Category Archives: Edible

Fall Gardening – Converted Cold Frame Pulls Double Duty for Seedlings

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Fall gardening, for me this year, means keeping it easy.

Mostly because the squirrels and sun aren’t on our side come late September.  I’ve started cabbages and kale and lovingly transplanted them to well-prepared containers up and down our stairs in autumns past, only to have squirrels dig them up daily until the sun lost itself behind the neighbor’s house.

Never again.

This year I have my magical cold frame I converted to a squirrel-free grow box – I simply swapped out the glass lid for a hardware-cloth (wire mesh) lid.  Anything I plant outside of this box will be on a whim and left to its own devices on the squirrel front.

Inside the box, we took our freshly emptied summer pots, seeds leftover from spring, and planted mesclun mix, turnips, radishes and a few onion seeds.

With heavy rains forecast for the following few days, the kiddo and I dragged out an old shower curtain, tucked it under the lid’s edges, and weighed it down with scrap wood for good measure.  These rains would be remnants of Hurricane Isaac, and all summer has been either no rain or crazy-windy-big-storm rain, so might as well add the wood.

The kiddo, B, who had methodically pinched the tiny seeds from my palm and less methodically sewed them, was very into storm proofing the cold frame. She’s three now and loves a good project, especially a short one she can get her helping little hands on.

The next day we got nearly 4 inches of rain in two hours.

I didn’t touch anything for two more days.

Today, SEEDLINGS!!!  Tiny sprouts!!!  No washout from the rain!  Not wanting to further starve them for light, we set the scrap wood cover aside but kept the shower curtain.  The weatherman says we’re still at risk for all-or-nothing rain the next few days.

Let’s see if we can squeeze a few beet, spinach and kale seeds into the squirrel-free, rain-shuttered box in a few days.

DC State Fair – Even You Can Enter the Fermented Vegetable Contest

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Our fridge: filled with delicious things in glass jars

 

Our own DC State Fair celebrates the growers, the makers, the brewers, the bakers and the fermenters.

Fermenting vegetables?

It’s not just for the Germans, Koreans and bachelors who never clean their fridge.

You can do it – do it this weekend.

You don’t have to grow your own veggies to ferment, just bebop yourself down to your farmers market, buy some stuff to ferment and get to it.

It does take a little planning. Get details below, but you will need non-iodized salt (such as sea or Kosher), an acceptable vessel (a clean glass jar with a lid or a crock) and some recipes call for non-chlorinated water.  You don’t need full-blown canning supplies. See how easy it really is:

  • Dr. Ben Kim: He wants you to buy stuff from him, so block those pop-ups, but his How to Make Kim Chi gives step-by-step pictures and cheer leading.

Once you’ve filled a few jars of fermented, locally grown, organic, hand-picked, biked-it-home epicurean treasure, you’re ready to register for the DC State Fair Fermented Vegetable Contest!  (Note: Your veggies do not need to be organic, local or transported by bike to be eligible to compete.  DC State Fair suggests reading over these researched recipes for fermenting success.  Only 50 entries can be accepted so get busy and register, $5 per entry.)

If your drunk roommate tosses your kimchi at 4:00 a.m. thinking it’s an appropriate time to clean the fridge, you should still join the 2012 DC State Fair fun Saturday, September 22nd, 2012.  As part of the Barracks Row Fall Festival along 8th Street SE on Capitol Hill, there will be a little something for everyone.

Even your hungover roommate.

Fall Gardening – Double Up and Catch Up

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Fall gardening.

Fall gardening frustrates me. We don’t have deer coming through our DC neighborhood but the squirrels pick up the slack for garden carnage. Fresh pots of soil read as “First Month Free” on a U-Store It for squirrels.

We also loose the midday sun behind the neighbor’s house way before first frost sets in, abruptly turning our full-sun back yard into a shade garden.

As a glutton for punishment, I’ll slide in under the wire this weekend with a scaled-back agenda of spinach, mesclun mix and radishes.

