So you've grown broccoli, but how do you eat it? Here's the place to:
- ask how to prepare your produce using healthy recipes
- share your healthy recipes or ask how a traditional recipe might be made healthier
- how to store and preserve your surplus food
- tips about healthy eating
Replies
LITE PALUSAMI Recipe
(from the Kakana Talei Cooking Class)
This Palusami recipe includes canned BOILED corned beef, LIGHT coconut cream, and onions which are formed into bundles, wrapped in taro leaves, and baked. Other common fillings for Palusami are fish, shrimp or meatless Palusami containing only LIGHT coconut cream mixed with onions. Can also use spinach or other large edible leaves instead of taro leaves.
Ingredients:
Instructions (Stuffed Leaves):
Mix Onions, BOILED corned beef and Lite coconut milk. Add salt to taste.
On a dish, spread a sheet of foil and arrange leaves on the foil sheet.
Pour the mixture over the leaves, and top with the remaining leaves. Wrap the “filled leaves” tightly with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 60 minutes.
Thanks Peni!
Tip from Teresa: if your canned corn beef is fatty, turn it into a bowl, cover and microwave for 30 seconds to 1minute to melt the fat. Pour the fat off into a bowl/cup and use the corned beef as above.
Don't tip the hot fat down the sink: it will set and block up your drains. When the fat has set in the bowl, put it in a piece of paper and put it in the rubbish, or feed it to the birds.
Pick your own - PYO
If you don't have room to grow all the fruit, nuts and vegetables you would like, or your shrubs or trees are not producing much fruit yet, think about visiting a grower that allows you to 'pick your own'. Picking your own can work out cheaper than buying from a shop, particularly if you are buying in bulk and can share the petrol costs with a few friends. Growers sometimes advertise in the local free newspapers or try these web sites:
These sites don't include everyone: for example Strawberry Fields on State Highway 1 just south of Tamahere has pick your own strawberries at the moment, but is not listed.
I visit Monovale/Ohaupo area just out of Hamilton between late December and March, going early one morning when the temperatures are cooler to pick bulk blueberries: I freeze most of them to use over the coming months. The blueberries thrive in the peat soil in that area. I use PYO as an opportunity to get some fresh air, exercise, catch up with a friend and get some yummy fruit!
So if you see a roadside 'PYO' sign when you are out, why not list it here on Ooooby so others can pick their own too? Alternatively, if you are looking for a particular fruit, nut or vegetable to pick, try advertising on Ooooby on the WIC group or the Hamilton NZ or South Waikato groups.
PYO Organic Blueberries
Noticed a PYO sign yesterday, they're in south west Hamilton:
207 Houchens Road, Glenview, Hamilton NZ.
Coconut Taro Cake
This delicious cake is steamed rather than baked. The recipe is from Stephanie (Taiwan) - thanks Stephanie!
Ingredients:
1 cup glutinous rice flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 large taro root
1 can low fat coconut milk
1/2 cup sugar
4 tbsp desiccated coconut (finely grated and dried coconut)
Method:
Peel and grate the taro. Steam it until it is cooked.
Either:
Enjoy!
Stephanie's Stir-Fry Lettuce with Garlic
Stir-fried vegetables are very popular in Chinese Food , they have a better (stronger) taste than boiled vegetables, and the color is bright green. Chinese Dishes Recipes provide Fried Lettuce with Garlic, a healthy vegetarian recipe that can be cooked in just 10 minutes.
Ingredients:
-1 large lettuce
-1 tablespoon oil
- 2 cloves garlic
- pinch of salt
Directions:
- Wash and trim the lettuce. Shake off excess water. Cut into four.
- Heat the oil in a pan. Put salt in oil, let it dissolve then add garlic. Fry 30 seconds - you will smell it.
- Put the lettuce in and stir fry for 2-3 minutes
Tip: Don’t cover the pan during stir frying!
This is one of the recipes from Stephanie's free Healthy Cooking Class last Saturday at the Migrant Centre, run by Waikato Ethnic Social Services.
Photo: Garlic Greens Stir Fry.
Photo courtesy of Vegetables.co.nz
The Beef, Asparagus, & Cashew Stir Fry recipe Stephanie's class made is available here.
Stephanie’s Spring Rolls
Serves 6
Ingredients:
12 spring roll wrappers at room temperature
1/2 head cabbage, sliced
2 carrots, sliced
200 gm bean sprouts
500g ground beef (mince)
6 Chinese dried mushrooms, sliced
6 dried (or fresh) wood ear fungus, sliced*
1 bunch chives
3 spring onions
Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
FILLING
Soak the dried fungus and mushrooms in hot water until softened - about 40 minutes.
Heat a pan and pour-in 1 tablespoon cooking oil.
Add the mince. Cook until the colour turns medium-brown.
Add mushrooms, ginger and carrots. Cook for a few seconds.
Add cabbage, beans sprouts, chives and spring onions. Stir and cook for 3 to 5 minutes. Mix in salt and pepper.
Turn off heat. Let the temperature cool down while allowing excess oil and liquid to drain.
WRAPPING
(See the attached poster for step by step pictures)
Lay out one spring roll sheet, add about 2-3 tbsp (depending on the size of your spring roll sheets) of the filling towards one corner.
Fold in the end of the corner first and then both sides.
Once these ends are firmly placed, roll up to the end.
For store-bought sheets, it is easy to stick it to the rest of the roll, but if you make your own sheets, then you may need to use some 'adhesive' like egg white to make the end stick.
COOKING
Heat cooking oil in a deep cooking pot. Deep fry the spring rolls in medium heat until the colour turns light to medium brown.
Remove from the cooking pot and place in a plate lined with paper towels (this will absorb excess oil.)
Serve with your favourite dipping sauce/tomato sauce/sweet chilli sauce... share and enjoy!
*Wood ear fungus grows wild here in NZ on trees that have died recently (we used to export it to China!). It is quite chewy. Do not collect this (or anything other than rubbish) from the arboretum, Hamilton Gardens, scientific reserves or DoC parks. You should be able to forage it from other parks or even your garden - there was some growing at Grandview Community Garden earlier this year.
The photos of wood ear fungus were taken in a public park in Cambridge.
A4 cooking poster-4.jpg
Fresh Fruit Cake Recipe
1 cup castor sugar*
2 eggs
1 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 cup white flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 cups of any chopped fresh fruit
1/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)
This cake tastes even better the next day, especially with tart fruit like fresh currents (in season now!)
*If you are using a sweet fruit like peaches, cut the sugar down to 1/2 cup.
For the cake in the photo I used fresh cranberries, blueberries, walnuts and some lemon zest (finely grated lemon peel).
This recipe is adapted from a recipe published in a NZ Tree Crops Association newsletter.
Reducing saturated fat in baking
The fresh fruit cake recipe (above) originally used butter. Most nutritional guidelines recommend using vegetable oil over saturated fats like lard and butter.
Generally you can replace butter in baking with ¾ of the amount of oil. I think oil based cakes tend to retain their moistness longer than butter based recipes.
Another option in baking is to replace half the fat with stewed/mashed fruit. This is what the Healthy Food Guide did in their yummy Chocolate Brownie recipe.
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