Ubi Kentang 'Royal Blue"

Before living in Australia, I never knew that there are so many types of potatoes. Furthermore,different variety of potatoes also have different texture when cook and are put in categories like salad potato, waxy or floury. Some variety of potato are all purpose use, or good only for boiling or roasting. I am going to admit I am still not good at remembering which type of potatoes is good for boiling/roasting and so on. I still don't know much how to differentiate or understand the term  'waxy' or 'floury' potato. Maybe you can  give me some tips?

             

 Last year end of winter, I tried growing 'Royal Blue' potatoes which is an all purpose potato with purple skin and yellow golden flesh. See how different the 'Royal Blue' potato skins compared with other potato variety in the top basket.

Sprouted 'Royal Blue' potato  ready for planting.

'Royal Blue' potato seedlings.

 Instead growing the sprouted spuds in the same patch last year at the end of winter, I planted them in different location because I wanted to see how they grow in different spot around our house. This plant that was growing next to a row of bush beans and tomato plant grow very fast. But I suspect the heat from the brick drive pathway help a bit during the unpredictable weather in spring season. I usually stop dreaming planting potato in our scorching summer unless growing them in partial shade  with much lesser yield. So for summer, we swap growing potato with sweet potatoes.

The first heat wave visited early as always at the end of spring and some potato plants could not withstand the heat and few of the potato plant died earlier than I would like to start harvesting those potatoes. The almost 4 months old 'Blue Royal' potato did gave us a decent harvest size of baby potatoes in such an early stage compared to other potato varieties that we planted last year.

 The 'Blue Royal' potato can also be grown in our garden well at early autumn for winter fresh harvest. It is a reliable potato for us to grow twice a year in our micro-climate. So far, 'Blue Royal' potatoes gave the most yield per-plant in our garden compared to others in terms of quantities or production. Another all purpose potato that does well in our garden is Desiree.

Have a lovely weekend!

Selamat Hari Raya Haji.

Treasure Hunting

 My mental health is recovering slowly than my impatient side would like too. But it is a positive thing and something I should be grateful that I did not seem at the moment succumbing to postnatal depression while I am having mental depression and trying to overcome it.  Some days are good that I wake up and feel motivated instead of lying on the bed and not looking forward to anything. Its still a fragile thing and could be a false feeling so I am taking tentative baby steps not to be overdoing myself with too much planning or multitasking. There is still many unsettled things which worries me so I need to remind myself to not set unrealistic goal or dealing with high expectation. Sigh, one step at a time. I need to learn how to enjoy doing one thing at a time instead of doing so many things at once. For example, on my good days I can cook while washing dishes, clean the counter top, laundry and I can also do some weeding or sowing seeds in between waiting for the dish to cook or stirring. But my husband he does one task at a time even though he have some breaks in between. It is no wonder I make myself crazy while doing tasks at hand my brain also seems to be planning what to do ahead running into different direction planning non-stop, can't control and it goes chaotic. It made me think that I have some kind of mental disorder. I struggle to focus on one thing at a time. Physically I feel much better and more energetic after postnatal birth from last week. I am urged and advise to go out and socialise a bit to prevent me being isolated and fall to depression by professional help. Yet, I don't feel like going out at all. The only place I will go out to is the garden. Since I feel physically better now, we have been clearing up the garden bits by bits and found lots of treasures or basically free food last week. 

 A small spot in the garden was sprawled with autumn self-seeded tomato plants overlapping each other. These tomato plants flower during winter but I don't think with the cold temperature it will set fruit. However, after I made an effort to stake these tomato plant last weekend and gave some pruning found some ripened tomatoes and there are already producing fruits. I guess the warming temperature has able those flowers to set fruit. One of the plants has actually grown more than 5 feet tall when I pull it upright and tied it on the emergency support. I was not sure how many tomato plants before and now it is 3 tomato plants on that spot. Some of the cape gooseberries fruits has also matured and drop to the weeds underneath hiding these golden fruits. If my boys are here with me, I don't think mama and papa will have their fair share of these delicious golden fruits. I think they would certainly enjoy these golden 'berries' very much. I did not realised how many self-seeded tall red celery have grown among our backyard container gardens in between other plants and they sure have grown. The celery stalk surprisingly juicy when relying on rain water only. We also harvested some peas and broccoli shoots last week. We harvested all of our Early Horn carrots last week grown in container.

