A Michelin Star Chef Turns My Garden Into a 5-Star Restaurant

It gives me enormous pleasure to share my latest (long awaited) episode from The Weedy Garden.

Comment and win a FREE ENTRY into Weedy’s Australian Garden Makeover Giveaway. How many times does Massimo say “Beautiful” in this video? Write your answer in the comments section and you might win a design (FREE TICKET) to The Weedy Garden Makeover Giveaway.

I will put ALL the CORRECT answers into my yellow bucket and draw one winner who will receive ONE free entry into the Christmas giveaway. One chance to win a transformational garden Makeover that will turn your space into an edible medicinal garden. I will draw that winner on the 24th December and mention them in a newsletter the same day. So join the free newsletter on my website to stay in the loop.

As some of you already know, I have been living IN THE GARDEN to see how long I can thrive on ONLY the produce that I have grown myself. Another silly little Weedy experiment!

Things are going well. Lots to harvest and eat, but my skills of cheffery are far from polished.

That’s why I am so excited. I just had a Michelin star chef live with me for a week. Massimo De Michele. He came to visit so we could exchange our talents. He taught me how to cook and I taught him how to grow 🙂

If you want to contact Massimo after watching this video, and hire him to come cook for you on a special occasion, he does a wonderful job. His ethics are right on track with The Weedy Vision and ethos of eating fresh, organic food. He can create delicious art in your own kitchen.

Contact Massimo here: massimodemichelechef@gmail.com Massimo lives in Sydney.

How much did I learn from Massimo in a week? Enough to lift the atmosphere here to a whole other level. My breakfasts, lunches and dinners are now looking more like art than meals! And the medicine I’m eating. Just WOW!!!

I hope this beautiful episode inspires you to make more – much much more of your gardens 🙂
Love and photons
Weedy
www.theweedyarden.com

