Dill & Walnut Tarator Sauce

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Liz

When I posted about growing dill last week I had a deluge of responses from people who suggested they didn’t eat dill because they didn’t like or eat fish.  Well, actually 2 (very nice) people said that but many more may have been thinking it……So, to please the multitudes of non fish eaters out there I bring you a vegetarian (and a not so vegetarian) use for dill.

I had a lot of trouble photographing this dish as my almost 2 year old son insisted on trying to eat it as I photographed it.  This resulted in a very messy face, a very messy tablecloth, some very well licked cauliflower and the need to edit all kinds of detritus out of the shots.  Still I was very happy he liked the sauce…..

I am very partial to nut sauces, especially as they are often a great vehicle for herbs.  Tarator is a fabulous, pesto like sauce which is made throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans.  It takes different forms in different places and this particular version is more Turkish in inspiration than anything else.  I have added dill to  what is a basic walnut Tarator recipe.  The result is a kind of dill pesto.  When I first tasted this I didn’t think the dill flavour was strong enough but after a second go I quite enjoyed its subtlety.  I enjoyed it both; as a dressing for poached chicken (which then became a sandwich filling) and as a dipping sauce for some Roast Cauliflower (as shown above).

Dill & Walnut Tarator Sauce

  •  1 cup walnuts – chopped
  • 2 cups chopped dill
  • 1 clove garlic – finely chopped
  • 1 large slice sourdough bread (or any country style bread will do) crust removed
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 1/4 cup water
  • Juice of 1/2 a lemon
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Soak the bread in the water.  Then place all ingredients including the breads soaking water into a food processor.  Process until smooth.  If you want a thinner sauce then add more water or oil.

Note: To roast Cauliflower  – separate it into florets, coat in olive oil and roast in a 180 degree oven for about 30 minutes (or a bit more) depending on the size of the florets.  Season with salt and pepper.

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Harvest Monday – 10th Oct 2011

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Liz

It felt like I didn’t actually harvest that much from the garden this week, but I do seem to have quite a few photos…strange….and none of them are of parsley…even stranger.  Actually I seem to be using more mint than parsley at the moment and I have also failed to photograph any mint at all – to be resolved next week.  What I did photograph was dill:

This I used in the dill and walnut tarator sauce I mentioned in my dill post.  In that post I said I didn’t think you could taste the dill but when I served it the next day, with some roast cauliflower I really enjoyed it, so I may yet post the recipe.

With the cauliflower & sauce we ate a salad containing both watercress and lettuce, amongst other things.

   

Actually I ate rather a lot of lettuce this week.  As well as using pick and come again varieties like the oak leaf above I also harvested a few hearting lettuces like this one which was eaten alongside some barbequed haloumi.

I did eat quite a few root vegetables from the garden this week:  Carrot, beetroot & radishes were all eaten in salads.  I also made a nice beetroot and apple relish to go alongside the aforementioned haloumi.

I felt like my kids hadn’t eaten nearly enough vegetables so I made a minestrone, this used carrots, leeks and celery from the garden.  I also added some finely shredded outer leaves from my purple cabbages that are taking too long to heart.

  

I’m getting really impatient with my broad beans this year – I have lovely tomato seedlings awaiting their place in the bed.  A friend of mine recommended nipping off the tips of the broad beans which she thought would get the plant to send its energy into pod production.  I nipped the tops off half to test the theory.  These I stir fried like any other fast cooking green.

My final harvest is not really my harvest at all although I did grow the items in question.  My daughter needed herbs for tea for her dolls.  She also needed herbs for medicine in her herb hospital.  Some were attatched to a large box, which I can’t quite remember the proposed purpose of.  This is one of her harvests that her little brother was very keen to sample.

For other fabulous harvests from round the world head over to Daphne’s Dandelions.

 

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“Beautifying” the Garden – Tip Shop Finds

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Liz

I am on something of a mission to make my garden look a bit more interesting.  I am quite conscious that vegetables are, by their very nature, transient plants – they come for awhile then move on, so there are periods where the garden looks a bit bare and dull.  To compensate for this I am seeking out interesting features to decorate it.  Here are some of my finds:

This was a lamp surround; I took out the glass and attatched it the fence for spiders to build their webs on.  Next door’s potato weed seems to like growing up through it.

