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Recipes - garden to plate

‘Tis the season for mushrooms, walnuts, spinach, onion and lemons. Here is the delicious food we cooked for lunch on Thursday at Garden to Plate.

Lemony chicken (using a lemon from Jill and a lemon from Sheryl) … and green onions and spinach from our garden, stuffed mushrooms (cheese and walnuts - amazing) and a roast pumpkin and potato mash. So very yum!

Stuffed Mushrooms (blue cheese and walnuts)

Ingredients

  • 4 large mushrooms

  • 100g blue cheese, crumbled

  • 40g walnuts, coarsely chopped

  • 6 fresh thyme sprigs (or dried thyme is ok too)

  • 2 tablespoons panko breadcrumbs

  • 1 1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil or butter

Directions

  • Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan-forced. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Remove the stalks from the mushrooms and finely dice. Arrange mushrooms on the tray.

  • Mix mushroom stalks, cheese, walnuts and thyme.  Fill mushrooms. Top with panko breadcrumbs. Drizzle with oil or a small knob of butter and season with pepper.

  • Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese melts and mushrooms are tender.

  • Serve sprinkled with baby herbs if desired.

Mashed Potato and Pumpkin

Ingredients

  • ¼ pumpkin, cut 3 cm chunks

  • 4 potatoes, peeled and cut in 3cm chunks

  • Salt and pepper

  •  Butter

  • Cream

  • Nutmeg

Instructions

  • Roast the pumpkin in the air fryer for 20 minutes, then microwave with a little water for 5-10 minutes to ensure they are well cooked.  Drain and whizz with butter, cream, salt, pepper and nutmeg.

  • Boil the potato in salty water until soft, drain and mash, then add in the pumpkin mash. Add additional cream and butter to get to the right consistency. Taste and season as needed.

Creamy Lemon Chicken with Sage

Ingredients

  • 2-4 chicken breasts, sliced in half and pounded thin

  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed

  • Handful of sage leaves

  • Salt and pepper

  • Olive oil

  • 1 onion, thinly sliced

  • 1/4 cup chicken stock

  • Zest of 1 lemon, minced

  • Juice of 1 lemon

  • 2-3 cups packed spinach (or use 1 bag)

  • 3 tablespoons heavy cream

Instructions

  • Mix oil, garlic, sage and salt and pepper and cover chicken breasts. Marinate until cooking.

  • Heat a large, flat-bottomed sauté pan to medium high heat, set aside the sage leaves and fry the chicken breasts for 3-4 minutes on each side, until done through. Remove the chicken from the pan and set on a plate while completing the rest of the dish.

  • To the hot pan, add the red onion slices, letting them soften for 2-3 minutes. Pour in the chicken broth. The pan will sizzle. Stir the onions and let cook another 2-3 minutes until they soften more.

  • Then add in the sage leaves, lemon zest and lemon juice and mix well.

  • Fold in the spinach and cook for 1-2 minutes.

  • Turn off the heat, stir in the heavy cream and season once more with salt and pepper.

  • Add the chicken back into the pan and reheat in the sauce.

  • Serve immediately.

This week

Budgets, grants applications and acquittals, Council submissions … last week was flat out behind the scenes … and busy in person as well.

Lots of people attended the Embracing Life and Death discussions on Thursday afternoon. Crunch was a small group this time (but lovely - we did still life painting with gouache paint), we got a delivery of a couple of cubic metres of compost to keep us busy in the garden on Friday (thanks Nat at Darebin Council for organising this again!) … and two birthday parties were held at ACC 🥳 on Sunday.

This week CWA is meeting at the Gleeson Centre on Monday night, Garden to Plate is on Thursday at 11.30am … and it’s the long weekend … so we’ll see you back on deck next Tuesday.

Hope you make the most of it. I am planning to go to Rutherglen (to check out the wineries) with some of my oldest friends from university. Should be fun!

Cheers Leanne

Darebin funding and leasing agreement

This week Darebin Council endorsed new funding and leasing agreements for our neighbourhood houses.

We now have secure tenure for the next 8 years (4 + 4 lease) and funding for 4 + 4 years (with a review process built in along the way).

It is a great outcome and it was lovely to attend the meeting and hear just how much our local Councillors value neighbourhood houses.

A photo from the Alphington Show - Leanne with Mayor Emily Dimitriadis and Cr Alex Sangster.

Day of action

Last week we joined more than 200 neighbourhood houses across Victoria outside Parliament to ask for fairer wages from the State Government. We saw a fantastic turnout of staff, volunteers and community members and had the opportunity to speak to a number of supportive MPs. Thanks to everyone who came along, here are some photos from the day! A big thanks to Kalimna for taking such great photos.

This week

Lots of good things coming up this week.

Preserves Group - Join Kalimna in the kitchen on Tuesday for Preserves Group. From 1pm we’ll be cooking up some tomato chutney and some summer fruit jam. In between chopping and stirring we’ll stop for an afternoon tea break - coffee and a sweet treat, so it’s not all hard work. From 1pm. Also …. if you have small clean jars to donate we’d love some more! We’re cooking up in preparation for sales at the Alphington Show (coming up on Saturday 21 March - a date for you diaries).

Day of Action - on Wednesday our office will close for a couple of hours around lunchtime as we head into the city to campaign for better funding for neighbourhood houses on the steps of Parliament. If you’d like to support this we’d love your company. Just email us here and we’ll let you know the details (we’re catching the train in!).

CRUNCH - Join Lee and Leanne for lunch and a creative arts activity at ACC on Thursday from 12.30pm. Only $10 this year. Book in on our website here.

and/or ….

Alphington Arts - on Thursday evening at 7.30pm for more arty fun! A lovely opportunity to meet other creative folk in the ‘hood, chat and create. This time we will be doing collage, inspired by Gustav Klimt. You can start your work with a photo of someone you love (bring your image along) or choose a random person from a magazine. We’ll be using mixed media - ink, paint, markers and paper to build our works. Thanks Lee for organising this session. You can book in here.

Community Lunch - we have the Deputy Mayor from Yarra Council joining us on Friday, along with some of our Council colleagues. It is always great to have Councillors and staff come along and see our space in action! All welcome (of course).

Hope to see you soon!

Cheers Leanne