Good day and welcome back to the Wedi Garden. I’m living up in the garden at the moment in my dad’s old bus and I’m trying to turn 4 cubic meters of compost enough to put on my vegetable garden for my summer season. And I’m giving myself a challenge to only eat the food that my wonderful garden can produce. Now, I won’t say that I’m a good cook. I can forage. Oh, look. Nice one. And I love to eat stuff raw from the garden. [Music] Oh, yummy, yummy, yummy. [Music] And I can make fried eggs and scrambled eggs. And I can even make boiled eggs. But when it comes to the kitchen, I’m no expert. I must admit, I’m good at growing food, but I’m not that good at cooking it. So that’s why I’m excited today. And I’ve got a special guest coming to the garden, a young man called Masimo. Masimo contacted me on Instagram and he wanted to learn a little bit more about how to grow food cuz he’s a Michelin star chef. And I’d like to introduce you to Messimo. I’ve converted my little tunnel into into a kitchen. Is this good enough for you, Messim? Perfect. It’s perfect. Yes. We’ve been harvesting this morning. [Music] [Music] I’d like to say it’s starting to smell good in here, but we haven’t started yet. Yeah. So, what we’re going to do today for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we only going to use what you have in the garden. Yeah. All right. So, what I like to do is to get the best product. All right. So, the product itself is very tasty and very healthy for you. All right. I’m going to respect it. I’m going to give it my touch like the way I like it and also the taste that I like it that is good for me. It’s good for the environment and and that’s it. We’re going to see you will you will try you will see the differences. You you will let me know if you will find the differences between the restaurants, the cafes that you normally go the quality of the product and the respect. I like to respect what I touch. Yes. And everything we’re making today is from the garden. Everything from the garden. Only thing we’re not using from the garden is the olive oil and the Himalayan salt. Yes, I always put salt. When you cook a soprito, soprito is like normally onion, carrot, celery or just onion. You put salt at first so the salt release the water so you don’t burn the onion. They will cook slowly slowly with their own water and the olive oil. Okay. Yeah. So they don’t burn. Tell me about where you were working before, Mason. So, I’ve been in Australia for 11 years. Where are you from? I’m from Italy. So, before I came to Australia, I was in Japan. I was working for a one mission star restaurant in um Ginsza in Tokyo. Mhm. When I came to Australia, I opened a restaurant called Lumi Dining. Yeah. I worked for a two mission star restaurant in Tenerife Island in Spain. I like to change things a bit. I don’t like to follow the trends. Nowadays you’ll see tomatoes tomatoes everywhere which is I mean obviously is very tasty but I think after sometimes they get boring tomato every time tomato tomato tomato Jesus Christ winter summer spring all right look at this what a beautiful garlic garlic fresh from the garden my god look at this and we also kept the flour that’s awesome just a touch more olive oil I’m going to use this lovely sage that you grow in your own garden. Can you smell the flavor of your garden? M. Look at this. Yeah. Did you know rainbow chart the full of collagen? Okay. Rainbow chart very good for you. And uh the funny thing although food every type of food the more color it has into it the more polyphenol contents. There is two components in the food that we eat. Antioxidants and polyphenols. Sometimes people confuse them for the same thing, but they’re different. Polyphenols, they’re very essential for your health. The more color, the more polyphenols and antioxidants, the more medicinal. Very good. My mother always used to say, if you eat the colors of the rainbow, you’re pretty covered. Exactly. Now, pumpkin and prime from the garden with flowers. Yeah, flowers. Very tasty. Bit of lemon and then we cover it up. You see food food unite people, you know, we cook together or we just sit down to have a meal together and we talk about good things or bad things, talk about the past, talk about the future. That’s what creates a common a a community. Why do you think it’s important to have fresh, organic, raw, beautiful produce? I think is a must. So our soil, they’re very depleted of micronutrients. So if you grow vegetables, your own food organically, it will actually give you the right the right vitamins and minerals that your body needs. And to be honest, since I’m eating organic in the past few years, I can feel the differences. I feel more happy. I have more vitality. It really, you know, when a you take care of a plant when when you give it water, it feels, you know, it’s super green and super healthy, right? It stands tall. If you don’t give them water, they kind of dying. It’s the same thing for you. So, how come you’ve got this pumpkin here? What’s that for? So, this one once we make a puree out of it, Yeah. we cook it again and we put our vegetables. I don’t want to make a soup. You know, you have to you have to get some bite out of your vegetables. And then we cook the eggs. Okay. Yes. So, you’re going to have eggs, vegetables, and the pumpkin puree, which give it a creamy texture. Okay. Yeah. Can you smell your