The fall gardening opportunity for some crops has passed, but check the following resources for your zone to feed that fall gardening bug:

  • Southern Exposure Seed Exchange: Growing Guides & Library (excellent info for everyone but planting dates are for the Southeast and mid-Atlantic)
  • Washington Gardener Magazine: The August Enews gardening checklist can’t be beat for the mid-Atlantic
  • Johnny’s Selected Seeds – Growing Guides (some of the tools are spreadsheets, but good info)
  • D. Landreth Seed Co – No “when to plant” look-ups, but sit and watch their home page as images of what you should be planting now rotate through and you’ll get excited for fall gardening.  Since 1784… Landreth has been around.

If you’re kind of done with gardening for a few months – you enjoy it but don’t really want to talk about what happened over the summer – don’t sweat it.  Fall harvest festivals abound with pick your own apples, pumpkins corn and ready-to-buy jams and pickles.

If you’re hard-core, you stopped reading this post at about the second line, you already have most of your fall seeds in the ground.

But do you have your bulbs ordered?

Kitchen – Chicken to the Garlic with Farm Fresh Tomatoes for #SundaySupper

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Whether your tomato plants are going gang busters or you just can’t help but get that extra basket of heirlooms at the farmers market, you might be running out of fresh ideas for fresh tomatoes here at the end of August.

Earlier this week I had a package of chicken thighs, market tomatoes that needed using and no recipe that really called to me. I dug out my Le Creuset covered deep covered saute pan (a very appreciated gift via a family member working at Sur la Table last year) and riffed on a few recipes I’ve cooked over the summer.

I served the creation over Trader Joe’s brown Jasmine rice and we each had a fresh ear of buttered Jersey corn. The velvety cooked tomatoes, tender chicken and juicy fresh corn made the perfect late-summer dish. Sunny flavors but comforting with the breeze outside blowing a little cooler from the north. Fall is heading our way.

Neal loved it, fondly saying it reminded him of one of his dinners in Spain, Pollo al Ahillo, and the awkward but accurate English translation on that long-ago menu: Chicken to the Garlic.

So, with that, and a thanks to Family Foodie bringing back #SundaySupper, I present:

Chicken to the Garlic with Farm Fresh Tomatoes

Serves 2 – 4, depending on appetites and side dishes. Recipe easily doubles.

Ingredients:

- 4 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs

- 1 or 2 TBS olive oil

- 1.5 – 2 cups chopped fresh heirloom or garden tomatoes (grape or cherry tomatoes are great, slice in half) you can mix your favorite size/shape/variety of tomatoes

- 1/3 cup shallot, minced

- 1 head garlic, cloves peeled and chopped

- 1/2 tsp ground cumin

- 1/2 to 1 tsp fresh thyme

- salt (sea or kosher) and ground pepper

- 1/2 cup water

- 1 TBS salted and roasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds) optional

Salt and pepper the chicken thighs and set aside while prepping the other items.

Toss tomatoes and shallots with a few pinches salt and a generous drizzle of olive oil. Let sit while prepping the garlic. This gives the salt a little time to release the tomato flavor.

In a heavy-bottomed pot with a well-fitting lid (a dutch oven is ideal), heat 1 – 2 TBS olive oil over medium-high heat and brown the chicken thighs, 4 – 7 minutes per side. Remove the thighs to a plate and reduce heat to medium low. Add the garlic and cumin, stir until fragrant – about a minute.

Add the tomato and shallot mix, stirring to deglaze the pot to get that rich chicken flavor. Add the water, stir, then nestle the browned chicken thighs down into the mix. It’s alright if they aren’t covered by the tomatoes.

Sprinkle the thyme over the thighs, cover and simmer on medium-low until the chicken is cooked through, about 20 minutes.

When the chicken is nearly cooked through, if the mixture seems too watery, finish cooking uncovered, spooning the liquid and tomatoes over the thighs every few minutes. Adjust the heat to maintain a steady simmer and let it thicken slightly. Do not let the pot cook dry – you want the tomato garlic mixture to remain very moist, easily filling a spoon with liquid alone. Add more water if your chicken isn’t cooked through but the tomato mixture is no longer juicy.

