Friday, 20 April 2012

How to make a little seem like a lot

I would be the first to admit that the scale of veg production that takes place in my garden is not big. I do grow a wide variety of stuff, but there's seldom a huge quantity of anything. Just now I can in all honesty claim that my Asparagus bed is beginning to produce its annual crop, but look at the total extent of the harvest so far (well, if you omit the one solitary spear I had about 3 weeks ago, that is!):




My "arty" photos above are intended to hint that these three lovely spears are just the top of a huge pile of similar ones unfortunately obscured by a mound of spinach, which of course they are not. However I'm confident that they genuinely do represent only the beginning of a significant harvest. Here they are surrounded by the other vegetables I harvested on the same day - Perpetual Spinach and a "Winter Density" lettuce.




Even three spears of Asparagus can be worth having. Jane put them into a scrummy chicken dish she was making. It was cubed pieces of chicken breast in a creamy sauce, with onions, peas and a touch of lemon juice, so Asparagus went with it very well. We served it with this:


A salad made with (home-grown) lettuce, beetroot, fennel, Mozzarella cheese, pine-nuts and (home-grown) pea-shoots.



Right then; just off to dig up a mountain (molehill)...

21 comments:

  1. It's not about quantity though, Mark, it's about quality, and I bet your asparagus tasted far nicer than anything you could buy from the supermarket.

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  2. Great looking salad, just fancy it for my tea

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  3. That is a really pretty salad. My salads are usually just thrown together.

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  4. Oh, that salad is artistic and delicious looking. Food should always be a feast for the eyes as well as the pallatte.

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  5. Someday you'll have enough for the asparagus soup I wrote about yesterday.

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  6. I hope this doesn't sound patronising but I reckon your photography is really improving at the moment. Nice salad - I do miss having access to decent Mozarella cheese - you just can't seem to get it here, despite having wild buffalo in the Northern Territory.

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  7. I'd take the three asparagus and be happy. Mine only produced one that would have been considered big enough to eat and I did not see it in time so I left it to grow out. Maybe next year I will have 3!

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  8. Looks great that's 3 more asparagus spears than I have!

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  9. The salad looks great - all we need now is some salad weather!

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  10. A lovely composed salad. And three spears is a start!

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  11. Love the punch of color the beets give the salad, the whole thing arranged like a large and beautiful flower.

    As for the asparagus, three and more where those came from heh! Ours are just peeking out of the ground. hurrah!

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  12. lovley looking salad you can come work in my kithen any time!

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  13. I suppose you just have to eat them VERY slowly! Lovely salad too. A.

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  14. That salad looks absolutely delicious! The asparagus spears also look tasty and I am sure there will be more to come.

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  15. Your asparagus looks so good. A little early here for that but it was nice to see yours. The salad looked yummy.

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  16. Even a little harvest, is still something amazing. YOU did that - for your family and it is wonderful. Congrats! (BTW - It looks delicious.)

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  17. love the greens and asparagus and your salad looks amazing! I got spoiled on fresh mozzarella when I was in Italy, here it is much drier and extremely expensive compared to regular cheddar. Can't wait to have dairy goats again to make my own cheeses!

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  18. Great job turning a small amount of asparagus into something big! Love the mozzarella and beet salad. It looks delicious.

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  19. OMG, your salad is killing me. I want. I want!

    http://planetpooks.com/?p=4552

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  20. Wow Mark!

    You never fail to impress us!

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