Experimenting with Bush Food at Peppermint Ridge Farm’s Native Creative Cooking School

We are always thinking up new ideas here at Peppermint Ridge for using bush foods to encourage others to put these wonderful plants in their gardens. We know that as soon as we increased the diversity of plants in our gardens the diversity of native animals and insects increased too. We now have an exciting array of native birds and animals that visit every day.
The dishes that can be prepared from these plants seem to have no end and we have put together some new ideas for the cooking school here on Saturday November 15. I hope that these ideas will encourage you to have a go yourself.
As we have many people visiting who cannot have gluten we have been experimenting with that issue and found that bush foods accommodate very easily into gluten free dishes.
The dishes we plan to teach people on Saturday are:

• Morning tea of Strawberry Gum and fresh apple muffins
• Warrigal Greens Pesto – great as a dip or in a wide range of dishes (GF)
• Lunch of Chicken San Choy Bao with Lemon Myrtle, Mt Pepper and pickled carrot & garden vegetables (GF)
• Native Herb Spice rub and marinade – very versatile (GF)
• Garden salad with Lemon Myrtle Dressing (GF)
• Desserts will be Native Finger Lime Curd tart and our very popular Anise Myrtle Ice Cream (GF) with rhubarb and strawberries poached in Anise Myrtle leaves and pomegranate juice (GF).

flowers of the native Finger Limes, soon to turn into fruit

What we really enjoy is growing most of the ingredients for these dishes in our gardens and we will pick them at the start of the class- you can’t get any fresher food! The Finger Limes have finished flowering and the tiny fruits are starting to swell. see the pic attached of them in flower. They are a unique Australian Microcitrus and very delicious.

Salted Caramel and Macadamia Tarts

We mustn’t forget that one of the tastiest nuts is the Australian Macadamia – the trees will fruit in Victoria even though it is a tropical zone tree.

Another wonderful sweet treat is the crunchy Macadamia, salted caramel and chocolate tarts that we have been making for visitors.
Happy cooking everyone!