Homegrown content

I was cooking a basic little meal for the two of us last night and, as usual, I took a moment to think about the homegrown content in that meal. I do this almost every time I cook, as there's always something from the garden in most evening meals. Here's what was homegrown last night.

It's no fantasmagoria of self-sufficiency, it was just a typical night. The potato salad (shop-bought spuds) included homegrown radish and green onions (shallots), and the tomato salad was homegrown cherry tomatoes plus homegrown basil. The fish that I grilled came from the fish shop.

I can't remember how many times people have asked me if I grow all the crops I eat at home. The answer is always "no, I'd need an acre to grow all our own food, and it would be a full-time job to keep up the supply." 

Instead, all I like to do is grow enough edibles in my garden to have some homegrown content in most meals I prepare. Herbs often fit that bill, but it is nice when vegies get to be the star turn. 

And that's what most backyard food gardens are all about. A bit of homegrown content, the occasional star turn, rather than the self-sufficient organic farmer fantasy.

Learning to love radishes

And the winner, ladies and gentlemen, of the seed-sowing race, planted on Sunday morn and announced this Wednesday morning, is... the radish seeds of course!

Hardly a shock winner, but three days is good going. That's why
they say radish are great for kids to sow, because they come up
so fast. It's a shame when it gets to the time for the kids to taste
their first radish, though! In fact I've been a bit that way about
radishes for many years, but this summer I've learned to love them.

Now I can't believe that I haven't taken a photo
of the radishes we've been pulling up, but I just
did a search of my iPhoto files and all I came
up with was this. Mine don't look quite as uniform
as these, but seed packets are like that.

Now, the thing I've learned to love about radishes is how a bit of moderation can go a long way. I've always made the mistake of cutting radishes into too-big slices then finding that I dislike their pepperiness. This year I've been chopping them up much smaller then tossing them into salads, and they've lost that peppery flavour and have now taken on just a warm glow. On the weekend I added some, finely chopped, to a lentil salad and I think they were the magic ingredient that made it go 'zing'.

This shot of the Baker's Creek seed catalogue page on radishes
shows that these rather neglected, almost maligned, little salad
zingers can actually be quite pretty, too.

I don't think I'm going to turn into a radish enthusiast any time soon, but it is good to get to know a vegie you haven't especially liked all that much and find a use for it in the kitchen that's actually valuable.

In the garden these really are a pleasing little thing to grow. So fast and so easy. From now on there's always going to be a little place set aside for just a small row of radishes to add their mouth-warming magic where it's needed.