Serve over your favorite rice or shaped pasta, generously spooning on the tomatoes, garlic and lovely juices. Sprinkle the pepitas over top. Pairs wonderfully with fresh corn.

A Few Notes:

- You can easily substitute drum-sticks for chicken thighs. Whichever you use, you only want a single layer of them in your pot. (Or brown in batches and, later, switch top layer with bottom layer halfway through cooking with the tomatoes so they cook evenly.)

- The chicken’s bones and skin, cooked at a medium-low heat with the lid on, give the tomatoes, shallots and garlic a velvety texture. Using boneless/skinless cuts will change the dish.

- Do not use chicken stock or broth. By only adding water you let those fresh, local tomatoes shine! Browning the chicken first, setting it aside, then making the dish in the same pot will carry plenty of great chicken flavor.

- The leftovers reheat fantastically the next day!

- I take the worst food pictures on the planet. I mixed yellow and red tomatoes to beautiful effect, you can too!

- A tried-and-true Pollo al Ajillo recipe is here if my version with fresh tomatoes seems a little fast and loose.

Enjoy!

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County and State Fairs – Scratch that Competitive Itch

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Runner-up beans at the 2012 Montgomery County Fair

Do you love the county fair?  Did your parents ever take you to the state fair because there was more fair there?

Remember wrist-band day?  It was caution-to-the-wind as your parents said, “Meet me back here at the grandstand at 6:00.  Sharp.”

You – two bags of cotton candy.  Your best friend – dares you to ride the Gravatron for the fifth time.

We were just at the Montgomery County Fair in  Gaithersburg, MD yesterday.  I’ve been to many fairs and this one blows me away.  Aside from the delightful animal barns with their wooden stalls and open-air construction that encourage you to admire the livestock, the farm, garden and flower contest entries will make any gardener flush with envy.  Tomatoes beckon like seed catalog illustrations and impossibly plump pole beans lay alongside sun flowers that cast shadows.

The Montgomery County Fair just happened to fall on the week following the 2012 Summer Olympics.  I can’t help but wonder if the non-ribbon-winning contestants for Corn – Feed Grade feel it’s an honor just to compete, or, if like McKayla Maroney, they are not impressed with the category’s blue ribbon winner.

What about us in the city?  Can we podium with the spoils of our summer labor on our balconies, tiny front yards and sidewalk tree boxes?  County fairs have strict rules that competition entrants be raised or grown within the county, likewise for state fairs.

Our own DC State Fair answers that call to celebrate – and compete – in agriculture and craft of the urbanite.

If 80 percent of success is showing up, then the 2012 DC State Fair’s broad spectrum of twenty+ contests has a little something for everyone – pick one and show up.

From homebrewing to photography, kid’s art & poetry to beekeeper honey, pie baking to cupcake-ing, knit & crochet & sewing contests to bike accessory making, home pickling & fermenting to vegetable growing – pick your favorite hobby (or learn a new one!) and see how easy it is to register to compete.

Some contests have limited registration capacity, others will accept entries the day of, but plan ahead and envision what you’ll do with that blue ribbon.  (Can you say Instagram gold?)

If your main hobby is socializing, join the fun and cheer on the ag-athletes!  The 2012 DC State Fair will be held Saturday, September 22nd, as part of the Barracks Row Fall Festival along 8th Street SE on Capitol Hill.

Do you live nowhere near DC but want to get in on the grow-your-own and make-it-yourself competitive spirit?  Find your state agricultural fair here or simply Google your county fair for dates and location.

Get the kids involved, or cultivate your own blue ribbon wishes, the fair is for everyone.

Blue ribbons for days at the Montgomery County Fair

Herbs – Keeping Freshly Cut Basil

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Two early sprigs of fresh cut basil: Ararat and Napolitano.

The great debate: on the counter or in the fridge.

Limited precious counter space pushed my fresh cut basil into sealed bags in the fridge for the last few years.  I cut it outside and get it bagged and fridged within 10 – 15 minutes, no washing.  It lasts a week or two no sweat.  I remove any discolored leaves I notice as I use it.

