I was on Martha Stewart Radio today to talk about my new book about growing herbs and edible flowers. The question was asked, “What is your favourite edible flower?” and I replied, without hesitation, “Nasturtiums, hands down.”

Of course, now as I am typing this, I am hesitating, “But wait… what about roses? You really like roses. Don’t forget violas! You lose your mind over them in the springtime. Scented geraniums… you can’t live without them.” And so on…

Were I stranded on a desert island with only one edible flower at my disposal… I’d probably choose lavender. Okay, bad example.

No, really. I often choose nasturtium when asked this question and I think it comes down to the unexpected. Most people expect edible flowers to taste kind of sweet, floral, and a little bit weird, which is how many flowers smell. When I hold out a nasturtium, which does not have a particularly strong smell, and ask a friend to eat it, no one ever anticipates that their tongue will be met with a burst of sweetness and a spicy, radish-like kick.

Nasturtiums are fun, perhaps more-so than other flowers.

They are also very useful. The photo above is of a container of variegated ‘Alaska Mix’ nasturtiums that I grew last year. That container sat at my back door for months, supplying us with a constant stream of edible flowers and buds that we added daily to cold salads and as garnishes with warm meals. We eat the young, tender leaves, too. I have used them to make pesto, which is not too bad on toast with some Parmesan cheese or when used to flavour rice.

Growing Tips

As I mentioned on the radio this morning, the trick to growing nasturtiums in containers is not to let the soil dry out. It took me years to figure this out as nasturtiums that are grown in the ground are much more tolerant of drought and intense sun. It seems contrary to the popular adage that you should “…be nasty to nasturtiums“, but I’ve found that applies more to the nutritional content of the soil than to moisture. Like tomatoes, nasturtiums will endlessly produce oversized, healthy leaves in nitrogen-rich soil, but don’t expect many flowers.

You can get away with a slightly shadier spot when growing in pots, and they will even appreciate a little bit of protection from exposure, while in-ground plants are at their best when the sun is warm and bright. The other trick is to choose mounding varieties such as ‘Empress of India’ and ‘Cherries Jubilee’ that won’t outgrow the pot, or better yet, plant no more than three seeds into a wide pot like the one I used next to our door.

Here’s a link to another article I wrote a few years back on growing nasturtiums. And of course, my new book “Easy Growing” has a couple of pages dedicated to their culture and use. There is a photo on page 196 of my previous book, “Grow Great Grub” of a glass container of my own homemade, nuclear orange nasturtium flower vinegar. That’s my favourite way to preserve and enjoy their colour all year long.

Shortly after my fermentation obsession kicked in full-throttle, I became interested in Kombucha, a fermented beverage that enjoyed its moment in the spotlight as a health food fad through the 90s and again in the early 2000s. Having managed to skip over it entirely due to the rigorous sugar-free diet I was on back when the craze was at its peak, I bought a bottle of a commercial brand so that I could finally find out what all of the fuss was about. Since tasting it I have come to the conclusion that the tangy, fizzy beverage is enjoyable enough, but my real interest lies in the process of making it.

Kombucha is a sweet and sour drink that is made by placing an ugly, deformed, gelatinous mass that eerily resembles regurgitated rubber (hungry yet?), known as a mother or SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) into a vessel of sweetened black tea. Over time the SCOBY feeds on the sugars, resulting in a bubbly drink with a mild, vinegar-like bite.

Alchemy! The drink aside, I was immediately charged with the task of getting my hands on one of those delightfully revolting MOTHERs! I immediately imagined experimenting with my own flavor combinations, fermenting things that were never meant to be fermented (see 1 below), pulling it out at parties (see 2 below), and endlessly entertaining myself with creepy references to Alfred Hitchcock’s, Psycho. As a friend eagerly pointed out, “Now we can say that we have healthy mothers!”

If you’d like to acquire your own healthy mother in a hurry, Etsy is a great place to start. A search for Kombucha SCOBY will bring up a number of sellers and ordering options. There are also several online communities of Kombucha aficionados that will happily share a piece with locals. Unfortunately, as a Canadian, I was unable to find a source that would ship for free, trade, or cash. A biological blob is probably not the easiest thing to ship across borders.

Fortunately, SCOBYs regularly reproduce through the fermenting process and it isn’t uncommon to find pieces floating around in store-bought bottles. Poor Davin learned this the hard way when he gulped a rather large blob down whole. I wondered if I could get the thing to grow, and sure enough, a quick inquiry via Twitter and Flickr confirmed that a new SCOBY could be produced as long as you use a bottle of raw, unflavored Kombucha.

Making a Mother

The process is simple. I consulted a few sources online, but inevitably decided to take my cue from the Kombucha brewing recipe I found in Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz. However, I added more sugar so that the developing mother would have plenty to feed on over the weeks that it would take to mature. Not that when I make Kombucha for drinking, I do not use as much sugar.