garden? Yeah, I can smell my garden. So, now we put this one back. The cocoa bar. I love them. Yeah. I love all the Australian wildlife. It’s so It’s so amazing. Yeah. Potatoes. That’s awesome. I feel good already. Yeah. Yeah. It looks beautiful. It’s a beautiful day. It’s not too hot. Yeah. So, the weather has been kind to us. This is our breakfast. Our light breakfast. So, pinch of salt again. Now, we’re going to make a fruit salad. Look at this. Yeah. Unbelievable. Everything from the garden. Unbelievable. And all all the colors of the rainbow. How lucky you are. Hardware. Malbury, Ethan, raspberry, and the gooseberry. And we got one strawberry. All right, this beautiful passion fruit. Look at the juice. Dragon fruit. Unbelievable. It’s actually one of my favorite. The seeds are rich in antioxidants, polyphenols, very good for you. Vitamin C, magnesium. Look at this. I so envy you. Hard work and good planning. It is. Or you could buy a ticket and we to go and makeover on the unit. I’ll try. This is your beautiful honey. Mhm. From the flow hive. How many kilos do you make per year? Oh, about 20 kilos per hive. Wow. Probably. Can you manage to finish all of them? Yeah, heather does. Some lemon juice. So much color. Look at this. I like to put some lemon balm in the middle. Mhm. Peppermint keep a nice nice flavor. There is so much variety and it’s normally not the type of fruits that you buy at the cafe. You know, we have malberries, we have raspberries. Look at this dragon fruit. Definitely different from the standard, right? Yeah. Look at this. Everything from your garden. Nice. Look at this. Very simple. I’m just respecting your product, your hard work, you know, making compost and growing your vegetables. I’m just respecting them. And finish the eggs. Now that the vegetables are cooked, we can put our beautiful organic eggs and the spinach. It’s a big meal. That’s a big one. It’s a big breakfast. And then we’re going to have to make lunch after that cuz we’ll be hungry after all this work. Yeah. So, let’s go out and eat in the shade. Let’s do it. I’ll take this one. Okay. Okay. M. This is Looks delicious. Sit in the shade here. It’s a little bit cooler. All right. Already have a taste of this one, please. Yes. There’s plenty of food here. It’s like for a whole day. I like it. It’s delicious. pumpkin something different. Cheers. Thank you. M [Music] Hey, Wy. Yeah, mate. You hungry? Yeah, I’m hungry. Come on in. I’m making lunch. Oh, that’s good. Hey, don’t start cooking before I come in. I’m ready. I want to watch how you do this. All right. So, for lunch, we’re going to have a sweet potato and pumpkin risoto. Rot. I’m going to make a cauliflower puree. And I’m going to use uh broccoli, onion, and garlic. And then as a salad, we’re going to make a nice co. Yeah. All right. So, thank you for picking all this goodness for me. And I hope you’re going to enjoy it. And now we’re going to make cauliflower puree. Just going to boil it. watery. Other one is pink Himalayan salt. Extra virgin olive oil. We always say a little bit and we always put too much. That’s it. [Applause] Okay. So now the cauliflower nice and smooth. Okay. For the risoto, we’re going to do a nice soprito. Okay. Beautiful. Are you hungry? Getting more hungry every second. Let’s do it. You think you can taste the difference between organic and non-organic food? Let’s let’s not lie about it. But yes, you can taste the difference. Sweet potato and pumpkin in. Little bit of salt on a gentle heat. I’ll say medium. Just be careful. The pumpkin and the potato very easily to burn. It’s a pretty simple kitchen here with it, but it’s pretty good. That’s a humble kitchen, I call it. Okay. And now we put the broccoli in. And also a little bit of time. It’s good to have a lot of time in the garden. I agree with that. Okay. Now, we’re going to make coal saw. Cole slaw. Yes. All from the garden. Yes. So, we’re going to use your red cabbage, your carrot, the um onion top, lemon juice, and lemon zest. And one egg. Obviously, olive oil. Why do you think it’s important to eat organic food? I think is a must. It tastes better and is much better for you. Your body will thank you. This is a very healthy looking food with it. You did a very good job. I’m a very happy chef. You like being up here in the weed garden. This beautiful. I like to play around the garden cooking the food. I love it here. It’s piece of art in the bowl. Yes. Yeah. Now that this is done, we are going to make the um mayo. So, olive oil, herbs, garlic, lemon juice, and egg. It’s very hot today. Yeah. So, I would like to put some freshness on the coow. Yeah. Some of your beautiful raspberries and malberries. Just a few give a nice beautiful color and a nice freshness to the plate. Looks nice. Little bit of parsley. All right, ratoto is ready just to flatten it up a little bit. And we also use some garnish to give a little bit of flavor, but most importantly we make it beautiful. Now the edel flour infused extra virgin olive oil. Let’s go down to the food forest and have a taste. Let’s eat. I’ll take the the cole saw. M. This looks delicious, mate. All right. That’s for you. Thank you. Cheers. Cheers. This looks delicious. Thank you. M tasting tasting of garden. I love vegetable. Yeah. Especially when they’re organic. This tastes really nice. It’s very simple, delicate, soft. is soft with a bit of texture and the herbs, the vegetables, the lemon. That’s the way I like it. I wish Masimo could stay in my garden. What you doing, Messimo? Huh? What are you doing? It’s a surprise. I’m not going to tell you. Okay, that’s a nice one. Beautiful. