Favorite garden recipe

[GardenRN]

I am planning to go one month this summer without eating anything other than out of the garden. In fact the only thing I will be willing to add to my recipes other than the fruit and veggies will be bread (like if everything is on a sandwich), pasta (because I make that by hand anyways from scratch), and herbs and spices that I may not be growing. that's it.

So I will need some good recipes to get me through the month! Put up some of your best that only use veggies. Don't worry about what I'm growing, just post it, I have extra room this year so if I really want to try a recipe I can either substitute or I may try to grow whatever it is I need. However you may want to keep in mind that I will have eggs because a friend and I are getting chickens this spring.

Thanks everybody! BTW, this is not at all an attempt to go vegetarian, it's more an experiment in how I eat and how sustainable the garden is compared to what I can consume.

[!potatoes!]

whole garden, right? fair amount of nutrition in insects, you know!
let me think about this a bit...

[gumbo2176]

I grill a lot of the veggies out of my summer garden. Okra, yard long beans, squash, peppers etc. I'll simply cut the yard longs into 6-8 inch lengths, cut the squash lengthwise, leave the peppers whole and make a raft out of the okra using 2 skewers. For the okra, I'll alternate the direction of the pods and skewer 6-8 of them together. For all the veggies, I'll brush on some olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper and grill till done.


I also like to take a clove of garlic and mince it fine, pour a teaspoon of salt on it and using the side of my chef's knife, pull it along the chopping board to make a paste. Put the garlic paste in a bowl then add olive oil, balsamic vinegar and some black pepper and make a dressing. Then take a couple tomatoes, sliced cucumbers and a bit of fresh basil, place that in the bowl and toss till well coated. Refrigerate this for a couple hours for a nice cool salad with a little zing.

[DoubleDogFarm]

Jeff,

You may not want to use your oven in the heat of the Summer, but I think roasted vegetables are hard to beat. Carrots, parsnips, potatoes, onion, peppers, squash etc toss in a bowl with oil and herbs. Mix until all surfaces are covered and spread them out on a baking sheet. Roast in the oven until caramelized.

Eric

[rainbowgardener]

Stir fry! Totally adaptable! Tonight I was cooking to feed 40 at Tender Mercies shelter for homeless mentally ill. I didn't have enough of any one ingredient for an actual recipe for 40. So I basically stirfried most of the veggies in the house (lots and lots of carrots, onion, cabbage, potatoes, turnip, cauliflower) in a couple cups of oil with salt, pepper, cumin, turmeric and coriander measured in tablespoons. These spices were inspired by an Ethiopian recipe.

You can use curry powder, cumin, mustard, turmeric, coriander, cayenne, cardamom (maybe with ginger and cloves) to make your stir fry a curry.

You can use bean sprouts, water chestnuts, soy sauce, ginger, mustard, lemon grass, mint, basil, garlic, coconut milk for Asian inspired stir fry.

Add beans, chili powder, cayenne, cumin, cilantro, oregano, cinnamon, cloves, chipotle and your stir fry is latin flavored (great wrapped in a tortilla)

Of course basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme, sage and plenty of garlic and tomato makes an Italian stirfry that is great over pasta.

It basically doesn't matter much what the veggies are as long as there's some onion and garlic! Secret to stir fry is to warm the spices in the oil first to bring out the flavors, then add the toughest veggies first, most tender last. Stir fry quickly over moderate heat, JUST until tender crisp, don't over do it. You want your veggies still solid and crisp. But whatever you have in your garden works like this!!!

[Dillbert]

when you get the pond finished, holler.

I've got a nice dish I call "Garden Fresh Trout"

[GardenRN]

RG, I like the herb/spice mixes....I love stir fry. I made a lot last summer. But I always struggle a bit with spices so that'll help a lot!

Eric, roasting sounds good, especially when I think of the potatoes, squash and onions!

[rainbowgardener]

Good luck on the eating from the garden project; keep us posted on how it is going.

In the growing season, I only eat veggies either from my garden or from my local CSA farm. And I get organic free range eggs from a local grower. And I'm vegetarian, so I never eat meat anyway. But that still leaves me buying a lot of things at the grocery - soymilk, rice and other grains, bread, cheese and other dairy products, some fruits, beans (this year I'm going to try growing a few more with my community garden plot), black tea for me and coffee for the spouse, some of the more exotic herbs (like a lot of the stuff listed in the stir fry recipes), etc .

Eating locally grown (never mind just from my own garden) seems like a great goal, but I don't know how close to it I'm ever going to get.

[GardenRN]

Cut broccoli into bite-size pieces, toast a handful of pecans, chop a red onion, and mix all in a bowl. In a small bowl put mayonnaise, a dash of white pepper, lemon juice, and a pinch of sugar. Mix well and stir into vegetable mixture. Refrigerate for about an hour to let flavors blend.

Sounds good. I'm borderline on the mayonnaise. I like it, but "just from the garden" and I can't grow mayo. IDK if it qualifies as just a flavoring thing. So much fat. Sugar is definitely out. I think I'm pretty much limiting the additives from out of the garden to olive oil, spices and herbs I'm not growing, bread (homemade), and pasta (homemade from scratch only), and I think that's about it.

Don't get me wrong, the recipe sounds great. I just have to be careful not to throw in too many exceptions when the goal is to eat strictly out of the garden.

[rainbowgardener]

Oh yeah, olive oil and canola oil should definitely have been on my list of things I buy at the grocery.

[lorax]

Gotta be the Locros, for me. These are veggie based soups that are both simple as heck and extremely tasty.

The base: make a veggie stock out of whatever you've got on hand. It's particularly good with green beans, broccoli/cauliflower/romanesco, celery, and carrots. Oh, and mushrooms, and salt. Once the broth has a good colour and flavour, strain out the veggies and reserve them.

The potatoes: chunk up some potatoes and simmer them in the broth until they're tender.

Now the variations!

Locro de papas: To your base, add some glassified onions and a pinch of achiote. Return the veggies to the base and blender the heck out of it until it's creamy.

Locro de Zapallo: Add some chunks of squash to your base, simmer until tender, return the veggies, add a clove of garlic, and blender the heck out of it until it's creamy.

Locro de Zambo: Cream the potato base, then add two or three finely sliced zucchinis and a dollop of ginger to the soup and simmer until the zucchs are tender.

Locro de Zanahoria: Prepare the base primarily with carrots and perhaps a bit of broccoli/cauliflower. Puree this with a bit of ginger and garlic and serve cold on hot days. Soooo good.

[DoubleDogFarm]

Rats! I was going to add bacon and raisins to marlingardeners recipe.

Eric

[DoubleDogFarm]

editing

I don't know if anyone else has tried this with stir fry. I've notice with a hot wok and cold oil food doesn't stick. I like to heat the dry wok, fearly hot, toss in the oil then veggies / pork. Toss them in one two.

Eric

[GardenRN]

Shame, 'cause I have a great fried chicken recipe!

Chickens I will have!

[GardenRN]

Oh, and possibly squirrel and rabbit. I know how to dress these, but just learned how to make a snare trap not too long ago. A week into that month when I'm dying for a piece of meat and I'm not ready to kill one of my 2 chickens, I will probably have snare traps all over my back yard lol.