 Here is half of the patch in front of the kitchen window that I have cleared on the weekend. Everything on this patch are self-seeded plants except for 2 foxglove plant which has been completely   hidden. Most of these volunteers are celery and chervil.

Celery from the patch above.

I remembered we had several self-sprouted potato plant on the front yard in different places. However with weed competition and pest attacking the plant many plants got lost while they were growing around 20cm tall. Last weekend while my husband cleared up the front yard and pulling out all the weeds he found several small sizes of potatoes from the potatoes that perished early and lost in sight. Surprisingly, one self-sprouted Royal Blue potato that got lost under sunflower and rose geranium plant has produced decent harvest. The Royal Blue potato plant was not there anymore but somehow I remembered there was a potato plant growing on that spot. So lucky we blindly dug around that area an hit a jackpot.

We are blessed with many volunteer rainbow chards plants  last autumn and this spring I found several new seedlings as well while clearing up and left them undisturbed. Hopefully these seedlings will provide us harvest during summer. Summer month is actually the season which we don't really have much to harvest compared to other season. Lettuce are also plenty still to pick around the garden. But it will be time to say goodbye to lettuce by next month if I don't sow a new batch of lettuce this week.

We also harvested some florence fennels, beetroots, top purple turnips and kohlrabi this week.

There are still many spots to clear up.

Join in Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandellion.

Harvest during Christmas week till before New Year

I had to decide to harvest many of our vegetables the day before we have extreme weather so that it won't be much a waste especially the leafy green ones. Well the fruits can be affected as well if left hanging on the plants. For example, it does not surprise me to see burn tomatoes or dehydrated wrinkled chillies on the plant. Sadly many of our tomatoes has been dropping from the stem before it turns red in this hot weather. Even the carrot root top that is exposed are all wrinkly and dehydrated. Not as juicy as the ones we grow in our cool season. Our Lebanese zucchini has started to produce male and female flower nicely but with this hot weather it won't set fruit well. Fortunately, the bonica eggplant that we grow in partial shade has managed to produce some fruit. We harvested our first medium size Challenger tomato before Christmas, although some were effected by the scorching sun. We also harvested several varieties of cherry tomatoes these past week.

Harvested all of our hon tsai tai greens.

Had to harvest some of the leek which is still 'baby' cause they are showing the tell-tale sign of forming the flower stalk. The environment stress has probably cause those leeks to produce flower quickly to reproduce. After the extreme weather passed, we probably have to pull out many baby leek. At the moment, I am keeping cool in the house and will access the damage after the weather cools down a bit. I am being pampered at the moment cause dear hubby waters the plants in the evening.

There were several potato plants that had dried long time, so harvested some potatoes.

I just remembered that I planted some 'Ruby Lou' or was it called 'Ruby Red' potatoes a few months ago after I dug out those potatoes.

Surprisingly, our last Italian Sprouting Broccoli  plant still produce some broccoli shoots to harvest in warm weather. Pick the largest Pak choi to harvest before their leaves were burned. The younger Pak Choi leaves growing in the garden has been burned now. Don't know whether pruning them later is worth the try but there are always hope.

On Christmas day, we went fishing at Moonta and the weather was very windy. Not a very calm day, we left early but hubby caught some crabs to bring back.

I wonder whether we have anything to harvest this week after extreme hot weather. 

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

Salmon and Green Bean Potato Patties

Many of our potato plants gone yellow and wilted. So had to dig and find spuds. Although I do wish that they grow much longer, rather than finding so many tiny little spuds. Because many of the plants are rather young. Yesterday, pull out some dragon carrots and purple top turnip as well.

