Balsamic onions by Jules Clancy
I dug my fork into my raised bed garden dirt and pulled out one small onion after another. I dumped them into my green garden bucket.
Some of my onions were barely bigger than the onion sets I planted months ago, yet these onions were the fruits of my labor and they deserved to be turned into something delicious.
The truth about homegrown, garden veggies
As a new gardener I was often frustrated by the veggies I’d spent my time growing. Small, sometimes mis-shapen, they were not much to look at.
While easy access to supermarket produce had conditioned me to expect vegetables which look perfect, it’s the taste that counts; homegrown veggies taste good.
Easy, delicious recipes for your veggies
I don’t have much patience for complicated recipes with long lists of mostly non-seasonal ingredients. If you are the same you will enjoy minimalist cook Jules Clancy. Her recipes are simple (most have 5 ingredients or less), delicious, quick (many take only 10 minutes to prepare), and just perfect for seasonal cooking with garden veggies.
Jules free e-cookbook Minimalist Home Cooking contains a wealth of simple recipes. Every single one of Jules’ recipes I’ve tried tastes good. While you think about how to cook with garden veggies, here is a list of Jules’ recipes you may want to try. Recipe names without links are from Jules free e-cookbook.
- Onions – onion and wine vinegar dressing, butter bean and tuna salad, rice and lentils (fab with your own sprouted lentils). From Jules’ StoneSoup website – little onion tarts, onion pandade, onion gravy, balsamic onions.
- Carrots – super simple carrot soup, supermoist carrot cake (video instruction, as well as written), carrot ribbon salad with pesto and cashews.
- Beets – roast beets, raw beet salad, beetroot pesto, roast beet soup with dukkah and yogurt.
- Cabbage – shaved cabbage salad with parmesan and balsamic, cabbage and crispy noodle salad, shaved cabbage and yogurt salad.
- Kale – wilted greens with parmesan.
- Tomato – couscous with tuna and cherry tomato sauce, lentils with sausage and tomato, snapper parcels with green beans and tomato, chorizo with chickpea and tomato, tomato almond pesto salad, bread and tomato salad.
- Lettuce or arugula – frozen pea salad with bacon, radicchio and rocket salad, ultimate steak sanga, rocket and radish salad.
You may want to download yourself a copy of Jules free e-cookbook Minimalist Home Cooking and follow some of the recipe links above to get a taste of what Jules does. If you like what you see, Jules has several other cookbooks available in her StoneSoup Shop, and she teaches courses through her StoneSoup Virtual Cookery School.
Enjoy your seasonal, garden harvest
The truth, when it comes to garden veggies, is that looks aren’t everything. Small is fine. Blemished is OK. Mis-shapen can become an asset. Homegrown garden veggies have character. Even when they look bad they taste good. The trick to enjoying your veggies lies in knowing how to turn even small, ugly vegetables into something delicious.
Which veggies do you have ready for harvest? Did I miss your favorite veggie from the recipe list?
Kid tip: young kids love to help with harvesting veggies. Also let them swirl veggies in water to rinse, and rip lettuce into pieces for salad.
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I also grew some veggies on my own and was also very frustrated with the results. They either came out really small, died out after growing just a little bit, or just tasted pretty much like nothing. I guess I shouldn’t give up so easily–especially seeing all the different recipes you listed here. Thanks!
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Yes Manda, don’t give up. Try growing different foods. Lettuce and herbs are some of the easiest of foods to grow. They taste so delicious straight from the garden. Just ask if you need help.
Wow…This is really great and I think i have to check this out…I am a vegetarian and i love being one…
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Thanks Michael. I hope you will try growing some of your own food soon.
I have my own garden in a pot. My house has no bigger space so I placed my tomato and spring onion in a pot. they look like ornamental plants.
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Great idea Jady. I recommend growing just one pot of food if that is all you can manage.
That’s very true, the “looks of the veggies” is something I had to get over as well, and the children didn’t understand “what happened to the cucumbers” lol
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I remember the first lemon tree I ever saw. Most of the lemons were not lemon shaped. Yes, it’s an adjustment to realize that store food is not really grown the way nature intends. There is much more variety in how food looks in a garden.
There is nothing like garden veggies.they have the best tast, no matter how they look like! enjoy it
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I agree Anna. Thanks for your comment.
Hi Alison…For now I am planning to have a garden and I think this will be my inspiration…Thanks!!
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I like exploring somethings new in my garden and this is one of those I have to explore…Thanks for the information…
Hi Alison…I love garden and so my husband…We have a bonding there every time we feel like to rest…
Hi Alison…The garden is where we sometimes go with my relatives because we have fresh air there and we can relax until we find ourselves talking to the plants…
Wow, I started gardening but then after a few months I gave up because everything was so small….I had to cut 5 cucumbers instead of 2 for one salad! any advise?
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The important question is whether your cucumbers tasted good. Often homegrown veggies have the same nutrition in a small vegetable as you’d get in the store in a large vegetable. Keep growing!
I am not into cooking that much but I’d love to learn and discover more recipes…
Well I think this is really delicious!Yummy!!
IS this really delicious??I think I have to try this too…Looks interesting…
My mom planted tomatoes on a big pot in our verandah, then forgot about it. She’s not so organized about planting, so the pot is mixed up with other non-edible plants. Little did she know that the tomato plant drooped down our window grills. After a few weeks, our neighbor across the street told me that our tomatoes were ready for harvest. I was so amazed to see 7 tomato fruits hanging by our window! Though it’s not as big as those in the fresh section of the supermarket but it’s good enough for salad, mixed with salted eggs and green mangoes.