• 1 litre filtered water
• 2 black tea bags
• 1/3 cup cane sugar
• One-16 oz bottle of a raw, unflavored commercial Kombucha. Choose a bottle with lots of visible gelatinous masses.

Using the ingredients listed, brew a batch of sweetened black tea. Allow it to come to room temperature, then pour it into a clean and sterilized wide-mouth glass vessel. I used a large, glass jar that is meant for carrying cold beverages.

Pour the bottle of raw Kombucha on top and cover with a clean kitchen towel or cheese cloth. Do not cover with plastic as the brew needs to breath freely. The cloth simply keeps out dust, dirt, and insects.

Set aside in a comfortably warm location, out of the sun, that enjoys steady temperatures. I keep mine in the dining room because the temperature of my kitchen fluctuates due to cooking and baking.

Within a few days you should start to see a small blob forming. Mine took about 2 weeks to form into a thin, gooey pancake. The tea was very acidic and undrinkable. I have used it as a marinade, as a vinegar substitute in salad dressing, and to de-glaze cooking pans. Don’t toss it down the sink!

Shortly thereafter I used the new mother to begin a first brew. Since then I have gone on to make many more and have also passed new SCOBYs onto friends. I’ve experimented with flavors, but so far the best has been made by adding slices of fresh ginger and Meyer lemon at the time of bottling. It is surprisingly better than the commercial brand and a friend who is a Kombucha freak said it was the best she’d ever had!

Choosing a Tea: Everything that I read about Kombucha said that the oils used in flavored black tea (i.e Earl Gray) can compromise the integrity of the mother, while green and white teas are too weak. Grow a strong and healthy mother using black tea, then branch out into experimenting with other types once it’s been established. I’ve currently got a batch of white tea brewing that I hope will be a more subtle base for wilder flavor combinations.

Kombucha as a Health Drink

So much has been written about Kombucha’s healthful qualities, while others have derided it as a modern day snake oil. My own perspective lies somewhere between the two. The drink is often flavoured with fruit and other flavours and is a popular, “healthier” substitute for corn syrup loaded carbonated soda. While I do think that it is much, much better than drinking pop, I subscribe more to the idea of it as a tonic that is best when taken in small quantities. But that’s just my two cents. A few friends of mine are totally addicted and I don’t blame them nor would I ever begrudge anyone the pleasure. In fact, since I’ve begun making Kombucha, I’ve been only too eager to use them as taste testers for my concoctions. My own beverage addictions — carbonated mineral water and cappuccinos — do not afford me a high ground from which to judge!

That said, I do think it is essential to familiarize yourself with possible contaminants before starting out making Kombucha. Drinking a contaminated beverage carries serious health consequences; always err on the side of safety and toss out any batches, including mothers, that look or smell off, even slightly.

If you’d like to find out more for yourself, both positive and negative, I suggest the following resources:

• “My Adventures with the Blob” by Paul Stamets
• Gaia Research
• Web MD
• Happy Herbalist (This site is exhaustive.)

Footnotes:

1. In the book, Wild Fermentation, author Sandor Katz mentions a friend that made Mountain Dew Kombucha.

2. I’ve since done this. I even showed iPhone photos of my SCOBY to a table full of strangers at Rancho la Puerta. It’s the perfect dinner conversation!

This is an old project that I originally posted to this site back in the early 2000′s. It was lost when we switched over to a new design, but I’ve brought it back in time for holiday gift-making. (p.s. the photos are small due to the original page design)

You can expect a few more oldies, but goodies to appear here over the next week.

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This is a simple, but satisfying gift to make using herbs grown in your own garden. I’ve been making them for years and can fire off a large batch in one night. It’s the perfect gift for those who bathe — which is just about everyone.

What You Need:
• Cotton muslin or pre-made resealable tea bags (large size).
• Ribbon or string
• An assortment of herbs (see recipes below)
• Essential oils (optional)
• Rolled oats, epsom salts, sea salt (see below).
• Cellophane bags, cellophane roll, other packaging.

To make the bags you will first require some unbleached cotton muslin. Other cotton fabrics can be used, but I prefer this kind the most because it is dirt cheap ($2.00 and change for a yard or cheaper if you buy scraps from the ends bin) and has an open weave that holds in herbs yet allows their goodness to leach out easily into bathwater. In the past I have purchased ribbon (I’ll explain its use later), but this year I found some nice seam binding tape in earth tones for a very good price (29 cents a yard).

If you don’t want to sew you can purchase special large-sized, sealable tea bags made especially for this purpose. They are relatively cheap to buy and can be sealed with an iron. However, I guarantee you that even the most inexperienced sewer can make this. Keep in mind that it is going to be used a few times and eventually tossed into the compost heap. Precision is not necessary.