Thanks to moving a cutting board, I have a little herb roost behind the sink now.  The basil pictured is two days old and looks great.  Basil uses a ton of water sitting in a vase.  You can put a plastic bag over the leafy mass to maintain humidity and slow its respiration.  Or just keep the vase filled with water.

Wondering how to put up basil?  A Pinch Of… will get you started down the road of year-round basil for cooking.  I’m a fan of freezing leaves in a sealed container (least amount of work) or drying (for soups, sauces and giving to friends), but that just scratches the surface.

Whether you buy it or grow it, store it to suit you and enjoy!

Herbs – Cut the Cough with Horehound

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A rodent pruned my horehound a few weeks ago and now I have two nice stems.

 

It caught my eye at the end of the DC State Fair Seedling Swap, during the free-for-all where you grab what you want after completing the organized rounds of selecting seedlings.

Horehound.  It sounded old.

Whatever it was, it was a tiny bumpy-leafed plant growing in an even tinier plastic seedling starter cell.  Three sat there.  I swiped two, selected more plants, then let the toddler make her own selection (she had already endured her version of eternity during the swap and the exciting grabfest caught her interest).

She immediately grabbed a horehound.

The itty bitty pot fit perfectly in her clutch as she carried it to our bag, she wanted to get it in there to “protect it” as I said for the others.  She said horehound with heft and a smile.

A month later, I’ve finally gotten around to looking up horehound.  It turns out horehound has been a cough remedy for thousands of years and is still a common ingredient in cough medicine.

Sustainable Urban Living  has a horehound page that jives nicely with my recently discovered favorite herb book.  It even includes the horehound candy drops recipe and an easy cough syrup recipe.

If making candy or syrup exceeds your domestic ambitions, The Complete Book of Herbs (the above mentioned favorite), instructs:

At the first sign of a cold: finely chop nine small horehound leaves, mix with 1 tablespoon honey and eat slowly to ease sore throat or cough.  Repeat several times if necessary.

Easy, breezy – bye bye coughy sneezy!

Whether the toddler grabbed the horehound because it was the smallest thing there, loved the name or just copied me, I love that we are growing cough medicine on the back steps.

Herbs – Pruning Basil to Get More Basil

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Basil.

When I worked at the garden center, if a customer bought only one herb, it was basil.  Folks would ask how to harvest it and, depending on which of us was asked, the answer was usually either “pick leaves” or “cut stems.”

You don’t have to be a an either/or pruner, but thoughtful harvesting will ensure you have fresh basil all summer long.

For a few leaves on sandwiches or in salads, step out and pick a few from established plants.  But when you need a good amount for a recipe, or when the plant gets about a foot tall, snip the plant above the second or third set of leaves.  Two stems will grow just below the cut and your basil will produce much more basil than just picking leaves as you need them.

If this sounds simple but harsh, read this basil thread on GardenWeb to see that you can’t really do it wrong but you can do it well by keeping a few things in mind:

1.  Leave 1/3 of the plant growing when you prune/harvest.

2.  Let the plant recover before cutting again.  Feel free to pick a few leaves (and leave enough leaves behind when you harvest to do so).

3.  Harvest diligently (every four weeks or so) if you want to prevent your basil from flowering.

4.  Grow multiple basil plants to harvest one each week.

Whether or not to let your kitchen basil flower is another topic entirely.  I’m in the pinch-it-off camp, that is, if the plant is able to out-run my kitchen snips.

Come late fall, I let all the basil flower their hearts out.  The plants are spent, the flowers look great and the little flower heads are fun to fry up in a skillet.

If I were smart, I’d harvest the seeds to get more basil.

Herbs – Sweet, Sweet Woodruff

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Ever since Jayme Jenkins introduced me to May Wine, I’d had my eye open for sweet woodruff to add to our garden.  It sounded so old-timey and perfect, an edible perennial ground cover that loves dappled shade.  I had just the spot for it.

Pouring over Flower Mart’s incredible herb selection I spotted the marker, “Sweet Woodruff.”  Reaching over the table, I stopped short, its starry little umbrella leaves I’d seen so many times before, through which I’d picked looking for snails and crawlies for the toddler in our own backyard.

