Monster Marrow Chutney

Have you seen this zucchini that Aldrum grew?

It weighed in at 2.5 kilos. I think he might be trying to prove something.

Yes, honey, I'm very impressed.

But now I have to do something with the monster and I think a chutney is the only way to make a meal of this beast.

This is a very English-style chutney - quite fruity and mild and goes particularly well with a sharp vintage cheese.

Monster Marrow Chutney

1 over-sized zucchini (I used around 2.5 kilos), diced
4 green apples, diced

4 med onions, diced

1 cup brown sugar

500 ml white wine vinegar

1 cup sultanas soaked in vinegar

2 tbs salt

2 tbs powdered ginger

Bouquet garni:
1 tbs cloves
1 tbs whole peppercorns
1 tbs coriander seeds

Place the ingredients for the bouquet garni in a muslin square and tie tightly with string.

Combine the marrow, apple, onion and salt in a large bowl and leave for about 3-4 hours. The salt will leach a lot of the moisture and any bitterness from the marrow. Drain well.

Combine vinegar and sugar in a large, heavy-based saucepan on the stove and bring to the boil. Add the vegetable mix, the sultanas, ginger and submerge the bouquet garni.
Reduce heat and cook until the mixture has reduced to the point when, if you run a spoon along the base of the pan, the sea of chutney stays parted. This should take about 1-2 hours.

Bottle in sterilised jars and leave for two weeks to mature before eating. It will store for about a year, but once you've opened a jar, keep it in the fridge.

This quantity of vegetables yielded about 1.5 litres of chutney.

From the garden: monster marrow

Zucchini Schnitzel

Yep, the zucchinis are still coming...

I was running short on ways to make the most of our zucchini abundance and this seemed a simple way to jazz it up for a satisfying meal. Truly, you'd be surprised how filling these crunchy little rounds are. You could give it the whole tomato-sauce-and-melted-cheese treatment, as you might do with a schnitzel, but they went perfectly with just a sweet, spicy tomato relish (my sister-in-law's famous-but-secret recipe). You can even serve it, as I did, with the raw zucchini salad and almost believe you're not eating an entire meal of the same vegetable!



Zucchini Schnitzel

1 medium zucchini, sliced into 5mm rounds
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup bread crumbs
2 tbs Parmesan, grated
salt
pepper
olive oil

Oil a shallow pan and place in the oven. Preheat oven to 180C.
Combine bread crumbs, Parmesan, salt and pepper in a wide bowl and the egg in another. Dip each zucchini slice first in the egg, then in the bread crumb mixture (you can repeat these steps if you want a thicker crust).
Place the zucchini slices in the pan and bake for about 10-15 minutes, check and turn over once the bottoms have browned. Continue to bake until both sides are brown and crispy. Serve immediately.

Note: You can add any flavourings you fancy to either the bread crumb or egg mix, depending on whether it is wet or dry. Try: curry powder, grainy mustard, paprika, herbs, chilli sauce, etc.

From the garden: zucchinis, egg

Cinderella's wheels...

Cucurbita maxima, moschata and pepo make up the pumpkin family, within the family are many siblings. There are Grey ones, Orange ones, Green ones, long ones, lobed ones, tiny ones and huge ones... Cucurbita pepo is the scientific name for the Zucchinis also, so many of the growing techniques used for the production of Pumpkins are the same as for Zucchini. The seed (pepita) is elliptical, about 10mm across, and should be sown (with the flat sides up and down) about an inch deep after the last frost or early to mid spring.



Pumpkins require a long growing season so in cold areas they will benefit from being sown early in a propagator and transplanted when the soil has warmed. Pumpkins like to be planted in a mound of earth well enriched with compost. They grow quickly and appreciate regular water. The leaves and flowers look almost identical to Zucchini, they mostly grow as a sprawling vine rather than a large bush though. The vines love to have room to ramble so planting them well away from each other (1-2m), or training the vines will help.