1. Start by cutting the fabric into squares. Any size is fine but I usually cut mine into 6″ squares because that is the thickness of my ruler and it’s faster.

2. Cut a 12″ length of ribbon or string. Butcher cord or just about any strong string you have on hand can be used. This will be used to hang the bag over the faucet so it must be strong enough to bear the weight of a bag of wet herbs.

3. Lay out a piece of fabric. Lay the string/ribbon on top in a u-shape with the U formed inside the square. The object is to sew the ribbon inside the bag so that when you turn the bag inside out, you can hold the ribbon like a handle. Place the other piece of fabric on top and secure with a few pins.

4. Sew around the square, making sure to leave a small opening to pour the herbs through. Turn your bag inside out through the hole, push out the corner and iron flat.

5. To fill the bag, take a piece of scrap paper and form a cone with it. Insert this into the hole and use it as a funnel through which to pour your herb mix.

6. Sew the seam shut with matching thread.

7. Herb bags can be packaged in cellophane to retain freshness and the potency of the smell longer. Or you can give as-is. Be sure to include a list of ingredients and instructions for use with each one. “Hang over faucet when filling tub. Hang to dry and reuse up to 3 times.”

Herb Mix Recipes:

Every year my recipes are different but they are always based on what I think are the three things people want out of a bath; to heal dry winter skin, to revitalize and stimulate their mind after a long, cold winter’s day, and to relax. As a result I mix my herbs accordingly. I often add a few additional ingredients including: rolled oats (coarsely ground in the blender first) for moisturizing and soothing, epsom salts for muscle relaxation and celtic sea salt (as opposed to table salt) for its healing properties. Powdered milk and citrus peel are also good additions. I have listed this year’s recipes below as well as a listing of other potential ingredients.

Please Note: When using herbs be sure your recipient doesn’t have an allergy. For example, chamomile is a common allergen to those with ragweed sensitivities (myself included). Also note that some herbs should not be given to pregnant women. Although you will not be drinking this ‘tea’, your skin is a semi-permeable membrane and anything that comes into contact with the skin will have an effect.

Soothing: Calendula petals, eucalyptus leaves, lemon balm, rolled oats, espsom salts, celtic sea salt.

Relaxing: Rose petals, lavender leaves, white sage, rolled oats, epsom salts, celtic sea salt.

Stimulating: Mint leaves, lemon grass, rolled oats, epsom salts, celtic sea salts, a dash of lemon grass and mint essential oils.

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Skin Softening/Healing:

· Chamomile
· Plantain
· Linden
· Rose Petals
· Ground Almonds
· Calendula flowers
· Chickweed

Stimulating:

· Mint (various)
· Lemon Grass
· Basil (various)

Relaxing:

· White Sage
· Calendula
· Rosemary
· Lavender
· Eucalyptus
· Rose Petals
· Thyme
· Beebalm
· Lemon Balm
· Chamomile
· Bay Leaf
· Jasmine flowers

My fermenting obsession continues to play out at a fever pitch. The honey wine is kicking ass and I just purchased 4lbs of parsnips from the farmers’ market with a loose plan to make parsnip wine. The book, (“Country Wines” 1953) speaks very highly of this particular brew.

Thanks to Paula, who sent me a link to the video (above) featuring Alex Hozven, the proprietor of a pickling business called The Cultured Pickle Shop, in Berkeley, CA (How many more reasons do I need to get my butt out to Berkeley?). Her enthusiasm is infectious and her ideas… Let me put it this way: fermentation is a great, wild world and I am only just barely beginning to scratch its surface.

Last weekend while preparing a medley of roasted root vegetables for lunch, I popped outside to collect fresh herbs, as I often do, a pair of scissors in hand.

Living in a place where I can see the garden from the kitchen and simply pop outside to pick herbs on a whim was the dream I had when we were looking for our next place to live. While there was a long list of criteria that superseded this small point, it was ultimately this vision that kept popping up in my mind as an ideal.

Prior to that there was always some barrier. In the apartment there was a separation between our living quarters and the rooftop garden. I was never able to look out at it fondly from indoors and popping out for herbs wasn’t really difficult, but it wasn’t accessible in the way our garden is now. Furthermore, a good portion of my herbs were grown in-ground at the community garden plot, which meant planning ahead and cooking with fresh herbs that weren’t minutes or even seconds off of the plant as they are now. It’s one of those small differences that makes me feel happy and grateful to have found this house, regardless of its many (MANY) faults. We’ve affectionately named it “Home of the Half-Assed” for a reason.