I looked over the little pot to make sure, and put it back completely positive that, indeed, Michelle had planted it many seasons ago.  Michelle lived in the apartment next door and established our building’s backyard garden a few hours at a time, salvaging it from decades of low-rent neglect.  We co-gardened the last few years, her in the garden beds and me in pots up our stairs.  As her gardening time dwindled I took over the tending.  She moved last fall and I’ve taken over.

And the sweet woodruff had long taken over its little protected patch under the camellia.  I remember her pointing to that patch of lovely green saying there was concrete just a few inches below the surface and not much else would grow there.  I just don’t remember what she was growing there.

Super yay all around!  The Herb Companion’s sweet woodruff entry lists medicinal uses to treat kidney and liver disorders, nervousness, heart irregularities and a host of additional maladies.  Good Earth Natural Foods gives an additional rundown.   The U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers it only safe in alcoholic beverages.

For growing sweet woodruff, The Washington Star Garden Book (my copy is from 1988) entry lists:

Soil: moist, acid soil

Exposure: shade

Propagate: transplant divisions in spring or fall, root cuttings in the spring

Plant: 4 – 6 inches apart

Height: 6 inches

Harvest: flower umbrellas and new leaves for May wine

Plants needed: as many pots as needed for ground cover

In The Complete Book of Herbs, Lesley Bremness explains

This pretty little woodland plant will, when added to a wine cup, “make a man merrie,” wrote Gerard.  Sweet-smelling garlands of woodruff were hung in churches, strewn on domestic floors, sprinkled into potpourri and linen and stuffed into mattresses, spreading its cordiality around the household.  The coumarin in the leaves develops its sweet hay scent only when the plant is dried, so sweet woodruff is invaluable from the appearance of its first flowers for the traditional German May Bowl punch, through Christmas, when it is used in herb pillows.

That its scent isn’t released until dried is an understatement.  I can’t smell anything off the fresh cut sprigs, but I leave them in a bowl under a cloth napkin for a few days and - magically – the most pleasant aroma you can imagine wafts up.  A direct comparison doesn’t come to mind, but it’s slightly sweet, with a hint of anise, the tinest front of mountain mint and rises wonderfully airy and fresh.

Reading that sweet woodruff helps repel bugs from linens is music to my ears.  I’ve sprinkled our house with ground cloves for nearly a year in a slow fight against carpet beetles, now I can add sweet woodruff to my baseboard and under-bed carpet sprinkle.

Ah, sweet woodruff, I can not wait to make little gift sachets with you for friends and drink you in maiwein with friends.

Fast Forward – Blossoms to Beans

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Friday we left our bush beans blossoming while we visited friends and family in Brooklyn for the holiday weekend.

Five days later – 120 hours later – I return to our bush bean patch sporting lovely baby beans.

Everything else grew ridiculously over the hot rainy weekend as well, but that’s amazing.

I should leave town more often.

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Kitchen – Glazed Young Beets via Julia Child for #SundaySupper

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Beets.  They’re what’s for dinner.

Recipes are flying between garden bloggers as seeds sown turn into dinner.  The #SundaySupper movement came my way earlier in the week and I will likely feed one post a week towards it.

Yesterday we took fresh farmers market beets and made sister dishes of glazed beets and sauteed beet greens with garlic and mustard seed (prepared exactly like sauteed kale with garlic and mustard seed).

Beets snuck into our kitchen a few years ago through our weekly CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box and I’ve never looked back.

After a few reminders from the husband that he “doesn’t really like beets” I finally fell into two cooking methods we all love: roasting and glazing.

I’ve been glazing carrots as directed by Julia Child and recently applied it to beets.  Score 1 for the home cook.  It’s easy, you can adjust the sweetness while cooking, you can cook them firm or tender, they reheat nicely and they’re an easy sell to reluctant beet eaters.

Disclaimer:  I am not a food writer nor a food photographer.  My food pictures are incredibly bad and I cook daily but rarely write about it.  As such, the recipe below is nearly verbatim from the source with my comments preceding and following it.  I encourage you to play with the recipe, make it your own and share your results.

