One place we knew we had to visit in the Mornington Peninsula was the famous regional farm shop: Green Olive at Red Hill. I say famous because we were told a recent Master Chef episode featured a bunch of lost people driving past the farm shop over and over again; but apart from this incidental claim to fame, Green Olive deserves some recognition in its own right as a picturesque farm producing some stunning produce.

The land surrounding the shop boasts any foodies’ dream garden with flourishing olive trees, grapes, various vegetables and fresh herbs, including a selection of tea plants- all used by the shop. To complete the garden are sheep, chickens and ducks all looking perfectly at home in their idyllic surrounds complete with pond and in-ground trampoline (what farm is complete without one?).

There was an array of farm-made produce available for sample, and after a few minutes of nibbling away at delicious spreads and relishes, I chose what I thought were the two stand out products- tapenade and lemon salt. The tapenade is made from olives, capers & anchovies blended with herbs that I have been addicted to on my toasted sandwiches recently. Despite using capers and anchovies, it’s not nearly as salty as many other tapenades on the market, and you can really taste the herbs cut through all of the other flavours.

The lemon salt has been a surprisingly versatile purchase- it’s recommended for chicken and fish and I’ve been taking it at its word, sprinkling some over my chicken, asparagus and mushroom crepes, as well as using it with steamed fish. In both cases, the lemon zest mixed through the salt really lifted the flavours in both dishes and I am now loathe to go back to ye olde plain salt.  

Green Olive at Red Hill aims to be a fully sustainable farm and they’re pretty close to this goal ensuring that leftovers are either composted or fed to the chooks, and cooking up all of their dishes in a beautiful woodfire oven. Eating delicious food that was created with such care was a great way to start our day. There is an online shop for this produce, or if you’re lucky enough to be in the area, Green Olive also runs cooking courses which I can only imagine would be as eye-opening and satisfying as everything else about this place.

Website: Green Olive

There are a lot of great cheeses around Australia, but the cheese at Main Ridge Dairy is definitely something to bleat about. These goats milk cheeses come straight from the farmhouse cheesery, meaning that the whole cheese-making process from start to finish takes place on this patch of land.

We were lucky enough to visit Main Ridge Dairy on the Mornington Peninsula this week, and were instantly drawn to the kids (the four-legged kind) lounging happily in the field. We were treated to a tasting platter of 11 cheeses including a light Cashmere curd which was yoghurty in taste and texture, a Cilia camembert-style cheese with a touch of truffle on the nose, a nutty Romano-style Caprinella which would have been wonderful grated over a pasta dish, and my personal favourite, a beautifully subtle-tasting halloumi. After getting through this range, it was easy to see why the delicate flavours associated with goats is becoming such a big deal in the foodie world.

At the farm, we met "the goat whisperer" Bess Noxon who came out to chat to us about her beloved goats. As soon as she was there we realised why she had her particular title, as all of the young goats came running towards her and followed her around the paddock, bleating their little hearts out. Surely that kind of happiness can only lead to a super tasty cheese?

The farm is open to visitors with daily tours which includes the all-important meet the animals, background on the dairy process and a taste of the outcomes of this holistic approach to cheese-making.

Website: Main Ridge Dairy