Reasons to eat seasonally

Seasonal produce improves your health by eating foods that are going to nourish you i.e – eating watermelon in summer helps keeps us cool whilst rehydrating us.

Buying anything you want from the supermarkets all year around, is a likely sign that the produce has been imported and lacking in nutrients

Learn from Farmers Markets: if it’s not available, chances are its not in season.

www.tarianpantry.com.au

The Tarian Garden

Over the past few months, the Tarian Pantry team have been turning our thumbs green! Starting small, we are learning the tricks of the trade starting, growing and harvesting our own vegetable & herb garden. Bringing food back to basics is what we are about, eating in season, eating local and eating the 'fruits of your crop' are what we encourage.

After a few sunny days in Melbourne over the summer months, the vitamin D has graced our tomatoes and they are now turning red - no green tomato chutney for the team then. Here are a few images of our one red tomato - we are now waiting on 7 others to do the same (in the picture is the Tarian team's cat, Stan - handsome we know!).

We will blog further about our garden and what we are growing, hopefully our words and images will give inspiration to all.

www.tarianpantry.com.au

Off to the markets.

Farmers marketscan be found far and wide although in this case, this farmer's market was only 7km from Melbourne's CBD.

On the second Saturday of each month, the farmers set up shop in the grounds of the Collingwood City Farm (18 Heliers Street, Abbotsford, VIC 3067). What a delight to visit these markets. Majority of the produce was picked less than 24 hours before the market and you could most certainly tell. The smell of the tomatoes were fresh, they smelt of tomatoes and the onions still had the dirt of the farm on them - that's the way I like to purchase my produce. We even found a snail in our silverbeet, thankfully a whole snail not a half which has been done before!

Tarian Pantry supports all things local and it goes without saying, our love and support for the farmers markets are growing stronger each week. Shopping at Farmers markets is not only an education in changing our shopping habits but its encouraging us to buy organic, sustainable and in season produce.

www.tarianpantry.com.au

Grow Local - Eat Local

We here at Tarian Pantry encourage you to explore growing your own vegetables. It can be a little overwhelming when trying to think about growing your own produce, but start small and work your way up to something big. We all have to start somewhere.

These beauties were grown in our families gardens and consumed on the day in which they were picked. There was such satisfaction in consuming produce that we literally grown in the front garden.

The Tarian Pantry team were so inspired by our families efforts that we too are now launching into growing our own gardens. We are planning out the garden now so will keep you all posted on our developments.

www.tarianpantry.com.au

Never too young....

We here at Tarian Pantry whole heartily promote growing your own vegetables or buying from your local produce market. You should be mindful about how far your produce has travelled, how old it is and its country of origin.

Buying Australian, buying local and buying organic will ensure you are supporting our farmers and consuming the freshest produce, with the highest nutritional value.

Tarian's resident gardener recently told me that a child had said that 'he couldn't believe you could do that' meaning...he couldn't believe you could eat vegetables from the garden.

A child shouldn't be surprised about where food comes from. We need to ensure we educate our kids from the ground up, not the supermarket up! From small things big things grow, so start planning and planting out your vege-tarian garden now.

www.tarianpantry.com.au

Vegetable Garden

There is nothing more satisfying than growing your own vegetables. On a recent trip to Adelaide, I had the pleasure of eating from my parents vegetable garden which they have had up and running for the past 6 months.

On the menu from their Tarian Garden was a Bok Choy and Choy Sum stir fry. We simply picked the Asian greens, sauteed in tamari, ginger & garlic and served with brown rice. A simple yet extremely tasty meal.

Other meal suggestions for Asian greens are add them to a pumpkin laska or dice and serve in a Vietnamese salad with grated carrot, cucumber, tomato & puff tofu.

www.tarianpantry.com.au