The Set-Up

The following two recipes are adapted from “The Way to Cook” by Julia Child, copyright 1989.  The master recipe is for a variety of root vegetables and the carrot recipe is what I use for beets.  A few weeks ago I glazed a medley of young beets and turnips to great success.

Following the recipe I note what I do differently and successful substitutions I use for butter, water and sugar.

BOIL-STEAMING: BRAISING (Master recipe)

Rutabaga, carrots, turnips, and beets as well as green peas and onions

Peel the vegetables, and leave them whole or cut them into neat pieces or chunks, depending on your final intentions.  Boil-steam them in a covered pan with water, salt and optional butter.

Fill the saucepan with enough water to come halfway up the vegetables, bring to the boil, and add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and the optional 2 Tbs butter.  Toss up once or twice, cover the pan, and boil 8 – 10 minutes – adding more liquid if needed, until the vegetables are tender.  If it is done and liquid remains, uncover and boil it off.  (Cooked this way, no flavor escapes: it is all reabsorbed into the vegetables.)

BOIL-STEAMED CARROTS

And braised and glazed carrots

For 6 servings

6 – 9 carrots 8 inches long, peeled and cut into long wedges
Salt

For glazed carrots
3 Tbs butter (2 for initial cooking, 1 for glazing)
1 1/2 tsp sugar

Preliminary cooking.  Boil-steam the carrots in a covered saucepan with water to come halfway up them, and salt, as described in master recipe; add 2 tablessppons of butter if you are to glaze them.  When tender, and the liquid has evaporated, the carrots will begin to saute in the residue of their juices.  Correct seasoning.

Glazing.  Just before serving, add the additional butter and the sugar.  Toss gently over moderately high heat to glaze them with a buttery sheen.

My notes:

1. This cooking method is extremely forgiving.  You can vary nearly everything as long as you bear in mind that you are cooking the liquid off as the veggies boil-steam.  You want a little fat remaining in the pan at the end to add sheen and keep them from scorching.  That fat can be any cooking oil or butter (or combo).  If using butter alone, add more at the end as directed above.

2.  I use a 9″ enameled cast iron skillet instead of a saucepan with a light loose-fitting saucepan lid.

3.  You can cut your beets how you like but try to make the resulting pieces similar in size for uniform cooking.

4.  Cut the greens off entirely off, sacrificing a little beet meat, to ensure sand isn’t carried into the pan.

5.  Trim the stringy root tip and any other root strings.

6.  You do not need to peel baby beets.  I did not peel the beets pictured, which I would call young but not baby.

7.  I don’t use sugar but do add something sweet when I add the water.  A little maple syrup (about 1 Tbs) or substituting apple juice or apple cider for the water will make it sweet enough.  I also finish the dish by turning the heat down to low towards the end and caramelizing the beets slightly, letting their natural sugars develop.  Keep a close eye so not to scorch or burn them.

8.  I start with about 2 Tbs olive oil in the pan first, add the beets, then add water until halfway up the beet chunks.  I often add about a pat of butter with the salt.

9.  You can skip the sugar entirely by making a strong tea with fenugreek seeds and adding with the water in the recipe.  Simply place 1 Tbs fenugreek seeds into a mug and fill with boiling water.  Let steep while you prep the beets (at least 10 minutes).  Use the tea but not the seeds (they are hard and bitter) – it tastes and smells like maple syrup.

10.  I don’t time how long the lid is on since I end up with different sized beets and chunks each time I cook this.  I start poking the beets with a fork, checking for tenderness, after about five minutes.  Once they start to soften I ditch the lid and let the liquid boil off, keeping the heat medium-high.

Now go get beets and get glazing!

Native Plants – The Delightful Wild Strawberry

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Wild strawberries.

A few years ago I’d never hard of them.  Our neighbor who gardened before me in our shared back yard would (thankfully) weedwack everything outside the flowerbed she built.  As I started gardening back there as well, I asked she leave the little strawberries be.  I’d noticed most the nasty other weeds didn’t grow through their little patches.

And they’re cute.