Not many edibles to harvest from the garden at the moment. So we have to depend on our frozen goods. We are trying to use up our frozen beans from last summer which should be more than 9 months sitting in the freezer now. So we found this recipe to enjoy those fresh potato and carrot with some of those frozen bean. This is our first time joining in Robin's Thurday's Kitchen Cupboard.

Salmon and Green Bean Potato Patties

(adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly~The $ Smart Cook)

150 gram green beans
800 gram potatoes, chopped coarsely
20 gram butter
1/3 cup (25gram) finely grated parmesan cheese
1 egg
415 gram can red salmon
1/3 cup (35gram) packaged breadcrumbs
vegetable oil, for shallow-frying
3 medium size carrot (coarsely grated)


(1) Boil, steam or microwave beans until tender; drain. Rinse under cold water; drain. Chope coarsely.
(2) Boil, steam or microwave potato until tender; drain. Mash potato in large bowl with butter, cheese and egg until smooth.
(3) Drain salmon; discard skin and bones. Add salmon, carrot and beans to potato mixture; mix well. Shape salmon mixture into patties; coat in breadcrumbs. Place patties on tray, cover; refrigerate 30 minutes.
(4) heat oil in large frying pan; fry patties, in batches until browned lightly and heated through. Drain on absorbent paper.

A very very very simple lunch.

Spicy Sardine and Spaghetti Bake

We harvested our first Lebanese zucchini for this summer. This is our first time growing 'Lebanese zucchini', so I was not sure what size is perfect to harvest this variety. Did not want it to get too mature or it will stop other fruits to develop. A few leeks and another one kohlrabi harvested this week. 

Our Lebanese brinjal plant that has now experience 3 summers did not disappoint us. We just enter summer and that old brinjal plant has given us roughly 10 eggplants for us. We had endless supply of yellow currant cherry tomatoes last week.

What did we do with the cherry tomatoes?

The second recipe that I enjoyed from this recipe book.

 Spicy Sardine and Spaghetti Bake (The Australian Women's Weekly~Gratins & Bake recipe book)

Ingredients:
250g spaghetti
1 cup (70g) stale breadcrumbs
1/3 finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (used curly ones)
1/3 cup (80ml) olive oil
318g canned sardines in oil, drained
250g cherry tomatoes, chopped coarsely (did not chopped)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 teaspoon dried chilli flakes

(1) Cook pasta in large saucepan of boiling water until tender; drain and reserved 1/3 cup (80ml) cooking liquid.
(2) Preheat oven to 220 degree Celsius.
(3) Combine breadcrumbs, parsley and 1 tablespoon of the oil in medium bowl.
(4) Heat remaining oil in same pan; cook sardines, tomato, garlic and chilli, stirring, until tomato begins to soften. Stir in pasta; season to taste.
(5) Spoon mixture into 1litre (8cup) ovenproof dish; pour reserved cooking liquid. Sprinkle with breadcrumb mixture. Bake, uncovered, about 10 minutes or until browned lightly.

Sardines and this yellow cherry tomatoes goes well together.

Rayyan enjoying the pasta.

One funny-looking purple savoy cabbage was harvested.

Two of our 3.5 months grown Royal Blue potato plant were all dried up due to the hot weather. It was a trial to plant potato on our most sunny patch at the end of winter. It grows really fast but the soil is too hot now. Touching the soil on that area is very hot during mid-day. I won't be able to walk on it barefoot. So I have to reluctantly dig the spud out early cause it was supposed to be medium-late variety. There still supposingly  in their baby stage. The trial is half-successful since there were at least 12 medium~large size spuds from each plants. Not bad considering it just been 3.5 months since I planted the seed potatoes. I probably grow this potato variety again because the yield is good even on shorter growing time.

Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.

