Quinoa Vegie Burgers & More Zuchinni

Quinoa Vegie Burgers.


4 smallish zuchinni grated
2 small carrots grated
2 spring onions chopped

2 cloves garlic chopped
4 eggs
approx 4 cups cooked quinoa (measured when cooked)
dukkah and/or spices to taste
3 tablespoons flour


Mix it all up together - this is a very generous recipe and made about 15 large patties.


I cooked up a lot of quinoa (I pronounced this incorrectly for a good year before I had to unlearn what I had learnt) as a side dish and made the burgers as a way of using up the left overs and what we had in the garden. All very approximate measurements. Gosh it's easy to overestimate how much quinoa you need to cook when it's dry.

So much of this going on around here!

 

 Fry on BBQ or in frypan into flat patties.

I think this would have to be my favourite vegie burger recipe to date, soooo easy and many possibilities to add different ingredients.

I sliced these delicious "fairy" eggplants thinly and barbequed them to have on the side, they are creamy yum.  They have even converted the Big Bowerbird to eggplant. Even those who don't like eggplant are enjoying watch these purple stripy beauties grow. 

This is how we had the quinoa the first night. Just plain with Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion "Warm Saute of Zuchinni, Pine Nuts and Currants" amazing zuchinni recipe.  The big Bowerbird has a penchant for balsamic vinegar and this is her favourite way to eat zuchinni - with a balsamic glaze. 

We may turn green by the end of summer.

And there are still more on the bench awaiting consumption. Lot's of nectarines from our tree and cherry tomatoes aplenty.

It is safe to say we have a summer glut. Such a lovely problem.

Asian Plum Sauce and Zuchinni Fritters

 We managed to save some of the plums from the cockatoos, but they were quickly ripening in the summer heat. 

Asian Plum Sauce to the rescue

 A small revelation.  I am a very poor labeller of my preserves.  I put them on the shelf to finish cooling then forget about them. Chutney can look like jam and this sauce was looking a little close to raspberry. Part of the put off in labelling is fiddling with sticky labels in the printer. These I just printed with our new laser printer on plain copying paper and stuck on with PVA glue. Of course I did forget to date them, but at least I know what's inside.  I think they will disappear pretty fast anyway so the missing date shouldn't be a problem. This was so quick and easy and gives many more possibilities to insert pictures and use different shapes. They'd look prettier with some fabric on top, but I think these few jars are for my eyes only.

 The only downside to the recipe is that there wasn't more. Sieving out the skins does remove a fair bit of bulk.

Recipe adapted from here http://www.carina-forum.com/ricette/sauces/null/0000021_en.php 

Asian Plum Sauce

2kg mixed red skinned plums quartered and pitted

200g brown sugar

1 whole star anise

1 tspn cinnamon

2 green chillis finely chopped

200 ml rice wine vinegar

200ml plain white vinegar

100ml XiaoXing Chinese Rice Wine

50g finely grated ginger

4 garlic cloves finely chopped

2 red onions (small) finely chopped

1 white onion (small) finely chopped

8 tbspns light soy sauce and a few good dashes of ketchap manis

Instructions

Forget to read the recipe, and put it all in a pot and leave overnight in the fridge as this sauce making is taking too long.

Realise in the morning that the sugar shouldn't go in until after the fruit has softened. March on ahead with simmering until it is all soft. Lots of simmering - 2hrs or so until very soft - taste and add what you like - more salt, sweet, spice etc...

Sieve out skins pushing with wooden spoon - discard remaining contents of sieve (this felt wrong).  Return to pot and simmer some more - maybe another 2 hrs.  Place a saucer in the freezer.   

To test if it's ready put a teaspoon of sauce on the cold plate - if the sauce stays apart when you run your finger through the middle it's set, if not simmer some more.

When ready place into hot sterilised jars.

If I had my time again I would consider blending the sauce after the hard spices are removed so as to extract maximum goodness and bulk from the skins.

A wonderful morish plum sauce with the spices, ginger and garlic all playing a part. Plum sauce has always been a personal favourite, my mum regularly made it when I was growing up, and it was my sauce of choice as a kid.

Zuchinni

 These are the outcome of seeds I collected from a neighbours regular looking yellow squash last year- they're making the most beautiful Squachinnis.

