The long list includes germinating seeds, finishing preparing the garden beds for planting and keeping on top of the new weedy growth coming through. It’s also the start of the social calendar as daylight savings begins, bringing with it warmer and longer days.
We’ve fired up the pizza oven for the first time this season and enjoyed utilising the first herbs (wild herbs, too) and vegetables coming through for easy and fresh snacks to share when entertaining.
These recipes are full of herbs and vegetables, are quick to prepare when you have guests incoming and are a true celebration of lovely vegetables.
Chunky butter bean, rosemary, lemon and olive oil dip
This is so simple and it is always surprising how many people love it. My 1-year-old who is going through a ‘‘mostly eats only fruit please phase’’ can eat a whole bowl of this and ask for more. I also usually add a good handful of whatever herbs or greens I have in the garden to wilt just after taking off the heat, like peppery rocket or baby kale.
- 1 tin butter beans, drained
- 1 large sprig rosemary
- 4 cloves garlic, sliced
- ⅓ cup good olive oil
- Juice of 1 lemon
- Handful of any herbs or greens on hand
Method
Heat olive oil in a fry pan on medium heat, add the sliced garlic and rosemary and stir for 30 seconds.
Add drained beans and cook on high, mashing them slightly with the back of the fork until they are starting to get crispy and pop.
Add lemon juice and a good amount of sea salt.
Turn off the heat and add the greens and a little more olive oil and serve spread on crunchy bread with crisp salad leaves and more olive oil on top.
We’ve been getting a beautiful honey recently from just down the road and have been putting it on everything. This combined with the last of the stored pumpkins and a tin of lentils from the store cupboard is a really beautiful accompaniment to almost any meal.
- 500g pumpkin, peeled, cut and roasted.
- 1 tin brown lentils, drained
- 1-2 tbsp honey
- ½ cup cream cheese or coconut yoghurt
- Juice of half a lemon
- Water as needed
- Salt to taste
Method
Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend till smooth, thinning out with water as needed and seasoning with sea salt to taste.
Serve drizzled with more honey, olive oil and salt.
This recipe is based on one by my lovely friend Anika, who has a juice business at the Otago farmers market and is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to edible and nutritious wild weeds and how to use them. A good tip with dandelion leaves to avoid them being too bitter is to pick them young and small and soak them in some salted water for 10 minutes before using.
- 1 cup packed carrot tops or carrot thinnings
- 2 cups packed herbs (use whatever you have, but some great ones to include at the beginning of spring are cleavers, chickweed, young dandelion leaves, purslane or miner’s lettuce. Top it up with other culinary herbs including chives, basil, coriander, mint and a good handful of spinach or kale)
- 1 cup toasted sunflower seeds
- quarter-cup nutritional yeast or grated Parmesan
- 2 cloves garlic
- Juice of 1 lemon
- half-cup good olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Method
In a food processor, blitz all the herbs with garlic and lemon juice till finely chopped.
Add the nutritional yeast or Parmesan, then slowly drizzle in olive oil with the processor running until it emulsifies.
Season with salt and pepper.
To store, place in a jar and pour over about œ cup olive oil to seal. Pop on the lid and this should last a good week in the fridge.
Use as a dip, to stir into rice or soups, in a salad dressing, a sandwich spread — there are many options!
