Monday Harvest – 20th Feb 2012

Another week of summer harvest, but still no eggplant – there are fruit on the bushes but none is quite ready for picking yet – perhaps next week.  What I have been picking is tomatoes:

For all my angst about my tomato plants I forget that I am picking enough for all our salad and slicing needs as well as enough for the kids to eat a punnet a day of cherry tomatoes.

If the tomatoes are producing just enough then the chillies are producing more than enough.  I have a big bag full in the fridge that I plan to preserve this week.

The chard is producing really well.  We had spanakopita again this week, we also ate some with a roast chicken.  The beans went with the roast chicken as well.  We also had beans cooked my favourite way – with butter, garlic, black pepper and tomatoes – that was eaten with some sausages and a lovely potato salad.

The cucumber harvest continues unabated.  I picked about 10 this week and made another batch of bread and butter cucumbers.  I have about 10 jars put away now so I’m feeling very pleased with myself.

The capsicums pictured above might be the last for a while.  These came from the overwintered plants but there are no mature fruit on them anymore – they are setting a new batch though.  This years plants have set a few fruit but they are still a fair way off ripening.

I am still picking vast quantities of salad leaves.  I have a salad most days. Today lunch was a nicoise salad with some of the above tomatoes and beans, some shallots and potatoes from earlier harvests and the leaves and radish below.

But I have saved the best til last.  This week has seen a lot more passionfruit – 15 to be exact.  For anyone who is unfamiliar with them, passionfruit grow on a climbing vine and have a sweet, slightly acidic taste.  In Australia they are probably most famously used as a topping for pavlova – but more of that later in the week if I have time to make it.  They are pictured below, whole as well as cut so that you can see the edible bit inside.

The yummy bit is the pulp surrounding the seeds (although the seeds are generally eaten with the pulp).  The outer skin is inedible.  This is what these looked like a moment after the first shot was taken.

For harvests from all over the world get yourself over to Daphne’s Dandelions – delicious reading.