Grow your own vegetables

Don’t think you have room or time to grow your own vegetables?  Think again as our Cork nutritionist, Aoife, discovered (much to her own surprise!) that it is possible to grow fresh courgettes, peas, lettuce and basil on her windowsill and a small area of garden she reclaimed from her children and dog. And here is the evidence to prove it:

3 benefits of growing courgette and other vegetables in a pot:

1. You can move it around to small sunny areas of your garden and away from slugs that like to eat them
2. You get to pick them when they are small and full of flavour and you can use the yellow flowers in cooking too
3. Courgettes are typically used in France as a soup when weaning babies to introduce them to green vegetables and are a good source of complex carbohydrate

3 benefits of growing your own peas, basil and lettuce:

1. You can pick them as needed which means less waste
2. More nutrients such as bioflavonoids, folic acid and Vitamin C (important nutrients for fertility and general health)
3.  No more soggy bags of unused lettuce in your fridge

Recipe

Here is a nice summer recipe for courgette and pea broth (adapted from the BBC Good food recipe) which keeps the vegetables intact as no blending is required. It also adds in a nice vegetarian source of protein to balance the meal and also additional fibre and slow release carbohydrate.

Ingredients: Serves 4

Cooking time 15 minutes     Prep time 10 minutes

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 clove garlic

500g courgettes chopped and quartered lengthways

200g peas 

400g can white beans drained and rinsed (cannellini or butter beans work fine here)

1 litre of good quality vegetable stock such as Marigold or Kallo 

2 tbsp. basil pesto (optional)

Method:

Heat the oil in a large saucepan or pot

Cook the garlic for a few seconds and add the courgettes until they start to soften approx 3 minutes

Stir in the peas and beans

Pour in the stock and cook for another 3 minutes

Stir in the pesto or garnish with some freshly picked basil leaves

Season to taste and serve with slice of good quality bread such as rye or sourdough