Quick Summer Snacks From Plot to Plate

(for when there is just too much going on in the garden to spend time cooking!)

June should be the month of spending lots of time in the garden, tending crops and making the most of those lovely long days so food needs to be quick, simple and tasty if you are to avoid the grab-something-quick-and -wrapped-in-plastic-from-the-supermarket trap! So this edition's article is more about meal suggestions than follow-the-book recipes.

Quick Salads

Your home-grown salad leaves should be coming along nicely now, so pick often to keep them small and tasty - don't forget that early beetroot leaves, baby chard and pea shoots all make great additions to the salad bowl and are as easy to grow in an old mushroom tray on the kitchen windowsill as they are on an allotment. A quick sprinkle of oil, lemon and black pepper and a chunk of crusty bread and you have the simplest of lunches, which is just as easy to take to work or on a picnic as it is to eat at home. By the way, the earliest carrots will be tiny but sweet right now so don't forget to add your row thinnings to that lunchtime salad too.

The Marvellous Courgette

If you are really lucky (or live somewhere that has had a warmer spring than the Midlands has managed this year) the first small courgettes will be coming in by the middle of June and heading towards a glut by the end of July. Just slice and dice for use in simple stir-fries, as toppings for toast, fillings for omelettes or tossed with cheese and black pepper and served with a bowl of pasta. Then before you know it the tomatoes and peppers will be coming in ready for home-grown pasta sauces, risottos and pizza toppings.

Lovely Legumes

Salad is always quick and easy but the main stars of my month are the lovely sweet fresh peas and broad beans that we'll be picking at the end of May and throughout June. One of our favourite quick and easy suppers is a mix of baby broad beans and peas lightly cooked and popped in a bowl with some boiled new potatoes, chives and chunks of white crumbly cheese such as Cheshire or Wensleydale. A quick twist of salt and black pepper and you're away - say 20 minutes maximum from plot to plate! You can even add some crispy bacon or cooked chicken if you really have to! By the way, in keeping with this edition's use water wisely theme you could try steaming the peas and beans over the pan of boiling potatoes or even chucking them into the pan five minutes before the potatoes are cooked for a truly economical meal with the added bonus of less washing up too.

Early Berries

No summer food article could miss the delights of the first of the summer's berries - why cook when you have the pick of early summer strawberries and as June moves into July the first of the year's raspberries too? Sliced, squished or left whole, sprinkled with sugar, ice cream, yoghurt or cream or just left naked and popped in a bowl - I bet they'll be clamouring for seconds and demanding that you put more plants in next year!

Tanya

Courgette photo (c) bloggyboulga  www.everystockphoto.com

 Berry photo (c) Blue Lotus   www.everystockphoto.com

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