Zuchinni Round de Nice - a mutato with 3 fruit merged into one.

Like the rest of Victorian's with vegie patches, we are now getting oodles of zuchinnis.  It seems that once they start, there is no end in sight.  We did manage to give away a bag full last week but a whole new lot are awaiting harvest. I'm taunting the kids with threats of zuchinni for dinner each night, and following through on many occasions.

This recipe was a hit, which was lucky as I doubled it and have frozen many leftovers which we've been eating for lunch. Recipe was adapted from here

Zuchinni Fritters

4 small/medium zuchinnis (home grown) grated

4 cups self raising flour

6 eggs (free range from neighbour)

3 garlic cloves chopped finely (home grown)

1 tin of drained corn (fresh would be better but ours is just pollinating)

2 red onions diced finely (home grown)

small bunch of chives chopped (home grown)

1 cup grated cheese

2 cups milk

salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together, will seem quite sloppy. Fry in olive oil - dollop spoonfuls on bbq, wait until cooked through when turning, cook on medium heat until golden brown.  The BBQ was great for dealing with such a large quantity.

 Not the classiest of food pics.  I only thought of taking a picture after I went back for seconds, so my sauce is all smudgy (it's really thicker than it looks in the picture too). Zuchinni fritters with grilled eggplant (a pretty purple and white Fairy variety) and Asian plum sauce.

We knocked over this bottle in a week.

Delicious ways to eat zuchinni

Grilled plain

Grilled with Dukkah

Grilled with a balsamic vinegar and pine nut glaze

Grated with pasta - 2 versions (fry until just soft)

one with lemon zest, juice, garlic and chilli and another with  

olive oil, garlic, onions, anchovies, chilli

Diceded finely in fried Rice

Chopped in a putanesca sauce.

Vegie Lasagna

 I can also recommend the classic zuchinni slice

I don't reallly like stuffed zuchinnis, they are a bit to mushy for my tastes, but if anyone has a recipe to convert me please forward  it on. In fact please link any special zuchinni recipes you may have.

 Before. 

Zuchinni growing technique - in November dig grass and a big hole in the ground. Plant mulberry (grown from a cutting bought on Ebay) and surround with newspaper covered with 5 bags of horse manure. Plant zuchinni seeds in pockets of soil  around mulberry - about 3 seeds in each pocket - seeds took about a week to come up - some were fortuitously stolen by cockatoos. Almost all seeds germinated.

 Before

 After - a very happy mulberry and thriving zuchinnis. A great way of establishing a fruit tree as you remember to feed and water it in it's early stages.

 After - rudolph is coverd in deep zuchinni shade.

And the extra patch of squash I had to create because I can't be ruthless with unnecessary seedlings.  Well none have gone to waste yet.

Watching and Waiting

Saturday was so rainy, the wet stuff just kept falling. The ground is lovely and sodden again, the garden is thriving. Little one instructs - "Mummy take a picture of the rain, it's a dark day mummy".

 

We've been watching these grow in their sandwich bag for the last few weeks, it's amazing how self sufficient they are.

And so the zuchinni glut begins - the little one and I planted these last week and they are starting to emerge.  I think we have 5 plants, which I know will produce a lot of zuchinni, I have missed them over winter but will probably drive every one nuts with them come summer.

 Middle one was playing with our latest op shop find - snake pick up sticks when a discovery was made.

 The little Bowerbird was in love.

  

We have been watching and waiting for something to happen with our cocoon for weeks. I went to give the cocoon a spray of water, as I'd read it was good to keep them moist, gazing at the cocoon thinking it didn't look right, and then I saw a flutter. We have finally reared a butterfly, even if it is the undesirable variety, it was pretty exciting. It flew around our house all day after the little one accidentally released it in her excitement, and is now in an unknown location.

Still watching and feeding aphids to our baby praying mantis, think there is only one left now. Big Bowerbird spied a mature one in the garden today.


So much to watch grow around our house in Spring.


Playing along with 1000 Homes of Happiness - The Playlist, middle one is quite enamoured with this linky and wants to know what the weekend theme is. He rushed to Google it on Friday night. Usually glad to rise to the challenge, he was too busy playing to plant a seed for me.