Community Garden Cookbook Project

Together with our friends from New Jersey’s East Brunswick Community Garden (our sister garden) we are planning to compile a cookbook of garden-inspired recipes to publish for Christmas 2011.

Share your favourite recipe that you’ve made with produce from your garden and tell us more about your dish. What makes it a favourite? Where did you get it? Does it have a story? If you have good pictures of your dish or your plot that you would like to go with your recipe, please send them through to Ingrid, Kate or Liz at [email protected] with your recipe.  Recipes are due by 15 September 2011.

PDF or Word recipe template forms can be downloaded here and there are hard-copy forms in the shed at the garden which can be posted in the letterbox.

To get your thinking about some ideas, here’s a lovely Winter Warmer of a soup to put those beautiful cauliflowers to use!

Cauliflower

Curried Cauliflower Soup, by Ingrid from Plot S5.

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower, leaves removed, washed and cut into small florets
2 large onions, peeled, roughly diced
1 large knob fresh ginger, peeled and grated
3 cloves of garlic, peeled, chopped
50 g butter
1 tablespoon good quality, mild curry paste or powder (Keen’s Traditional Curry Powder is good)
1.5 – 2 litres chicken or vegetable stock

Garnish

Sour cream or plain yoghurt to taste
cracked pepper
chopped fresh coriander and spring onions

Method

1. Melt the butter in a large pot. Add the onion, garlic and ginger. Cook for 3-5 minutes until transparent (do not brown or allow to burn).
2. Add the curry paste and stir to combine and fry for about a minute.
3. Add the cauliflower florets and stir to coat with curry paste.
4. Add just enough stock to cover the cauliflower.
5. Cook on low-medium heat for 30 minutes, or until the cauliflower is tender.
6. Puree with a hand blender.
7. Serve immediately with a dollop of sour cream or plain yoghurt, and garnish with coriander, spring onions and cracked pepper.

Goes great with fresh crusty bread!

Next Busy Bee – Sunday 26th June

Hi there,

The next Busy Bee will be on Sunday 26th June from 9.30am – 12.30 pm down at the garden, corner Donald and Harrison Streets, Brunswick East.

There’s something for all, and all are welcome – Busy Bees are not just for plotholders.  Come down for the whole stint or just pop in for a bit.  Busy Bees are not all about hard work, there are plenty of opportunities for other fun stuff – bring some morning tea to share, catch up with your fellow gardeners for a gab about growing and meet some new friends.

A list of jobs for the day will be posted closer to the Busy Bee. Hope to see you there!

Love,

MCCG

Busy Bee – this Saturday 28 May

Hello Merri Gardeners and Friends,

We’ve a busy-bee coming up this Saturday 28th May from 9.30am – 12.30pm at the Merri Corner Community Garden, 194 Donald Street (corner Harrison Street), Brunswick East.

There’s something for all, and all are welcome.  Come down for the whole stint or just pop in for a bit.  Busy Bees are not all about hard work, there are plenty of opportunities for other fun stuff – bring some morning tea to share, catch up with your fellow gardeners for a gab about growing and meet some new friends.

Jobs going are –

  1. Planting winter vegies in between fruit trees
  2. Drainage works – checking everything is looking a-ok for the wet weather ahead
  3. Finishing off garden edging around the fence line – lay boundary sleepers.

We’ll also have a discussion session about Composting, Planting Ideas for the Northern Verge and for the Raised Garden Beds at the entrance to the garden at around 10am.

Here’s a schedule for Busy Bees for the rest of the year, and we’ll have these up on the website/Facebook/noticeboards at the Garden soon, so mark your diaries, green-thumbs!

2011 Merri Corner Community Garden Busy Bees:

– Sunday 26th June
– Saturday 30th July
– Sunday 28th August
– Weekend of 24th/25th September – proposed Spring Festival
– Saturday 29th October
– Sunday 27th November
– Break for December / Christmas Fun

    Hope to see you all down at the garden on Saturday, or some other time soon!

    Love,

    MCCG Committee

    Call for model gardeners – photoshoot Sat 21 May

    Hello plotholders!

    On Saturday 21 May at 12.30pm Moreland City Council will be at the garden for a photo opportunity.

    If it is suitable, the photo will potentially be included in the Inside Moreland calendar, distributed to residents in 2012.

    The council would like to take a shot of our Merri gardeners working in the garden together – if anyone can come along with a big smile and their best gumboots it would be a great boost to help promote the MCCG next year.

    In the event of postponement due to wild weather, we’ll post an update here on Friday 20 May.

    Love, the MCCG Committee

    Busy Bee – Sat April 30!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    This month, we’ve got something for everyone!

    •    Planting out of the common areas with winter vegies and herbs

    •    Cleaning up following construction of the fence and pergola

    •    Re mulching paths in common area •    Shed clean out

    •    Mini composting workshop

    Mornings seem to be working well – so we’lll kick off at 9.30am and wrap it up around 12.30pm, with briefing and the mini-workshop at 10am.

    See you then,

    MCCG

    Plot Allocation Day – A huge success!

    A beautiful sunny day, and a beautiful way to introduce everyone to their plots. Full write-up soon!

    The soil. We have it!

    Check this out. Two massive articulated trucks maneuvering and dumping 25 tonnes of soil this arvo…

    Eachy Peachy Pudding and Pie!

    Oh what a night! A ‘WOW” of a time was had by all who attended our Garden Party Fundraiser at Each Peach café on August 14.

    Three eras of garden party were emulated. One room was set in the theme of a 1930s earthy soiree; another as a 50s outdoor-diner; and another as a 70s disco-BBQ. Helen and the gorgeous Each Peach staff provided us with an outrageously scrumptious 3 course meal whilst Buckleys beer and Allira wines ensured that everyone had a jolly ol’ time.

    A bedazzling array of raffle prizes were up for grabs with generous donations from Melbourne Aquarium, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Readings books, Madman, The SBS Shop, The Abruzzo Club, and Fitzroy Therapeutics.

    Guests were entertained by comedian, Daniel Burt along with our own didgeridoo player and story sharer, Shane Clarence.

    It was also Bernie’s birthday so we got to help her celebrate too.

    Thank you to all who came along.