I also have rusty metal in other forms:

This old gate keeps my toddler off the garden as well as providing texture, and I love the blue colour.  I love these old wrought irons gates, but unfortuntely I don’t seem to be the only one – I was looking to surround one side of my raised bed but I don’t find nearly enough of them.

I like fish and this next find is simply that – a fish.  I have yet to find a suitable place for it.

Finally I wanted something to put above the newly created sandpit – conveniently situated right outside the back door ensuring the kids are easily able to trapse sand throughout the entire house…… I found these; painted their bases and fixed them to the fence.

I op shop a fair bit but I find the tip shop seems to provide more gardenalia than the op shops I visit.  Not sure why…..

I’m linking up with Her Library Adventures for Flea Market Finds.

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The Ferny Fronds of Dill

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Liz

My dad occasionally calls people a dill.  I’m not sure if this is a particularly Australian thing to do but just in case it is, it means; a bit silly.  I’ve been trying to relate being a bit silly to the herb in my garden and I have to say I’m struggling to see a connection.  Perhaps the slang derives from something else entirely, perhaps I shouldn’t think too much about it.

Regardless I enjoy growing Dill.  Its a pleasant herb, which is easy to grow and pretty to look at.  It doesn’t seem to grow particularly big here – I remember the first time I read Daphne’s Dandelions blog and she was talking about these huge Dill plants – a virtual Dill forrest which was growing wild at the side of her house.  My dill is more like pretty little additions which have self seeded throughout the garden – sometimes in the right place, sometimes in the wrong place.

What Daphne’s and my dill do have in common though is the self seeding – and dill is very happy to do that.  One thing I have noticed though is that the seed seems to need either some time or a cold spell to ripen before germinating.  When I have scattered seed around from seed heads that have developed in summer they don’t seem to germinate until the following Spring.  This means that in order to have a relatively constant supply you need to keep sowing it yourself from saved seed.  Sow direct as it doesn’t seem to like being transplanted, or indeed disturbed at all.

From a culinary perspective dill is grown for both seeds and leaves (which are also known as dill weed).  I tend to use the leaves more often than seeds.

Whilst my favourite combination is dill with cucumber – both in bread & butter pickles and in tzatziki, I also enjoy it with smoked salmon & cream cheese.  Today though I thought I would have a bit of a play with it and try it in a walnut tarator sauce to mix with chicken for a sandwich.  Now I have to admit that while this was delicious the flavour of the dill was a bit lost in the other ingredients so it doesn’t really showcase the herb in the way I wanted to.  Dill doesn’t seem to like to compete with too many other ingredients and then it shines.  It did look pretty though.

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Green Dragon & Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Liz

I pulled out my remaining mature broccoli plants (with one exception) to make room for the tomatoes I planted last weekend.  Thus it seems an ideal time to pontificate on the varieties I grew this year.

Frankly, I’m not sure I was super impressed.  I only grew two varieties this year – both from seedlings I acquired from my dad who bought them as seedlings.  I suppose when you’re getting something for free you can’t complain too much but I think I will anyway.

The varieties I grew were Green Dragon and Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

The Green Dragon flowered very early – it didn’t bolt it just produced very quickly and as a result the initial heads were quite small.

The follow up side shoots were OK but because the plant put most of early energy into flowering it is only now big enough to produce a decent volume of shoots.

I want to be growing tomatoes now having feasted on broccoli all winter so frankly side shoots now just aren’t that helpful!  The only problem I had with broccoli this year I had with the green dragon plants – they seemed to get a mould or mildew that grew on any side shoots that I didn’t pick immediately.  I didn’t really investigate what it was, but it happened to both my and my fathers plants so I’m presuming it came with the seedlings so to speak.  The flavour was good though.

The purple sprouting broccoli had the opposite problem – it grew really, really big before it decided to do anything at all.  It did eventually produce some nice purple heads in good numbers.

But because I wanted to plant tomatoes I had to pull out the plants before I’d really made the most of all the side shoots.

So all in all neither variety was perfect.  My feeling is next year I will plant different varieties and see if they perform better.  I have had good results from Marathon Hybrid in the past so I may go back to that and a sprouting variety.  I personally don’t think that the purple broccoli varieties taste radically different to the green ones but maybe my broccoli palate is underdeveloped.  I think the only real reason for seeking them out, other than if they perform well for you, is for variety in the garden (they go green when cooked).

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Posted in Brassicas | Tagged | 6 Comments