Article by: Sought After Seedlings
Supplier of Franchi Sementi Heirloom Seeds & Victory Ticket Organic Seedlings
Christmas in the southern hemisphere is very different to the commonly shown snow bound sled – but oh! The food! We all love to indulge and do our very best to serve up the ‘Feast of the Year’, from our organic vegetable gardens (like at GardenShop Bryanston). We will be sourcing everything we need besides animal protein, because we don’t have the chickens yet…
We are so lucky to be able to present colourful dishes just because the summer crops offer so much variety with so many shapes, colours and tastes. Making our work in our garden so worthwhile.
Come on, take the harvest basket, and let’s go and see what we can find for our feast. Of course GardenShop has everything you need for harvesting – gloves, secateurs, snippers, baskets and containers, sunhats, and don’t forget to kit out the kids to assist you in this pleasant task. And don’t forget to sing!
First we will harvest the marrows at various sizes for various purposes: Baby marrows, as we have called them for years, are simply that, so we let some of our marrows grow until they are really big, for soups and/or stuffing with meat or lentils and roasting in the oven. Delish!
The Franchi Sementi Lungo Bianco Marrow which is really big, we will cook, chopped with garlic and Rossa Lunga Sweet Onion, lightly fried in a little oil, after which we will add just enough water to cover the vegetables and allow them to cook until soft. Add salt and pepper. When it’s done, we will blitz it to a smooth consistency, and freeze, if you don’t need to use it now. When it will be served at our lunch feast, thawed, with cream added and croutons. Wow, a wonderful cold soup.
Our other cold soup or drinks will be gazpacho from our Franchi Sementi Cour di Bue Ox Heart Tomatoes. When your tomatoes are ripening on the plant, cover them with organza ripening bags to keep them free from pests and hungry birds. These bags are available at Gardenshop. We used over 1000 of these bags at the Saxon Hotel Organic garden.
Taken off the Internet is Julia Moskin’s recipe:
Chop about a kilo of tomatoes, put in a blender. Add peeled cucumber, two from the vine, one small onion, one clove garlic, and one pepper – blend until very smooth. Then add two tspns salt, and drizzle a half cup of olive oil. Add more olive oil for a creamier texture. If you want to serve as a drink, put through a sieve and discard the pulp. The result is a lovely coloured light and fresh drink.
Have a bountiful festive season and to get back into shape, at the end of January start getting your garden ready for planting up your winter organic vegetables. Oh the joys of growing your own!
