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

Fruit and vegetable harvest May 9 in a subtropical/warm temperate area of NSW

Bananas

Blue Browallia with red Irisene behind

Brazilian Spinach

Grapefruit

Coffee

Custard Apple

Mouse Melon

Perennial Capsicum

Basella

Edible Hibiscus

Fig

Jackfruit

Kent pumpkin

Lemon Basil

Lucullus silver beet

Mandarin

Meyer Lemon

Mountain Paw Paw

Naranjila flowers

Almost ripe Naranjila fruit

Bunchosia

Rocket

Single tree dahlia

Small white guava

Katuk/Sweet Leaf

Tamarillo

Tree Chili

Small cream guava

Wing Bean

Choko/Sechium edule

Cherimoya

Growing on December 26 in the southern hemisphere, a warm temperate/subtropical garden

Banana Passionfruit

Pumpkins, Carambola, Pecan Trees

Yellow flowered edible hibiscus with red hybrid canna

Choko on Carambola tree

Salvias at front of pic

Pineapples at front, beans on teepee, garlic in pots

Panama Berry

Protecting the mangoes from the flying foxes.

Salvia with yam growing through the bush.

Tamarillo

New vine spikes on yam

Choko or Chayote? - The most unappreciated vegetable in Australia!

"Chokos are commonly regarded as a boring vegetable; this mainly stems from ignorance about the correct time to harvest.

We don't expect a full size zucchini to have any flavour but for some reason we imagine that a full size choko should be tasty.

Start your harvest early by steaming the tender shoots and young leaves. Then pick the small, egg-sized chokos; these are simply delicious, with more flavour than most zucchinis. Steam them whole without peeling, chokos this size can be eaten raw, just like a cucumber.

A visitor from Mexico was horrified that we would even consider eating the bigger ones; apparently in Mexico they simply split them open to remove the nutritious and tasty seeds and feed the rest to the cows. I found it pretty funny that I had wasted my time for years removing the seed and throwing it away!

Chokos are native to the subtropics, perennial, very hardy, pest and disease free and so abundant. Compared to a zucchini, which is native to the Mediterranean and very vulnerable to powdery mildew, there is no contest about which one to grow if you live in warmer areas.

To plant a choko, all you need is a mature fruit from a kind neighbour or simply buy one from a fruit and vege shop. Keep it in the pantry until it sprouts and then dig a hole 12 cm deep. lay the choko on its side and cover with soil."

From Green Harvest Newsletter 

Productive Choko Vines - Successful Gardening with ...

www.annettemcfarlane.com/Stories/Choko.pdf

Productive Choko Vines – Love Them or Loathe Them? ©Annette McFarlane ... The choko (Sechium edule) is known by various names depending on the ...

Early winter recipes tasted at our June Workshop

Auntie Beryl's Choko Soup

Ingredients:

• 3 good sized chokos (chayote), peeled and chopped
• 2-3 rashers bacon (or substitute) finely chopped
• 1 large onion peeled and finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons of uncooked rice
• 3 chicken stock cubes (or vegetable stock)
• 6 cups water
• 2-3 teaspoons curry powder
• salt and pepper

Method:

• Saute bacon and onion
• Stir in rice, bacon and chokos
• Add stock cubes and water (or 6 cups of chicken/vegetable stock)
• Add salt and pepper to taste
• Simmer until choko is soft (approximately 30 minutes)
• Allow to cool then puree with a blender

Enjoying Choko Soup

* Aunty Beryl used Sanitarum Bacon Style Rashers and also vegetable stock to make this delicious soup. We all have loads of chokos at the moment and if not they are freely available in many local places including the old caravan park in Bellingen.










Savoury Muffins with Mushroom Plant, Basil, Sundried Tomato & Cheese

Ingredients

Spray Oil
2 cups self raising flour (fresh is best)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups tasty cheese and a 1/3 cup extra
1/4 cup sundried tomato, drained and coarsely diced

1/2 cup finely chopped basil and mushroom plant (young leafy tips)
1/4 cup toasted pine or macadamia nuts
1 cup milk
80g butter, melted
1 egg, lightly whisked

Method:

• Preheat oven to moderate 180 degrees C. Lightly spray a 12 hole muffin tray with oil.
• Sift flour and salt together  into a large bowl.
• Stir in cheese, tomatoes, basil & mushroom plant mix, and nuts
• In a jug combine milk, melted butter and whisked egg.
• Make a well in the centre of the dry ingrediaents. Add milk mixture all at once. Mix lightly until just combined.
• Spoon mixture evenly into prepared muffin tray and sprinkle with extra cheese.
• Bake 20 to 25 minutes until cooked when tested with a skewer.
• Cool in tray for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack.



Leela's Finger Sandwiches

• Delicious local 'Hearthfire' Spelt Bread topped with avocado, lettuce and cooked slices of capsicum.

Our perennial capsicum bushes are still fruiting. Avocados are hanging on our trees and will ripen after picking.

 Our workshop group worked on streamlining our seed packet labelling and providing more information on the packets. We have also placed some resources (see the new page link at Home) and will list our group's immediate goals on the blog under the Seed Savers Network Aims.

Linda's Orange & Cardamom Biscotti

3 egg whites

1/3 cup caster sugar

2/3 cup plain flour

Zest 2 oranges

½ cup blanched almonds

Linda's Orange & Cardamom Biscotti

¼ teaspoon ground cardamom

Optional: 1 teaspoon of Orange Liqueur

Preheat oven to 180’

Grease & line a loaf tin

Whip egg whites until stiff then gradually whisk in sugar

Gently fold in flour, zest, almonds, cardamom and Orange Liqueur.

Bake for 40 minutes.  Remove from tin and cool on rack.

When loaf is cold, slice into thin slices, spread on a baking tray and bake at 140’ for 15 minutes or until slices are crisp. 

Cool and store in an airtight container.


COMING SOON

Jeff's Moist Chunky Banana & Sultana Cake