Kem Ormond’s vegetable garden: Hosting Christmas with a garden-to-table approach

With a bit of planning, Christmas dinner can come from your vegetable garden. Photo / Pexels, Anastasia Shuraeva

Kem Ormond is a features writer for The Country. She’s also a keen gardener. This week, she’s passing on ways to use the produce in your vegetable garden and reduce your Christmas food bill.

When hosting Christmas, I prefer to take full responsibility for organising the event to ensure everything runs smoothly and my guests only have to turn up at the door with a bottle, so to speak.

With the rising cost of food, we need to make a conscious effort to incorporate produce from our own vegetable garden into the menu.

This not only helps reduce expenses but also adds a fresh, personal touch to the celebration.

By the time Christmas arrives, the garden offers an abundance of seasonal produce if you plan.

In the weeks leading up to the holiday, I create a detailed list of dishes I intend to serve.

From there, I identify which ingredients can be sourced from the garden and which items will need to be purchased.

This level of preparation ensures a well-balanced menu and minimises last-minute stress.

Firstly, I know that meat can be a big part of your Christmas meal, but it can also be the biggest expense.

Ways to keep this expense down include making dishes like a salmon and spinach roulade, where spinach is the main ingredient and only a small amount of salmon is needed.

Lamb rump salad is a terrific way to make your lamb rumps go a long way, if thinly sliced and placed on top of salad greens, tomatoes, feta, sliced red onion and olives. Serve with your favourite dressing.

Maybe you could barter your time with a farmer friend in exchange for a leg of lamb.

A lovely roast vegetable salad is a welcome addition to any celebratory lunch or dinner.

While you may not have some of the vegetables needed, you may have carrots, potatoes, onions and even a pumpkin.

If you managed to get your seed potatoes in early, you could be digging new potatoes for Christmas and serving them smothered in butter and topped with fresh young spring onions or parsley from the garden.

If you have chooks, why not have a go at making your own pavlova or meringues from those lovely eggs?

Berries are quite expensive at Christmas, so why not make a berry coulis from berries in your freezer, and drizzle it over the whipped cream on your pav?

Kem Ormond's driftwood Christmas tree. Photo / Kem Ormond

Also, check out recipes using that rhubarb that is just getting larger in the corner of the garden.

While we all love bubbles and a few yeasty drinks over Christmas, why not use those lemons, limes and elderflowers on your tree and make refreshing non-alcoholic drinks to have available for guests?

Then there is the tree.

Mine is a driftwood tree, having collected the driftwood from a local beach.

I have decorated it with painted gum nuts made to look like pohutukawa flowers … I love it.

I have a friend who is weaving a star from harakeke gathered locally, which I am sure will be an interesting talking point.

However you celebrate over the holidays, remember that taking the garden-to-table approach will help stretch the budget.

It will take away some of the stress and let you enjoy time with family and friends.

Have a great Christmas.