Pumpkins also have tendrils (left) like
peas, beans, etc. for climbing, and can be grown up a trellis or over a garden structure (you can support developing fruits in string or net bags).



Early in their life Pumpkins predominantly produce male flowers (right), which have no embryonic fruit behind the flower, female flowers (with fruit, below) come later. Pinching out the growing tips can force the vine to send out side shoots which will usually produce more female flowers. Hand pollinating may increase yield in areas with poor pollinator activity. It is quite common to get 4-6 fruit developing on a plant, but if you want larger fruit thin out a few, If you want competition sized fruit thin to only one fruit per plant and watch 'em go.




Wait until the vine withers and dies, the fruit has developed full colour, and a hollow sound is produced when you tap the fruit before you harvest. When you harvest ensure you get a good (10-15cm) length of stem on the fruit and allow the fruit's skin to harden in the sun before storing for up to 6 months with some cultivars. Seeds can be saved when you prepare the fruit for eating for next years pumpkin patch, or you can throw them in you compost and watch them take off. Powdery mildew is the major threat to your crop (look at my post on Zucchinis for a milk spray recipe) and, less commonly, mosaic virus.

Raw Zucchini Salad

I had my doubts about eating zucchini raw. I don't know why, I guess it's just one of those entrenched preconceptions. Or maybe I was just used to bitter old store-bought zucchinis.

When I came across this recipe though, I thought I'd give raw zucchini a chance - it certainly worked out for my tomato sauce. I was pleasantly surprised. I think it's even my favourite way to eat zucchini now and makes a fabulously refreshing salad alongside grilled trout.

Raw Zucchini Salad

1 good quality zucchini
1 finely grated clove garlic

Grated rind of one lemon and juice of a half

salt (good quality salt is worthwhile here - I have a pink Himalayan one found at the local hippy shop)

cracked pepper

Combine the lemon zest, juice, garlic, salt, pepper and a few glugs of olive oil in a bowl (you want about twice as much olive oil as lemon juice).

Use a vegetable peeler to slice thin ribbons of the zucchini into the bowl. I imagine a mandolin would do a good job of this too; I used the largest side of a four-sided grater and got a reasonable result.

Toss to combine and serve immediately.

From the garden: zucchini, garlic, lemon

Zuck.. Zuchin... Zukee..... Courgettes!

Hello again! This post will be necessarily short on account of the chappy (shown left) who's taken up residence above the computer... Another argument for getting a laptop.


This post is on my favourite Veg to grow, Zucchini. The Zucchini plant (shown right) is a member of the Cucurbit family, same as pumpkins, melons, cucumbers etc. and is a beautiful, fast growing, summer plant, that produces masses of delicious fruit. It will grow to need an area of about a metre and responds well to some good compost incorporated into the soil.


There are several different types, my fave is the Black (beauty) Zucchini (avoid hybrids such as the F1 Black jack if you want to save seed). The seeds are large, about 10mm in length, and disc shaped. Please note I am not sponsored by the seed company shown left, however if they ever read this, leave a comment we'll sort something out ;0) Basil would also like it known that she is not yet sponsored by any dog food companies-->



Zucchinis grow as a short vine (shown left), if you are wondering if that's a pot around the base of the plant, in the soil, it is. One of the wonderful things 'bout living in a multicultural suburb like Brunswick is you pick up tips from the European gardeners around. Cutting off the base of a large pot and half burying it allows you to deliver water, compost, organic fertilisers etc. straight to the root zone and stops invasive plants, mint etc. from spreading.



As the plants grow you'll notice two different kinds of flowers. The male (shown right) has a single, pollen covered anther on the stamen, no embryonic fruit behind the flower, loves football and does not clean up after itself.


The Female flower (shown left) has a more complex ruffled stamen, an embryonic fruit behind the flower, lots of shoes and navigates poorly. Transferring the pollen from the male to the female is the job of Mr. Bee, or you and a paintbrush (see tickling tomatoes post).