The wild strawberries inspired me to buy cultivated strawberries and plant them a few places the wild ones thrived.  The cultivated ones made it into their second year this season with great fruit alongside their wild cousins.

The toddler says “They’re strawberries everywhere!” as she goes around picking and eating the little wild ones that all ripened these last few weeks.  She loves them.  To me they taste like tiny seeds held together with a little juice-less flesh, I’m not that into eating them.  She checks on the “real” strawberries and reports to me when the cultivated ones are ready to pick.  She has free reign over the wilds.

The wild strawberries keep to the edges (being many in our city yard) and make the most polite garden bed invaders.  Their little runners constantly make it across our scavenged brick-and-stone bed border but I divert them back across as I find them.  Slowly they mound and fluff up in favored spots.

The Complete Book of Herbs, by Lesley Bremness, confirms Fragaria vesca fruit are edible and suggests eating fresh with cream or using for jam, cakes, pies and syrups or to flavor liqueurs and cordials.  It also notes the leaves of woodland strawberries can be infused with other herb teas to add bite and, medicinally, infuse as tea for anemia, nervousness, gastrointestinal and urinary disorders.  Reading you can eat the fruits as iron supplements sold me.

Today, as B brought me tiny wild strawberries with garden-dirty fingers and a giggles, I said “Thanks so much!” instead of “Oh, thanks, but that’s for you.”

Iron never tasted so cute.

Herbs – Building a Basil Library

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Basil.

Basil, basil and more basil.

The Complete Book of Herbs, by Lesley Bremness, notes you should “pound with oil or tear with fingers rather than chop” this native of Africa and Asia when used in the kitchen.  I note growing tomatoes mandates growing basil – your summer will never lack a side dish or garden-fresh hors d’oeuvre.

Last summer I grew Genovese, Thai and African Blue basil.

This year I can’t stop myself.  From various plant sales and farmers markets, I have potted so far:

Red Rubin

Dark Opal

Cinnamon

Ararat

Valentino

Napolitano

I sowed seeds in two tomato pots and have tiny starts:

Sweet Genovese

Eritrean

In my seed packet pox, woefully waiting for me to sow again (original batch lost to cut worms and damping off):

Salad Leaf

Holy

Genovese (more)

According to Wikipedia’s list of basil cultivars, I am well on my way to having way more basil than someone with a modest city yard should have.

I am so excited.  Neal collects records, I collect basil.

Event – The Jefferson Table and the Monticello Kitchen

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Living in Washington, DC, means you have friends working on incredible things.  Did you know the Smithsonian National Museum of of American History, Behring Center, has an Heirloom Garden?

Did you know Monticello’s Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants sent seeds there to grow for a heritage garden in collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture?

Did you know you can participate in cooking demonstrations using those very plants grown from heritage seeds?

A friend involved in all this shared the great news with me.  If you live or work in DC (or will be here traveling), mark your calendar.  Note the cooking demonstration is at the USDA Farmers Market, details below.

The Jefferson Table and the Gillette Family Garden
Friday, June 8, 11:00am-1:30pm

Join culinary historian and African American Research Historian at Monticello, Leni Sorenson, Ph.D., as she leads several cooking demonstrations. Dr. Sorensen will base her teachings on several recipes from The Virginia Housewife, by Mary Randolph and the repertoire of Edith Fossett, an enslaved woman and the president’s cook at the White House and at Monticello upon Jefferson’s retirement. The vegetables used are among those planted in the Heritage Garden at the National Museum of American History including varietals of peas, greens, beets, cabbage and condiments.

This program is free and open to the public and will be repeated, Friday, September 21. Please call 202/633-0070 for more information. It is made possible through the collaboration of Monticello, Smithsonian Gardens, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farmer’s Market, 12th St. SW and Independence Av., SW. This program is in conjunction with the exhibition Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello: Paradox of Liberty on view through October 14, 2012.

Friday, June 8, 11:00am-1:30pm
U.S Department of Agriculture Farmer’s Market
12th St. SW and Independence Av., SW (directions)
Washington, DC
Metro Orange/Blue Lines Smithsonian

Kitchen – Sautéed Kale with Garlic and Mustard Seed

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#SundaySupper

That explains this recipe.

