So many great things growing through the dry season, but you can feel the heat building- and it makes me want to share the harvest of the dry season in delicious recipes before they start to wilt and droop and we swap over to the delights of the wet season.

Once again I have been teaching the Healthy Darwin cooking and gardening program. This time it is back in Karama and Malak. This program is aimed at people who are not employed full time and/ or have a low income, have signed up for healthy Darwin and would like to learn some basic tropical gardening and cooking for a healthier lifestyle.Our first session looked at exactly this- Seasonal (mainly dry season) harvest into fresh and healthy salads. It was a hit.

The star of the show was the amazing salad mix from Dan at Aweganic gardens, which I eat heaps of everyday. The mix has mizuna (red, purple and green) lollo rosso lettuce, cos lettuce, darwin lettuce, baby kale (3 varieties) amaranth, baby sweet potato leaves, kang kong, baby radish leaves, ruby chard, baby pak choi, tatsoi, rocket, cosmos petals, marigold petals, zinnia petals, all grown organically with love in permaculture ways on an 800m2 house block in Rapid Creek. If you want to check it out Dan opens his doors on Wednesday Mornings for the next few weeks..His Harvestival is on Friday 13th at 32 Cummins St.

With this great mix we made a grilled zucchini, rissoni salad with roasted nuts, feta and a lemon honey, garlic and sumac dressing. The recipe is now on the recipe page. This picture I took at home and is minus the rissoni. We also made pumpkin risotto, a puy lentil and roasted tomato salad and roasted green pawpaw with macadamia nuts and these great salad greens.

We made the most of tomato season and the ample harvest growing everywhere including Karama Primary school’s garden and all the local herbs of the cool season- like my favourite- dill! Below is our risotto which includes pumpkin, which can grow all year..And finally our Roast pawpaw pieces. These recipes and more are now on the Recipes Page. For more info on the program, click the Healthy Darwin link.