The result of successful pollination is a swelling fruit (shown right) and a plentiful harvest (shown left). Both images here show fruit that would have been tastier when picked at about 15cm, however, once they start, you also will struggle to keep up with the harvesting and eating. The flowers are also a bit gourmet.


Zucchinis can suffer from several different issues. The most common I see is mildew, (shown right) which appears as a fine white powdery deposit on the leaves (be careful not to mistake dried shaving foam for mildew when using your grey water on the plants.... Hi Dad). Mildew can be avoided by not crowding your plants together (thus avoiding a humid micro-climate), keeping them healthy and well fed, and spraying fortnightly with a 1 to 10 full fat milk to water spray. If it does strike, bin the leaves affected (don't compost), spray with the milk solution, and wash your hands before touching any other leaves/plants. If you have to remove an entire plant, so be it, they will lose their vigour anyhow. Fortunately they grow quickly so you may get another in in time. Another problem to look out for is blossom end rot, look it up and make sure you don't get it confused with unpollinated fruit. It is usually caused by inconsistent watering.

I wonder if there is a recipe coming that involves Zucchini.....

Aldrum

Sad Days

Well, as I am sure you are all aware We've been having a terrible time here in Victoria with the bushfires. The air has been thick and pungent with that characteristic smell every time we have northerly wind. The sun has been covered with a golden fog making everything look eerie. The tragedies of Marysville, Kinglake, Flowerdale, Strathewen, Narbethong etc. are ever present in peoples minds. There have also been some great stories of survival and heroism. Today, as I write, we are suffering another high risk day with temperatures in the high thirties and strong winds but still not like what they now call black Saturday when it hit 46.5 with wind gusts up around 100kph. Here in Brunswick West we are safe as it is very close to the city. We are counting our blessings a little though since we have spent the last year looking for land around Kinglake and Flowerdale and had not yet purchased. The people we have met on our search are ok with varying degrees of property damage. It has been a reality check for us and fire safe considerations have now hit the "what to look for" list in number one position and I've turned my mind to looking for fire resistant plantings such as saltbush etc. We haven't changed our thoughts on where we were looking as wherever you head you face the risk, besides it will be an important part of our lives to watch and play a part in a community rebuild.


The two photos on either side are pics of the last two blocks of land we visited, one in Kinglake and one in Flowerdale, a couple of weeks before the fires, following a visit to st. Andrews market & a jug in the Kinglake pub. The argument in the car on the way home was which one we loved more.

On a more positive note the garden has picked up following the intense heat and provided a magnificent harvest of Tomatoes and Zucchinis, I can't wait to see what Sarah does with all of these...

Love and best wishes to all in our fire affected communities.

ALdrum

Tickling Tomatoes

What do you do when there ain't all that many pollinators around?
Well you try and rectify the situation by planting all those lovely plants that attract the pollinators, flowering species that are indigenous to the area is a good start, buying a beehive and a trainee queen is also a great move. If you don't have the room or knowledge or just want a tomato or two on your balcony then you may have to do some of the dirty work yourself. Every flower on a tomato, or eggplant, or pepper etc. is the precursor to a fruit and when the flower is pollinated the flower dies off and a fruit forms in its place (left pic of new Turkish orange eggplant fruit with dried up flower on end), quite simply the more flowers pollinated the more fruit you'll get. The pollinator, i.e. Mr Bee, transfers pollen from flower to flower thus pollinating the flower and allowing the fruit to form. So enough about the birds and the bees, ART or Assisted Reproductive Technology for plants involves a fine little paint brush (top right pic) and fine motor skills. All that needs to be done is a gentle brush of the stamen (bottom right pic) of each flower, moving from plant to plant, flower to flower doing Mr Bee's job for him. I find that making a soft buzzing noise as you do it helps also...

Cheers Aldrum