No hassle, no fuss quick dinner: pork kebabs with my roof garden salad tortillas

 

Before I begin my daily ramblings, I’m happy to report that I’m now fairly pain free, following my dentist visit the other day. My face does not feel like it’s about to fall off anymore, so laying off vodka, until Thursday of course. Dentists aren’t actually as bad as we make them out to be in our heads. But fairly pain free, not completely, because while I was demakaar( confused) from the local anesthetic, I know it shouldn’t have systemic effects but that’s how I felt. Anyway, I bumped my head on the tree in the parking lot of my local shopping mall. So my head is a little bruised and still sore 😫.

Back to tonight’s dinner, I am so thrilled by the success of my roof top garden. It’s been 7 weeks since I started it. And I’m reaping the fruits already, pun intended :-P. I have budding green pepper, ripening tomatoes, flourishing swiss chard and spinach and I’ve been using the mint for my cocktails for a while now as well. I’ve actually had people asking me about the how, the what and the practicalities involved in starting a roof top garden.

 

Honestly, I just love fresh herbs and food in general. All it took for me was looking for space to have a garden and I had none. Other than my balcony over my garage, which lucky for me gets the sun during the day but is shielded from the raging South Easterlies in the evening. And I took it on like I do everything else in my life, you try it out, learn from the mistakes, then improve your technique and skills. I had no recipe or specific game plan.

But with the success came a few disappointments, but lessons learnt. For example, mint doesn’t grow very well on shallow pots. Parsley, coriander, rocket and generally most herbs crave water. You need to remember to water them everyday or grow them in rainy season. But otherwise they grow all year round. But I’m super stoked about my budding asparagus! 😊

Dinner tonight is from my garden, or at least half of it: Pork kebabs with my roof top salad made from Swiss chard, English spinach, rocket and baby tomatoes, on a tortilla, served with a cottage cheese dressing. This dinner is inspired by Jamie Oliver, from ‘Save with Jamie’.

What do you need? Serves 2 1/2

• Pork kebabs- pork mince, 1/2 tsp of paprika, pinch of salt & pepper

• From the garden- Swiss chard, English spinach, rocket, tomatoes and not from the garden, blueberries.

• Whole grain tortillas

• Cottage cheese dressing: 1 tbs of cottage cheese, 2 tbs of milk, 1/2 tsp honey, pinch of paprika, salt & pepper.

What to do?

Marinade the pork over night. Pork mixed with paprika, salt & pepper. Then out the fridge and mould around kebab sticks and grill for 10 min, on a lightly brushed with olive oil grill. Let it rest for 5 minutes on the grill, turned off.

 

Lightly warm the tortilla on the grill, brushed with olive oil.

Mix all the salad leaves, as they’re a bit bitter, balance this with sweet blueberries and fresh baby tomatoes. Drizzle with the cottage cheese dressing( mix all the dressing ingredients and lightly blend).

Assemble your quick meal and Bon Appetit!