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey, Wedi. How’s the fire going? I just started the fire. It’s looking good. That’s perfect. Then let’s make dinner. All right. It is dinner time at the witty garden. So, let’s get the food ready. Wa. All right. So, now we need widy. Okay. I’m here and the fire’s going because we’re going to make the food on the fire tonight. Yes. Are we? So, we caught we caught this beautiful eel and catfish last night and I can’t wait to to taste it. Yeah. We went for a little walk down to the down to the waterfall. That was crazy last night and we caught some fish. Wow. Lots of bugs out. So many. It was amazing. Beautiful in the in the torch light. Yes. All right. So, what we’re going to do, we’re going to wrap this fish with banana leaf, mango, and fig leaves, and we’re going to barbecue it. And then, uh we’re going to serve it with the um roast vegetables, but we’re going to uh wrap them in aluminum foil and baking paper. And baking paper. Yes, absolutely. Let’s get to it. Preparation. All right. So this is um yellow beetroot. Yellow beetroot. Yes. We’ll see. It’s yellow. Yellow and red beetroot from your garden. And action. Can we put the root veggie in the fire? Now we’re going to wrap the fish with your beautiful banana leaves. A bit of salt, lemon, touch of olive oil. Going to place the fig leaves will give a nice flavor. Now we’re going to wrap it. I’m going to roll one more time. So the banana leaf and the fig leaves, they will give a nice flavor. They will keep the fish nice and moist. All right. And it’s very important the aluminum foil don’t touch the food. It’s actually It’s not very good for our health. So, organic mango leaves bit of olive oil. Salt and we won’t be using lemon because we’re going to have like a lemon pesto sauce. So, after. After. Yes. Once it’s cooked. All right. Now, we’re going to make pesto with herbs. Not not the traditional basil pesto. We’re gonna have basil, dill, dill, pollen, parsley. We have lemon balm, mint, celery leaves, um onion tops, garlic, lemon juice, and the zest and carrot top. Carrot top. All right. This is going to be very, very different. I think you’re going to like it. Obviously, yeah. Yeah. Very, very, very unique. We’re going to use obviously extra virgin olive oil, pinky Malayan salt, and that’s it. I hope I hope you’re going to like it. Beautiful. All right. So, we start. [Applause] [Music] All right. Can I have a smell? Of course. Oh, yeah. Now, we’re going to enrich it with lemon zest. This one here. All right. So, we’re going to make the salad. All right. So, I’m going to grate the carrots. Lettuce. Let us get into it. Onion. I love onion. Lemon balm in. Give a nice good flavor. Peppermint. Parsley. All right. The veggie. We just going to season them nice and hot. Himalayan salt, olive oil, lemon juice. And now we go check the fish. How you doing with it? Oh, mate. I’m good. the um the eels cooking and the fish is cooking good. Awesome. I’m so hungry. All right, so we’re going to finish it up. The salad, extra virgin olive oil. All right, just a touch. I mean, at least for Italians. Mhm. Pinch of salt. Lemon juice. Cherry tomato, raspberries, malberries, strawberries, passion fruit, and then the flowers. Okay, we need to check the fish. Now we have prepared this garlic chili, lemon zest, herbs, lemon leaves, orange leaves. Remember? Yeah. So from yesterday. Yeah. This one I think is best with the with the catfish and the green pesto with the eel. It will it will remove the fattiness of the eel. So we can go and enjoy it. Finally. It smells delicious. I love it. All right. Your beauty. We are ready. All we need is candles. We forgot what the candles. Fivestar dining. All right. In the weed garden. Well, thank you very much. Oh, Matt, it’s me that says thank you. I think we should. Cheers. Please. Before we eat. Thank you. What a wonderful day. This is what it’s all about. Growing your own food. Messimo, mate. I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you, my friend. It’s been pure magic watching what you can create from this little patch of soil. It was very fun. It was amazing to cook the beautiful food that you grow. It was an incredible experience. I really love it up here. For me, cooking like this with food that’s alive, it’s a way of connecting to something bigger. When we grow it, when we cook it, when we share it, it bring us back to who we are. Food isn’t just flavor. It’s a memory. It’s love and it’s life itself. I really I really appreciate the time that you spend with me and I hope to see you next time. Enjoy your gardens. Enjoy your lives everybody cuz they’re important. Have a nice day and I’ll catch you on the next video. You know, if you win the weed garden makeover, then you can actually do all this yourself. If you want to win a free ticket to the weedy garden makeover, then you’re going to have to watch this video again because if you write in the comments how many times Masimo said beautiful and you write the correct answer, I’ll put all those correct answers in a bucket and I’ll pull out a winner and I’ll write the winner in my next newsletter. Everybody. All righty. See you later.