The Greening of Gavin

Archives for September 2010

You Can’t Beet A Root

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On Saturday afternoon, I harvested the majority of our winter beetroot crop.  I planted two varieties this year of beta vulgaris,  Detroit Globe and Chioggia.  


Now Detroit globe looks like your standard dark purple beetroot, however the Chioggia is unusual and has red and white rings throughout the beet.  This is what it looks like;

Beetroot Chioggia – Diggers Club


Look kind of small, don’t they?  Well maybe not ordinarily, but when you compare these to one that I grew, the size of mine looks quite unusual.  Have a look at this!  I surprise myself sometimes.

What a beauty!

Anyway, all jokes aside, it was into the kitchen with my beetroot booty and time to cook them up, peel (with rubber gloves on), make up a pickling vinegar and bottle the whole lot ready for summer barbecues.  We just love our pickled beetroot.  I used this recipe which I really enjoy the taste of;

Pickled Beetroot

2kg beetroot
3/4 cup water
1 and a half cups white vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
2 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 cinnamon stick
1/4 teaspoon salt


1.  Wash beetroot thoroughly and cook in a pot of water until tender
2.  Cool and remove skins (use rubber gloves)
3.  Cut beetroot into slices
4.  Place all other ingredients into a saucepan and bring to the boil
5.  Simmer for 5 minutes and then strain
6.  Pack beetroot into hot sterilised jars and top up with vinegar mixture
7.  Seal and store in a cool place


Use within 6 months.



I managed to make up 7 large jars, 3 red, 4 white/pink, however I doubled the recipe and probably had about 4kg of beets at the beginning.  Click to enlarge.




I am hoping that the Chioggia tastes the same as normal beetroot when pickled, or otherwise the chooks are going to have a feast.  It did taste a little bit less earthy than the normal beetroot, so I suppose that is a good thing.  


I left some more of these two varieties in the bed for salad greens, as the leaves are edible, and taste very nice in a normal garden salad.  All in all, I will probably plant some more beetroot next Autumn.  A good crop all round.


One thing is for certain, and that is that you can’t beat a beetroot!

To Seize The Day

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There is a new blog in town about refashioning clothes or unwanted fabric bought at charity or op shops, and I am happy to say that it is being written by none other than my daughter Megan.

Here is her bio.

“Hello and welcome! I’m Megan and a confessed refashionista, vowing to recycle, remake and remodel pre-owned, pre-loved clothes into fashionable, new-age clothes that are saving the earth and saving me money along the way.

Buying items and fabric from thrift stores or charity shops and turning them into clothes that are completely individual and unique and totally my own. Gone are the days of spending hours upon hours searching shopping centers for the perfect dress, spending exuberant amounts of money on that ideal outfit. Instead I am spending my time doing what I love: making patterns and sewing.
Follow the chronicles of my tale as I journey
down the long and winding path of refashion.”

Yes, a shameless plug by a doting father, but hey, I like to give new green bloggers a kick start.

Please join Megan at “Carpe Diem: To seize the day” and her adventures of refashioning second hand clothing.

The Boy Can Cook!

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Yesterday was a day that I shall remember for a long time.  Ben (10) cooked his first meal.  No, I am not talking about a microwave prepackaged meal, which we don’t eat anyway, but the evening meal for the entire family.  I was very proud of the boy when I arrived home and found out that he had assisted Kim with the cooking of Beef Chow mein, which included the harvesting of the three small cabbages that they used in the meal.  Here is a few photos of the junior chef in action.

Stiring the meat and the onions,

 and the cabbage and noodles.
Here is the finished meal.

It tasted delicious, with green crunch and a curry flavoured bite!  I savoured every mouthful.  Kim did most of the preparation i.e. defrosting the mince, cutting the cabbage and supevised the event.  But Ben did all the cooking.  A great joint effort and one I praised Ben again for today.

Ben declared to me that he likes cooking, and we promised to let him help all weekend.  He helped put the topping on our home made pizza tonight, and he is very excited (as am I) to be assisting me with cooking a pasta sauce from scratch and adding it to his favourite Tortellini pasta.  The pasta is locally made (North Melbourne), and I source a few ingredients for the sauce from the garden.  I will coax him into doing a little more preparation than he has done in the last two days.

Kim also informed me during our bed chat that Ben helped her with the Chickens, gathered the eggs, put them to bed and put their feeder into the shed.  I feel proud because he really has begun to take an interest in how our food is prepared and grown, and maybe this new found interest will extend into helping maintain the veggie patch.  He already planted seeds about a month ago, so needs to watch, learn and try to plant some of the seedlings into some of the vacant space that the cabbages have left behind.  I have some pumpkins raring to go!  Time will tell, but I am hopeful that he will maintain interest.

Now, those of you who may think that this sudden interest in cooking has stemmed from watching Junior Masterchef TV, think again.  With the Telly still being absent from our lives, we have not watched an episode, so I don’t believe that this has influenced Ben in any way.  It was just the right time to cook!