Our October Container Garden

Almost half of our garden containers are dominated by allium family at the moment such as garlic, elephant garlic, shallots, spring onions, chives and leeks. Some of the containers that has garlic growing in them are inter-planted with carrots. Dragon carrots growing in containers are showing the sign of growing flower stalk, so I probably have to harvest all of them this week. I will perhaps leave a few dragon carrot plants to flower.

Growing different varieties of garlic on this corner. White sweet potato plants that I planted last August growing in this big round pot. Our lemon grass plant growing in pot are almost bald since it has been dormant through cool season while we harvested some for cooking.

Some containers which has just been planted some seed potatoes in it. Sweet potato plants that we left growing through winter has survived. It looks a bit sad but warmer weather will helped it to bounce back. This sweet potato plants has provide me with new shoots to cut and grow new plants. Other plants in this corner are parsnips, topweight carrots and leeks.

We are experimenting growing shallots in container. Topweight carrots sowed last August seems to be growing much faster this month. We cut some strawberry runners from our 2 years old strawberry plant and growing side by side with pansy. Red Choi seems to put on more growth this week.

This corner of our container garden is nurturing Florence fennels, leeks, parsnip, strawberries and potatoes.

What is your main plants growing in your container garden?

Major Saving This Week

Starting from this week, instead of cutting big stems from our rainbow chards for the kitchen, we harvested the whole plant. We are coming closer to spring and many of our vegetables are showing the sign of entering the next phase to reproduce which is flower and later on producing seeds. Italian sprouting broccoli plants are producing many side-shoots and enough for at least 2 meal portions weekly. A few precious tomatoes ripening in this end winter season to harvest. Cut some herbs such as dill and Chinese celery for cooking. We also harvested the last potato plants (sebago, pink-fir eye) that were planted last fall. Lettuces are also available to pick any time from the garden.

We pull out the last Afghanistan carrots that were growing on the veggie patch. Leaving a few big carrots to flower to collect seeds later. One of the carrots have already starting to bloom and I am excited because this will be the first time I am collecting carrot seeds. I have already direct-sowed beetroot seeds on that spot that were growing that carrots last weekend. Next carrot harvest, we have to rely with the ones growing in containers. Carrots and potatoes seems to be never enough for us. So this month we prioritise empty veggie patch corner or containers for sowing carrot seeds and potatoes. Our komatsuna and tatsoi greens are producing flower buds so we had a rush harvest. Other vegetables that were harvested last week was snow peas, yellow cherry tomatoes and spring onions.

Our major saving for this week for our kitchen cost is actually blue-swimmer crab.

I had a break from the garden last weekend.

We all went for a long weekend fishing trip.

Fishing trip but we caught no fish.

However, we were pretty happy with the numbers of crabs that were caught.

We caught more than 30 crabs.

In summer when crab is in season it cost AUD13.00perkilogram (cheapest).

It is winter and crabs are not in season.

Usually 2 big crabs are almost a kilogram.

We saved at least total AUD200 this week for the kitchen cost, thanks to gardening and crabbing.

My favourite to prepare crab is Chilli crab.

Any other suggestion will be most appreciated (you can even paste the recipe link).

My family also caught a few squids.

The gardener got to rest this week.

When the others went fishing out in the cold winter night at the jetty, I snuggled with my boys in the cabin. 

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

Battata Harra (Hot Spicy Potatoes)

Ramadan has begun and I would like to try a simple dish that is commonly prepared in many kitchen at the Middle East to break our fast after sunset. We had some new potatoes harvested last week and it is perfect for Battata Harra (hot spicy potatoes) that I found in Ghillie Basan's The Middle Eastern Kitchen recipe book. A very quick and simple dish to prepare when you don't have much energy left in the late afternoon while getting used to fasting in this early month of Ramadan. We had to harvested some green tomatoes since we cleared the patch. Not much peas to harvest this week but snow peas are not too bad.

