Recipe: Green Vegetable Bake.

The half demolished Bake

I am always looking for recipes that utilise our abundant garden greens. The accompanying picture looks unappetising but the leftovers were refridgerated


 1. Collect your greens and any other vegetables. I prefer to use tomatoes in a salad rather than a bake but I use any of the following in a mix of greens :

• Small chokoes  • pumpkin leaves, • Katuk • Okinawa Spinach, • Ceylon Spinach, spinach • silver beet or beet leaves • Surinam Spinach • Brazil Spinach  •sweet potato leaves  • some chili or capsicum leaves • capsicum • various herbs • spring onions • Moringa leaves and flowers • cooked Chaya Spinach Tree leaves • cooked Warrigal Greens •mustard • rocket • zucchini 

2. Rinse well if required.

3. Fry some garlic and onion in oil (I prefer olive oil but coconut oil also works) .

4. In a 'kitchen whizz' chop a layer of hard vegetables such as pumpkin and carrot with the cooked onion and garlic. Add an egg or two and some cream or a little milk or yoghurt. Season. Also add some tasty cheese or feta cheese.

5. Layer the chopped vegetables in an oiled or buttered oven proof dish.

6.  'Whizz"/chop the green vegetables along with some seasoning,  eggs and a little milk or cream and add as another layer to the ovenproof dish. Keep the amounts of liquids small because the greens generate plenty of liquid. If you like you can just mix everything into one layer.

7. Bake for close to an hour in a moderate oven until dry on top.

8. Optional: Top with cheese (feta, tasty or parmesan) and bake for another 5 minutes.

9. Serve warm or cold with a salad.

See also:

Eat your Pumpkin leaves and links to vegetable recipes using indigenous plants

Some Edible Perennials - Tree Spinach, Moringa, Sweet Leaf & more

Tree Spinach

Some very useful links from Survival Gardener

http://survivalgardener.com/chaya-tree-spinach/

http://survivalgardener.com/2015/11/how-to-make-moringa-powder/

http://survivalgardener.com/katuk-sweet-leaf-bush/

http://survivalgardener.com/sissoo-spinach/ http://survivalgardener.com/

http://survivalgardener.com/2015/08/purslane-a-nutrient-dense-weed-with-high-omega-3/  

http://survivalgardener.com/2015/05/sweet-potato-greens-vs-prostate-cancer/

Sweet Leaf (Katuk)

Moringa

  and Pigeon Peas

http://survivalgardener.com/pigeon-peas/

"When they’re dry, you boil them longer,” says the West Indian native who goes by the name Mackadoo at Vermont Square Community Garden in Los Angeles. “My mother cooked chicken and rice and peas all the time.”

When green, the entire pod can be eaten, master gardener Tamiko Nakamoto says.

“In the Caribbean they also eat the young shoots just coming up,” says Nakamoto, also a member of the Vermont Square garden." Los Angeles Times

Bellingen Plant Fair- Our Bellingen Seed Savers Stall

Bellingen Seed Savers had their usual stall at the Spring Bellingen Plant Fair. It was very successful as usual.

Fi is selling our huge range of locally grown and packaged seeds.

We spreading the word about Okinawa Spinach, how easily it grows and how useful it is.

We even had some large cuttings of Moringa. I haven't yet seen the flowers grow into fruit in our semitropical/warm temperate climate.

If you are local and interested in attending our gatherings use the contact link at the bottom of our home page.

Perennial Staple Crops of the World

Coppiced mulberry leaf on contour at Las Cañadas for human food and
goat fodder. Overstory of nitrogen-fixing acacias.

Perennial Staple Crops of the World

This is a link to a website with some very useful information about some of the food crops we can or may be able to grow in our Bellingen locality.

Here is a tiny sample of this extensive information source.

Chaya/Tree Spinach (Cnidoscolus chayamansa), or Mayan spinach, is a shrub of the tropics and subtropics. It tolerates arid to humid conditions, in lowlands and highlands. Though raw leaves contain cyanide, the cooked leaves are very nutritious. Yields are very high, 20-30 tons per hectare fresh.

Katuk/Sweetleaf (Sauropus androgynous) is an Asian shrub with delicious leaves. Unlike most woody leaf crops it can be eaten raw. It likes humid tropical lowlands and thrives in the shade of fruit and nut crops. The protein content of fresh leaves is 6-10%.

Moringa/Drumstick Tree (Moringa oleifera, M. stenopetala) is a small tree of the tropics, thriving in arid and humid climates. The dried leaf is incredible nutritious, and used by nursing mothers in much of the tropics. If allowed to grow to tree form moringa produces nutritious pods, but for leaf production it is coppiced. Yields of moringa leaf are very high, 10-50 tons per hectare.

See also  SurvivalGardener.com

Seed Savers Visit to Bellingen North Bank Community Garden in August

Midday temperatures hovered around 20 degrees centigrade as we enjoyed another perfect late winter day on our visit to the North Bank Community Garden. This garden has four directors and operates on a voluntary basis. Volunteers help grow the vegetables and fruit and also share the produce. This community garden also hosts a 'for profit' seedling supply business. The garden has planted public gardens and fruit trees around Bellingen and is involved with the sharing of locally grown food. It is auspicing another community garden at Valla and another proposed garden at Brierfield.

 (Click on any photo to enlarge.)


Kohl Rabi is being harvested in the garden. This plant will soon be ready for harvesting.

 This bed of lettuces is waiting to be thinned.

A plentiful harvest of bottle gourds is drying in the open.

New beds are being carved into the rich soil. Loads of stable manure are being trucked in. Many of the gardens are designed in this free flowing design.

A huge tatsoi awaiting harvest.

One of the last cauliflowers is almost ready for picking.

The seedling production area is supplying local businesses as far west as Dorrigo. It therefore grows a range of seedlings, some suited to frosty areas and some suited to the lowland heat and humidity.

 Jess (left) is one of the directors and operates the seedling supply business.

New solar panels, courtesy of Bellingen Solar, have been erected in the ever-growing garden. The garden has plans to landscape the riverbank and extend the orchard.

 Is this a bed of leeks?

Members were able to collect rooted sections of Lemon Grass. Some of us had been sold Citronella Grass by nurseries. The Citronella grass is unsuitable for eating and can become weedy.

The community pizza oven and barbecue is well used.

 An arch of split and bound bamboo frames the view.

Mustard has self seeded around the garden, here growing under the ginger. The 'chooks' welcome the green feed produced by the garden.

The 'seed savers' gather to share seeds, ideas and food.  We shared many seeds. New seeds added to the seed collection included Thai Egg Tomato, climbing beans, Pie Melon and Linseed. We also shared seedlings of Irene's Bok Choy and Drumstick Tree (Moringa oleifera) cuttings.

Carol enjoys a local pecan nut. The platter has Carambola and citrus grown by David.