Spring has officially made its way to Australia, and with that comes a whole lot of fresh and seasonal produce that makes for some delicious, refreshing and mouth-watering dishes.
We all know that the Mediterranean diet is one of the best in the world, and although Greece is most famous for some of its meat dishes, including souvlaki, moussaka and biftekia – there are also some amazing vegetarian meals that are simple, healthy and ideal to eat over the warmer months.
Traditional Greek recipes including spring vegetables such as beans, spinach, leeks, artichokes and zucchini are also fast becoming very well-known and loved due to their tastiness and great health benefits.
Cooking with these seasonal veggies guarantees your home- cooked food will taste more flavoursome and authentic, and today we give you a list of all the fruit and vegetables that are in season for spring and also share some traditional and tasty Greek dishes from Flavours and Flair using some of them.
Spring fruit
– banana
– blood orange
– cherry
– kumquat
– grapefruit
– honeydew melon
– loquat
– mandarin
– mango
– papaya
– pineapple
– rhubarb
– rockmelon
– seville orange
– strawberry
– tangelo
– valencia orange
– watermelon
Spring vegetables
– artichoke
– asparagus
– beans
– broad beans
– broccoli
– carrot
– cucumber
– leek
– lettuce
– peas
– potato
– silverbeet
– snow peas
– spinach
– sweetcorn
– tomato
– zucchini
However, deciding what to cook for dinner each night can be quite the challenge.
Here’s a bonus fasolakia giahni recipe (string beans in a rich olive oil and fresh tomato sauce) to get you into the mood.
Our healthy and easy recipe for string beans with baby potatoes and zucchini in a fresh tomato sauce is a very popular vegetarian Greek dish (fasolakia giahni) that is also a one pot wonder.
The key ingredient to this recipe is the olive oil, which is at the heart of all good Greek cooking.
Ingredients
1 kg string beans, washed and with ends trimmed
8 baby potatoes, peeled and halved
2 zucchini, washed and chopped
5 ripe Roma tomatoes, blended into sauce
1 Spanish onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup olive oil
2 cups water
Method
1. Add oil to large saucepan and add string beans. Saute for two minutes.
2. Add fresh tomato sauce, onion and garlic and saute for another few minutes.
3. Add potatoes, zucchini, water, salt and pepper and stir.
4. Lower heat to medium and allow to cook with lid on for 50 minutes or until beans are tender and water has reduced. Stir frequently.
It’s that easy!
Flavours and Flair is a food and lifestyle blog designed to inspire its readers
to create delicious, simple and good food for their family and friends.
For more information and recipes, go to the website: www.flavoursandflair.com