Battata Harra (Hot Spicy Potatoes)

Ingredients (serves 4):
4 Tablespoons olive oil
450g new potatoes, peeled and diced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3hot chillies, chopped ( this will be up to you how spicy you want this dish, for me that is not enough)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
salt
Juice of half lemon
A small bunch fresh coriander chopped

Heat the olive oil in a heavybased frying pan and add the potatoes.
Fry until browned and crispy, then stir in garlic, chillies and cumin seeds.

Fry for a minute or two longer, then season with salt, refresh with lemon juice, and sprinkle the coriander over the top. Enjoy.Selamat Berbuka Puasa.

 I think this will be much healthier than masak berlada (food fried coated with chilli paste) which is one of the favourite food in my family home. Hopefully my mama can persuade papa to try this dish. My papa enjoy hot and spicy food too much, at the point he can't live without it. He sulks each time when mama cook chicken with soy sauce which is not spicy for my boys...hehehe...

I am late for Daphne's Harvest Monday.

Surprisingly yellow cherry tomatoes, capsicum and chillies managed to keep on producing non-stop through winter this year, although we have already entered end winter. Some tatsoi were about to bolt, so I harvested them. We foresee that rainbow chards and purple giant mustards are regulars in our kitchen this month. Cut some sunflowers to cheer up the kitchen as well. Some beetroot were also harvested last week.

Our Italian sprouting broccoli plants are starting to produce many side shoots which I hope I can keep up harvesting them before it flowers this month. Occasionally lettuce are harvested for Ilhan sandwiches pack into his lunch box to kindergarten. We also have to keep on eye on the Pak Choi and harvest them before it flowers. We had fun pulling some parsnip tops and see how long it has grown last week.

We harvested most of our kailan (chinese broccoli) because it is producing flowers. Isn't it nice to harvest carrots that gives you many fingers which each one is much much much bigger than baby carrots. A bonus when one carrot plants give many fingers bigger the size of baby carrot. The feeling is like we harvested 7 different carrot plants when you are actually pulling out one plant. Afghanistan carrot is one of the best tasting carrot in soup/korma because it tasted so creamy (lemak) cook this way! The taste is so different than the normal orange carrot.Wish me luck with collecting Afghanistan carrot this year.

Giant Purple Mustard and Wong Bok Week

Well the main harvest for last week as the tittle says are Giant Purple Mustard and Wong Bok. The not so pretty wong bok are going to bolt soon so we harvested most of them. We transplanted cauliflower seedlings on the area that were growing wong bok last weekend. Giant purple mustard inter-planted with potatoes were also harvested with many holes on the leaves. In they go into Rayyan's ikea baby bathtub for a good washing to get rid of pest and dirt. Not good plastic quality as you can see the tub already broken on the sides. We recycled the baby bathtub to wash vegetables outside which is easier than in the sink.

Some rainbow chard were harvested too last week.

We harvested some Kennebec potatoes and a leek sowed last winter.

Made beef curry and cook the newly harvested potato together.

Tossed some chilies in for a good sweat in this cold winter night.

Rayyan tongue was on fire since he insisted to have a taste despite several warnings.

We have many not good looking vegetables this week~deformed Afghanistan carrot thinnings, peas that did not grow the size of usual pod, and very short sweet corns because the plants were about 50cm tall. Unattractive they look but taste good. Considering that they still managed to give us something for the kitchen in middle of winter. One long pepper bell did managed to turn red this week. Snow peas, chillies and yellow cherry tomato are still plenty to harvest which is good for the kitchen supply and at least we have something other than mustard and wong bok for last week.

For Wendy Garden To Table Challenge for this week is Anchovies Fried Rice. Since our sweet corns were not many and we have 5 people in the house so that everyone can have a taste, the kernels were taken out from the cob and toss into the fried rice.It has been such a busy week that I think we had fried rice 3 times last week. Sorry my boys, at least it is not instant food. Nothing wasted in the kitchen, having left over rice from yesterday and chopped fresh vegetables for a quick hot meal came out from the wok.

Join in Harvest Monday with Daphne as our host.