Vegetable patch and a recipe for beans

This is my vegetable patch when it was still being prepared on 3 July this year.
The photo on the right was taken 20 days later and shows the beans are ready to climb. Very exciting.

This leads me to share a recipe for beans. I especially enjoy them when they are prepared the 'French' way. Whilst the beans are steaming, I fry some finely chopped up onion and garlic to which I have added a little cut up ginger. When the onion is transparent, I add the diced tomato and a sprinkling of sugar. From here you can become creative and add some celery (don't forget the leaves, they have a wonderful smell and add great flavour to the dish), some fresh herbs such as oregano, thyme and/or rosemary. Simmer until the beans are ready which should not take too long. To serve there is the choice between mixing the tomatoes and beans together or place them next to each other on the plate. I always enjoy pork butterfly with that or a delicious home made meatball.... More about that later.
Bon appétit!

My first blog

Welcome to my blog and thank you for reading it.

Food is warming and comforting but it needs to be appealing as well. I have long looked at this from an aesthetic angle as nature spoils us with so many rich colors, shapes and great flavors.

Tonight we are sharing a simple macaroni dish with friends. Nothing beats fresh ingredients and the Tablelands just west of Cairns offer some great produce. I cut some beautiful fresh tomatoes in half and together with a head of garlic placed this in an oven dish sprinkled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. You could add some sprigs of rosemary, which I don’t have at the moment. After an hour in a slow oven, I pushed the mixture through a sieve and mixed this with fried mince to which I added some sugar (great to accentuate the flavors of fresh tomatoes), some dried chili (one has to have some pep in life!) freshly grated nutmeg (which seems to tamp down the acidity of the tomatoes¹) and fresh basil out of our garden. As I collected the leaves at sunset, I encountered some cane toads, which, like me, were attracted to the vegetable beds. I am nicely surprised though that, lets touch wood, not many bugs have realized there is anything to eat there, the basil has grown tall and beautiful.

Great company, the well-received macaroni, a glass of classy Australian red wine, some crusty bread, what else could one want!

¹ Segnit N., The flavour Thesaurus, Bloomsbury (great little book given to me by my son who has been interested in cooking since the age of 10, but that is another story!