required. Good food is based on fresh seasonal ingredients, combined with a solid understanding of the role played by complementary herbs and spices, then presented in such a way in such a way to excite the diner.

This week’s Pasta Della Settimana ( pasta of the week) came about thanks to the current seasonal offerings from my garden- abundant rocket, fresh borlotti beans, tomatoes, garlic and chilli. It’s a solid meal for a cooler day. It’s another take on Pasta e Fagioli, that classic Italian dish that has moved up the ranks from Cucina Povera to bourgeois heaven. It can be deveganised by adding some finely grated parmigaino or any other animal based shavings you might fancy.

Today’s pasta of the week calls for Pantacce, a mini bite sized lasagna pasta shape with a diagonal cut and a frilled edge along one side. These shapes are made by Molisana, another brand of pasta I sometimes use. It’s a versatile shape that goes well with most sauces. My garden inspired the rest. In this recipe, the beans are the main star, with a small handful of pasta per person to help unite the dish, providing a farinaceous element for the hungry.

Pasta, borlotti freschi e rugola. Pasta with fresh borlotti beans and rocket.

Ingredients. Once again, this recipe is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Fresh borlotti beans, cooked slowly with a handful of herbs, a pinch or two of salt and a drizzle of oil. If you can’t access fresh borlotti, use dried beans and cook them slowly so they don’t split or go soggy.
Pantacce pasta, a lasagnette shape made by Molisana or any other medium-sized short pasta shape. I have used one large handful per person as I wanted the beans to star.
Some left over home-made tomato sugo, a few tablespoons per person. If you don;t have fresh tomatoes, use a good quality, thick tomato passata, cooked with a little garlic and oil.
finely chopped garlic to taste.
one finely chopped fresh chilli or a pinch or two of dried chilli flakes.
EV olive oil
fresh oregano, finely chopped.
fresh rugola ( rocket) torn.

Method

Boil pasta in abundant salted water until al dente. Keep back some of the cooking water.
Meanwhile, in a wide and deep pan, add some olive oil to the pan and heat it on medium. Add the garlic, chilli, and oregano. Stir about for one minute then add the tomato sugo or passata, a few tablespoons per person. Stir through the beans, season well, then add the cooked pasta. Use a tablespoon or two of the pasta cooking water to loosen the sauce. The dish needs to be well sauced. Bring the dish to high heat, stirring, then add the rocket and move it about until it wilts. Serve hot with a drizzle of good oil.
Pasta e Fagioli, many ways to enliven a traditional dish.

Footnote. Sometimes I mention brand names in my posts. I don’t receive any recompense for this, although if some came my way, I wouldn’t say no. Some Australian readers have been asking about brands of pasta to use and so I have decided to mention a few in these pasta posts. De Cecco is still my favourite.

When Autumn Leaves

Autumn is many seasons rolled into one. Gone now are the Keatsian days of early Autumn, that abundant time when the garden finally comes good with the fully blown fruits of an earlier season’s hard work. Then my mornings were filled with preserving: now I sweep and rake fallen leaves and gather ‘morning wood’, dry sticks and kindling to store for lighting fires. I often think of Lao Tzu when sweeping. An old black and white ink print on rice paper rises again to haunt me, flashbacks of Nepal, Swayambhunath and Francis, friend and Nepalese expat who helped revive the lost art of Tibetan ink printing during the 70s. Daoist, peaceful, impressionistic, the memory of this print and the act of sweeping helps clear the brain.

Daily raking and sweeping. Melia Azederach sheds early and often.

Autumn’s cold snap, a preparation for things to come, is followed by days of sunshine and warm weeks, a glorious Indian summer, confusing some plants and encouraging others to linger. Chillies have re-flowered, fruit tree buds are swelling: all in vain I’m afraid.

May 26: Borlotti beans are flourishing but I’m keeping an eye on them.

Just as I begin to indulge in the melancholy that comes with late Autumn, along come the Borlotti beans in their splendid pink scribbled coats and plump promise. I’ve been watching them and feeling them for weeks. One of their alternate names in Italian is Fagioli Scritti, a more vivid and appropriate title for this colourful and useful bean. I grow the tall variety and usually plant them late in the season. They are adapting to our microclimate as the same seeds are picked late and saved from year to year.

The cheery colour of pink tinged lettuce is also a mood changer. All the lettuces are better in the cold: cos and romaine, curly endive, bitter escarole, the butterheads and the soft oakleaf varieties, rugola, each one delicious on its own but more so when mixed. Large pink radishes and the ‘heart of darkness’ radicchio are now in their prime. Beautiful colours painted by cold.

This version of Autumn Leaves seems to suit this season. It makes sense of nostalgia, missing and parting more than the crooning versions of the 50s, although the original French version, Les Feuilles Mortes, written in 1945, is also rather charming.

Repurposed Garden Art

Saturday WordPress photo challenges usually see me trawling through my travel files in search of a colourful response. This week’s challenge, Repurpose, drove me to the garden.

I couldn’t part with my old enamel teapots. They turn up in all sorts of places in the garden.

I am rather partial to junk: I’ve managed to successfully refurbish my home with other people’s discards. It’s in the garden that repurposing is most at home. I use old dog beds, stripped of their comfy covers then recovered with shade cloth, as protection for delicate new seedlings. Old worn out pool lounge chairs get the same treatment, their metal frames so handy in the vegetable garden. Black poly piping is bent into hoops, supported by found metal reo from building sites, creating frames for shade cloth or bird netting. Shabby looking clothes airers, long past their prime, become supports for cucumbers.

In one corner of my ornamental garden, found objects create a structure and backdrop for birds, succulents and herbs. Most of these objects, old teapots, vintage metal grape harvest bins, broken cups, beautiful colonial enamel ware jugs and a rusty metal chair, are survivors of the Black Saturday Bushfire. My enamel jugs and teapots added a colonial air to my former home. Rusted and tarnished from fire and rain, they now live in peace in my garden.

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