veggie patch inspiration

We've been the recipient of some lovely veggie patch produce recently. Very kind. I'm loving it. So now searching The Cook's Companion by Stephanie Alexander for some good ideas. Seriously the best asset for the Australian cook. We went back to an old favourite for the zucchini. And everyone loved it (though we had to leave the tomato off for the two little ones). I only have access to a less recent copy at the moment so it didn't have the zucchini slice recipe that I normally use, but you can also find it here, I just added the slices of tomato. So yum. BTW so filling - perfect for staving off any sugar cravings.

We've also been enjoying some beetroot. Although these were a bit fibrous, I think we let them go too far. The interesting thing is that you can use the young leaves as salad leaves. But I was tempted to leave them as table decoration. They are so pretty and tint the water a lovely pink. 

For our beetroot salad I used roasted beetroot, mixed salad leaves, blanched asparagus, roasted pine nuts, perino tomatoes, goats cheese and my new favourite dressing. I also served it with roast beef.

But can I go on about my new favourite dressing? Yes I can. I was recently was given a beautiful bottle of roasted walnut oil from the Loire Valley. So I searched for some dressing recipes since walnuts go fabulously with beets so I loosely adapted this one found here. Seeing as I'm loathe to add another speciality vinegar to my vinegar collection, my recipe is as follows:

Walnut Oil Dressing
1/4 cup walnut oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp seeded mustard

Whisk together. Yum.

Finally, we're trying this one tonight so I'll have to report back. But this sounds fantastic. A gratin recipe using the stalks of your silver beet. It also has cream and blue cheese so it's bound to be delish. This is another Cook's Companion recipe. And it makes good use of the bits I don't use so much anyway. I made a silver beet and ricotta pie with the leaves. Here's something to try with the stalks. Brilliant.

Actually one more thing. This evening we're trying mint ice cream with a bunch of fresh mint leaves from the back yard. The mixture is cooling as we speak and should be ready for churning tonight. Mmmmm.