Our farmers market saw its second Sunday today and we brought home two different kales for dinner.  One was very tender and tasted like mustard greens, the other had slender tear-drop leaves that grew from a stalk.

A few days ago Bren, from BGgarden, turned me onto #SundaySupper and Family Foodie on twitter.  The mission is to get families around the table for Sunday sinner.  Family Foodie asked me to share what we made from the farmer’s market tonight.

Behold – My go to kale recipe.  I can do this blindfolded now.  It always comes out tasty.  Some nights it’s stunning.  I tweak it, use multiple kales (sometimes together, as in tonight), multiple mustard seed varieties, more liquid, less liquid, sometimes cook it very quickly, sometimes stretch it out a bit with the fire low at the end, I reheat it the next day and I make it at least once a week throughout market season.

Recipe: Sautéed Kale with Garlic and Mustard Seed

  • Bunch or two kale: remove stems, tear or chop greens
  • 1 – 2 TBS olive or peanut oil
  • Salt: 1/4 tsp kosher or coarse
  • Garlic: Few cloves peeled and chopped (do not mince, should be pea-sized or larger after chopping)
  • Mustard seed: 1 or 2 tsp, any variety
  • Optional: 1/4 cup liquid (broth, water, apple juice/cider) see below
  • Heavy bottomed skillet over med-high heat:  Heat oil and mustard seed until seeds sizzle (tiny bubbles form around mustard seeds).  Add kale and toss with a pair of spatulas/wooden spoons until well-coated with oil and mustard seed seems distributed.  Sprinkle with salt and garlic and toss again.
  • If you want tender kale:  Add about 1/4 cup liquid (water, broth, apple juice/cider, etc) and immediately cover losely with lid.  Let it steam a minute or so then toss kale in the skillet.  Cover for another minute if you desire more tender kale.  Uncover and let liquid cook off, tossing kale with a pair of spatulas to move what’s on the bottom of the skillet to the top.  Before the skillet goes dry, turn kale out into wide shallow bowl.  Top with garlic, mustard seed and any liquid from bottom of skillet.
  • If firm kale is desired:  Loosely cover with lid for 30 – 60 seconds to let steam with its own moisture.  Remove lid and toss kale until cooked to desired doneness.  Keep the kale moving as you finish – use a pair of spatulas/wooden spoons to move what’s on the bottom to the top and mind the garlic, trying to keep it moving with the kale.  Turn out into wide shallow bowl.  Top with garlic and mustard seed from bottom of skillet.
  • Can’t decide:  Shake  you kale after washing but don’t let it dry.  Cook as firm kale above but be careful – the hot oil will spit and sputter.  It’s manageable, just be warned.  The water droplets help steam the kale just enough.

The times are not exact.  You can’t really mess it up, you can add more oil and liquid (if using) as needed.

You can wash and prep the kale the day before.  It stores best if you salad spin it, pat it dry or air dry before bagging it.

Don’t mince the garlic – it will cook too quickly, burn and taste bitter.  You don’t really want the garlic to even brown (the browner, the more bitter).  I’ve cooked the garlic to a crisp many times – it’s fine.  Try not to, tenderly cooked garlic refines the dish and lets the kale flavor shine.

If overcooking the garlic makes you nervous, cook it in the oil over medium heat first, until just tender and still white.  Remove the garlic, add the mustard seeds to the oil and proceed as above on med-high heat.

The mustard seed adds a wonderful nutty flavor and looks nice.  You can add a little flaked red pepper while cooking if you want to make it spicy.

If you cook you kale the firm method (without adding liquid), a few edges may brown or crisp.  This adds great texture.  However, don’t let all the kale brown and crisp in the pan or the dish will end up tough and chewy.

I’ll update this post if I ever find the original recipe.

The only way this dish could be easier is if the kale washed and prepped itself.  Or if another family member did it.

Post-publishing note: Antsy over posting a recipe for something I cook on the fly, I’ve refined a few lines above.  Please share how your kale turned out!