Tonight's dinner was fish plus lots of goodies from my garden. This recipe is gluten and dairy free. For the step-by-step on how to make all three dishes simultaneously (with lots of photos) which is how it really needs to be done, check out the post on my garden blog. Below are the individual recipes.

Method:
Prepare herbs and set aside in bowls. Coat fillets in flour. Heat a little coconut oil in a non-stick frying pan. Saute fennel, then remove from pan and set aside. Place fillets in frying pan over medium heat (add more oil if needed). Cook until just tender, turning carefully once. Return fennel to pan, sprinkle over chives and parsley. Squeeze over some lemon juice and drizzle with olive oil. Remove from heat.

Ingredients:
Fresh pumpkin, peeled and cut into even sized chunks
1 Garlic bulb, broken into cloves and peeled
Olive oil
Salt
Nutmeg

Method:
Preheat oven. Place the chunks of pumpkin in a lidded casserole dish. Sprinkle with salt (I used Himalayan mineral salt) and add 1/2 cup water to steam the pumpkin. Cover with lid and bake at 180C until tender. Meanwhile, toss the peeled garlic in a little olive oil to coat. Spread in a small oven proof dish. Bake until golden brown and tender, shaking to stir every few minutes to avoid burning. When pumpkin is cooked, drain liquid off, add roasted garlic and a sprinkle of nutmeg and mash.

Ingredients:
Silverbeet or Rainbow Chard of any colour - I used Ruby Chard this time
1 slice bacon
Coconut oil
Salt

Method:
Wash silverbeet/chard. Cut off stems and put aside to be used in soup another day. Slice leaves down centre in direction of stem, the cut across-wise into sections about 1.5cm wide. Place in bowl and set aside. Heat a little coconut oil in a large pot. Cook bacon until done, then remove to a plate and chop up. Add silverbeet/chard to pot, add chopped bacon and sprinkle with salt. Toss together a little, then cover and let steam until tender.

That's all there is to it!

Tasty, nutritious and pretty, this simple root vege mash is a great side dish for most main meals.

I really love the taste of chokos cooked with oyster sauce, but since oyster sauce contains sugar, I have to look for alternatives. Chokos (chayote) have almost no salicylates, but the soy sauce I use contains amines and glutamates, and the garlic contains amines to. So this dish is for me, while my daughter had steamed broccoli (which contain salicylates)

Method:
1) While wearing gloves, peel 2 chokos and chop off ends.
2) Slice lengthways into quarters, then chop into thin slices
3) Peel and finely chop 2-3 cloves garlic
3) Melt 1 TBSP butter in a saucepan. Add chokos and garlic and saute for a minute or two.
4) Add salt to taste, 1-2 tsp soy sauce and about 1/4 cup water
5) Stir well, cover, and simmer until chokos tender (about 5-10 mins)

A quick and tasty way to cook leeks as a side-dish.

A healthy low-carb alternative to traditional mashed potatoes, this is a good side dish to serve with a variety of meat meals.

Method:
1) Steam 1 or 2 bags of frozen cauliflower florets (or a whole head of cauliflower, cut into florets without excessive stem) until tender. I needed to do this in two batches as my steamer isn't big enough, so kept the first batch warm in the oven while the second batch cooked.
2) Place cooked cauliflower, with any excess water drained, into a food processor. Add a generous knob of butter, seasonings to tastes
3) Process until smooth and fluffy, adding an optional TBSP or two of cream, heavy cream, coconut cream or sour cream if needed/desired.

Serve hot. Serves 6-8

Talk about healthy! This delicious meal includes steak, sweet potatoes plus 5 other veges! Once the veges are prepared, the meal is very quick to cook, so you could do most of the chopping and prepping in advance, then pull everything out the fridge and cook this lovely, colourful and healthy meal in 20 mins flat.

There are three parts to this meal - the steak, the kumara noodles, and the vege stirfry. Have the ingredients for each part prepared before you slide the kumara in the oven and start cooking.

Preparation for meal for 6:
1) You will need 150g of steak suitable for frying per person (900g for 6 people), preferably at room temp, so if frozen, put it in the fridge the night before, then get out early enough to reach room temp shortly before you want to start cooking.
2) Preheat oven to 180C (350F) and line two large oven trays with baking paper - set aside.
3) Finely slice 2-3 red onions
4) Crush and mince 3-4 cloves garlic, and place them aside in a bowl with the onion
5) Prep the following veges and pile into a large bowl: 24 brussel sprouts, base removed and cut in half, 3 cups finely sliced red or green cabbage, 10 large leaves of kale or silverbeet, chopped. (Note: alternatives to brussel sprouts are more cabbage, or roughly chopped broccoli or cauliflower  - 3 cups). Try to have a mix of colours - I had green cabbage, so used mostly red silverbeet leaves. Rainbow chard are many-coloured silverbeet plants, very easy to grow.
6) Melt 4-5 TBSP coconut oil in a small pot
7) Peel 2 very large or 4 medium orange kumara, wash and pat dry. Now use a peeler to cut the kumara into ribbons - do this over a large bowl or pot. The bulk of the ribbons may surprise you, but it will reduce down considerably upon cooking.
8) Make sure you have on hand - 2 lemons, salt, butter, coconut oil

Cooking:
Kumara Noodles: Toss the kumara ribbons with the melted coconut oil. Spread out onto oven trays, and bake approximately 20 mins, rotating the trays a few times, or using fan bake, until the noodles are golden and crunchy
Steak: Season the steak on both sides with salt (and pepper if desired). Heat 3 TBSP coconut oil in a frying pan. Add steaks when the oil is hot, and cook on both sides until done - 2-3 mins for medium rare, a bit longer for well done. Remove streak from pan and place on a plate, cover with foil and let rest for 5 minutes while you cook the veges.
Vegetable Stirfry: In a clean frying pan, melt 3 TBSP butter over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and sauté until the onion is softened. Add the other veges, stir, pour over 3/4 cup water, and cover pan, cooking veges for 3-4 mins until brussel sprouts softened and other veges wilted. Season with salt, and squeeze over the juice of 1-2 lemons.
Serve: Place a piece of steak, and a portion of the noodle and veges side by side on 6 plates. Admire the lovely colours. Eat and enjoy! :-)

This simple recipe lifts ordinary green beans (fresh or frozen) to specially delicious. Taken from Martha's Family Cookery Book by Martha Greene, a great book that has a month's worth of "from scratch" whole food recipes for the family.

Ingredients:
Enough green beans to feed the family (in our case about 600g), prepped.
1-2 TBSP butter
1/2 tsp garlic powder or 1-2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 tsp onion flakes
1-2 tsp soy or tamari sauce, or a dash or two of Bragg's Aminos
Salt and/or pepper to taste

Place beans in saucepan and cover with water. Add all other ingredients, cover and cook as usual. Stir, drain and serve.