Back to one of my favourite topics – eating what is in season.
Last night we had salmon for dinner. While the salmon is not strictly local, it does come from Australian waters. It is farmed in the clear water of the Huon River estuary in southern Tasmania. The salmon could hardly be considered a budget meal as it costs about $10 for enough for 2 serves. We always barbeque the salmon and season it with a little salt and some lime juice to enhance the flavour.
I served it with pumpkin mash, stir-fried pak choy, balsamic roasted cherry tomatoes and avocado slices. I poured some of the balsamic/tomato juice over the salmon as a glaze to finish it off. All of these ingredients came from our garden so you can’t get much more seasonal or local than that. It also means that a meal of salmon is quite a reasonable price. What would you pay in a restaurant for a meal like this? $30 – $35 perhaps?
Not every meal contains as much of our own garden produce but I do try to include it as much as possible. Tonight we are having pizza which will be spread with mango chutney (made from the neighbour’s mangoes) instead of tomato paste and have balsamic roasted pumpkin as the main topping.
We have had a bumper harvest of pumpkins this year so I am constantly looking for creative ideas to use them. As well as the ubiquitous pumpkin soup, pumpkin mash and being used on pizza topping I have also made some pumpkin scones recently.
What do you have a glut of? Do you have any pumpkin suggestions?
organised castle 
We tend to share as we go so nothing spoils but have shared plenty in the past couple of weeks and today I turned our broccoli into soup. For pumpkin I have this recipe which you could adapt for GF.
Golden Cake
1/4 cup margarine
1 cup sugar (you could use some apple puree)
2 eggs
1 cup hot mashed pumpkin
1 tblsp syrup
2 cups SR flour
1 cup mixed fruit
Combine ingredients in the order written above. Bake in a moderate oven 1 hour 10 mins.
I also freeze the mashed pumpkin when I am getting near the end of a pumpkin.
Don’t forget your pumpkin lasagne. Yum
It is great that you are able to share the harvest. The Golden Cake sounds delicious.
Because I am on a mostly grain free diet I made a cake slice thingy with pumpkin puree, pureed white beans, an egg or 2 and some sweetener. I might have had some EVOO in as well. It is really nice. I had one with just the pumpkin and I made another one with cocoa powder in to make it chocolaty (sp?). I forgot. A dash of pure vanilla is nice.
That sounds like a great alternative for your grain free diet.
Awesome post and thank you for sharing I have been turning some of my green leaves from chard kale and lettuce into a smoothie with add fruit
I have lots of kale in the garden – must try them in a smoothie. Thanks for the idea.
your most welcome
I still have lots and lots of basil in my garden and it is the end of June. Normally it has well and truly died off. I am popping basil in lots of things and of course I have frozen some with olive oil in ice-cube trays to use later.
It is late to have basil. Great idea to store it for later use.
Being in the other hemisphere, we have no squashes whatsoever at the moment. But we do have a vast amount of rhubarb, which I often simply cook gently with a small amount of sugar or honey (our own honey) and eat as it is, sometimes with plain yogurt or vanilla ice cream. Other times I’ll make a pie, with or without added berries for extra colour. Or use in a cake, like you would apple. It also freezes extremely well (diced), and keeps for ages that way.
What do you use for your pizza base, if you have to go gluten free?
That looks a most delightful and delicious meal fit for kings. I Love pumpkin mash.
We have a glut of mushrooms having being given some kindly by a friend who put mushroom compost round her citrus trees and then ended up with heaps of plate size mushrooms which keep growing…except at the moment cause it’s a bit dry….yummo mushrooms 🙂
Alexa here from a cold and windy Sydney in Australia
http://www.Alexa-asimplelife.com