Best Valentine’s Day ever!

Best Valentine’s Day ever!

I’m honestly not sure how we are going to top this, and it all revolved around the garden. 

I have been on a mission to showcase the vegetables I grow in the meals I make.  I’m a gardener well ahead of being a cook in terms of priorities, passion and ability.  I revel in bringing forth life from bare soil and growing amazing things.  In the kitchen not so much.  Often times I come inside from a hard day in the garden in a satisfied exhaustion.  Meals can be more functional to provide the necessary sustenance.  However, there is always a twinge of feeling that I’m not doing the best with what I have created as a bunch of tomatoes ends up unceremoniously added to yet another quick and easy spag bol or cabbage is uncreatively ‘used up’ before it goes off.  I really  need to grow smaller cabbages.

This summer I have been whipping up some delicious dishes where the fresh produces is the hero, and it has opened up another way to truly love the garden and everything that comes from it. I am trying my best to make each harvest fully appreciated and not taken for granted.  Intentional living is a slower pace of life and I’m here for it.

And this is where the romance of Valentine’s Day comes into it.  I wanted to create a meal for Hubby the Un-Gardener using as much from the garden as possible and as fresh as possible, picked moments before cooking and eating.

First up I used up several cucumbers in an Asian inspired cucumber salad.  I peeled the cucumbers and scooped out the seeds and cut the remaining flesh into long thin strips.  I indulged in some salmon, also cut into long thin strips and tossed them through the cucumbers to evenly distribute.  Then I sprinkled through sesame seeds, chopped coriander and spring onions.  The dressing added at the last moment was 2 parts rice wine vinegar, 1 part soy sauce and 1 part sesame oil and a half part maple syrup (I could have used honey, but I didn’t have any.)    

For the main meal I remade a new favourite.  A tomato galette.  It is so simple but so good.  The dough is made from 225g flour and 100g of cold butter pulsed in the food processor until breadcrumby.  Then 2 beaten eggs, freshly gathered from the chickens were pulsed in.  The mixture was brought together and lightly kneaded to form a dough, wrapped in cling film and chilled for an hour in the fridge.  It was then rolled out into a large circle about half a cm thick.  The base was smeared with a cream cheese with grated cheese, dried oregano, fresh thyme and minced garlic mixed in, leaving a wide clearance around the edge.  This mix helps to prevent the tomatoes making the base soggy.

Tomatoes were sliced and heaped up on top of the cream cheese and topped with shredded basil leaves.   The last step is the easy bit – fold the sides up around the edges to encase the tomatoes but leave the centre open. Egg wash the outside of the dough for whatever reason the chefs suggest doing this.  Pop in the oven at 180C for 30 – 40 mins. 

To accompany the star of the show, I took another crop in desperate need of using up.  My beetroot – although in this instance I only used the Golden Beetroot, which I peeled, cut into wedges and roasted.  Once it was out of the oven I allowed it to cool and put them on a bed of freshly picked lettuce, with avocado (not from the garden but you can’t ignore an avocado in peak ripeness).  The dish was garnished with crumbed feta and homegrown pumpkin seeds and dressed with a lemony vinegarette.  Made from lemon juice, olive oil, fresh thyme, a smidge of crushed garlic and Dijon mustard. 

And some crispy roasted Ilam Hardy potatoes that were dug up from the garden last week.

Dessert was supposed to be a medley of fresh melon, harvested between courses, however, by the time we got to dessert, there was no room for even a wafer-thin slice of melon, but then intention was there.

The food certainly did its job to showcase the best from the garden.   But it wasn’t just the food the garden contributed to this best Valentine’s meal.  It also provided the setting.  While dining outside isn’t out of the ordinary – we eat outside all the time.  But this time the location was majestical.   We ate in the dome.

Earlier in the day, with my wee helper, we took everything out of the greenhouse and washed it out, tidied everything up and put it all back so everything was orderly and tucked away.  Then I set the scene.   I moved in a round table and a couple of chairs and placed them in the centre.  I laid the table with our best silver and arranged dahlias and zinnias from the garden as a centrepiece.  I chilled some water with cucumber and mint, and a bottle of bubbly  – this was an occasion that warranted the luxury of expensive bubbles.

The magic of the evening came from the seed lights I laid around the shelving in the dome.  I had expected there would be a lovely illumination glowing from the shelves providing a simple backdrop.   But what happened was something so much more, beyond my wildest imagination.

We had to wait until dusk because things in the dome were just too hot and with the setting sun the temperatures dropped to a pleasant environment.  When we arrived with all the food to settle in for a romantic evening the lights glowed just as I expected, and I was so pleased with the outcome.

Little did I know as the dark descended and deepened the geodesic affect of the dome would act like a kaleidoscope and every pane of glass reflected all of the little lights and threw them across the ceiling with hundreds of twinkling lights.  It was breathtaking. We had gentle music playing in the background which was complemented by the serenade of crickets making things seem even more surreal.   It was probably the most wonderderous setting I have ever been in.

It was a Valentine’s Day I will never forget.

Come again soon – this garden is proving to be a magical place.

Sarah the Gardener  : o)