But I digress (as always). The real reason for this post wasn’t to tell you about the garden or my small dream. It was to say that while I was outside collecting herbs, I remembered the Jerusalem artichokes that have been waiting in the ground to be harvested. These chunky tubers taste best after they’ve been touched by the cold weather, but I will admit that the real reason I had put off harvesting them was that I was afraid to face the sheer quantity of tubers that are lurking below the surface, and the work I will need to do to preserve some of them. I’m still dealing with the tomatoes, believe it or not!

So it was with some trepidation that I grabbed a small shovel and a basket and headed to the back of the garden to assess the situation. Sure enough, we have been inundated. Wow. The roots are massive in size and thickly intertwined. I dug up a small basket’s worth, and am predicting a real windfall once I get the big shovel out and really dig up the area. The weather is supposed to be mild this weekend — I’d like to get them harvested before the ground freezes.

We had our first taste of the tubers thinly sliced and roasted alongside several other root vegetables and herbs that very day. Ours included carrots, golden beets, shallots, slices of ‘Delicata’ squash, ‘Orange Balsam’ thyme, and rosemary, but you can include any combination of root vegetables, alliums, or woody herbs that you have on hand. Turn the oven up high (about 400F) and roast on a pan, tossed with a sprinkling of olive oil and Balsamic vinegar (herbal vinegars work well, too). We enjoyed ours with homemade ketchup.

The inaugural Heck Yeah! comes from an impromptu dinner I enjoyed last Friday here in Toronto at a Persian restaurant called The Pomegranate. The atmosphere and food was inspiring, most especially the use of herbs. I came away from our meal full of enthusiasm for Persian food and some new ways to use up the herbs I grow in abundance in my garden. Luck was on our side and we arrived hoping for a table just after someone had cancelled. If you’d like to experience the food for yourself, I’d suggest making a reservation. Tables fill up fast.

Please forgive the poor quality of these images. They were taken with my phone’s camera in very low mood lighting.

Doogh

I thought I’d tried every yoghurt-based beverage out there, and then I found doogh. More savoury than sweet, doogh is a refreshing combination of yoghurt and carbonated water, flavoured with dried herbs and spices. I believe mine was topped with dried and ground mint and rose petals, but I have since researched out recipes that include cumin and cardamon. I’m sure there are other secret ingredients and variations as well.

Persian Mint Tea

My friend Jen enjoyed a classic Persian mint tea, which is a simple drink (fresh mint leaves brewed in hot water) made special by this beautiful presentation. We both agreed that when it comes to food and drink, the rituals are as important as the food itself.

Rose Water and Pistachio Ice Cream with Pomegranate

After a large and satisfying meal, I didn’t think I had the room left for dessert, yet I could not walk away without trying the house rose water ice cream. The portion was generous — enough for 4 people — but we managed to devour it all between two of us, and on full stomachs no less.

Roses are an under-used flavour in Western cooking. One of my goals for my forthcoming herbs and edible flowers book, “Easy Growing: Organic Herbs and Edible Flowers from Small Spaces” was to encourage more people to make culinary use of the roses that they grow. A scoop of rose petal ice cream at a night market in Oaxaca, Mexico back in April 2000 was my introduction to this fragrant ingredient and the way I would suggest first trying the flavour if you’re unsure about eating it for the first time.

Probably my favourite part about giving presentations and running workshops is the one-on-one chatting that happens with fellow gardeners and aspiring gardeners afterward. I love those moments connecting directly with other people who share the same excitement and passion. I love hearing about what they’re doing and the look of satisfaction on their faces is contagious.

For that reason Seedchat turned out to be one of the highlights of my week. The transcript is now online, so you can still be in on the conversation even if Twitter isn’t your cup of tea.

I’ve compiled a few of my favourite tips below:

• Herbs That Dry Easily: Lemon verbena, ‘Dark Opal’ and ‘Purple Ruffles’ basil. We dry and use oregano, marjoram, and thyme year-round in cooking. Lemon balm, mint, anise-hyssop & lemongrass for tea. Also: lavender, calendula petals, rosemary, sage, winter savory, dill seed, citrus peels….
• Lavender Syrup (you can do this with just about any herb): 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, handful of lavender flowers. Bring to boil until thick. Let cool. Strain. Refrigerate
• In response to the high cost of canning jars: Remember that they are reused over and over so your investment will pay off over time.
• Herbal Vinegar: To a clean jar add: Sprigs of fresh tarragon and a few strips of lemon peel. Top with warm (not boiling) vinegar)

There are several more tips in the transcript including: preserving tomatoes, drying beans, drying herbs, uses for various herbs, favourite tomato varieties, harvesting seed, lots of good canning resource suggestions, thrifting for jars, addressing the fear around canning for the first time, making fermented drinks…

The tomato season is ending quickly. As of today, I don’t foresee many more ripe tomatoes coming off of the vine. I’ve had a good run: 110 lbs of ripe fruit in all! This was my first year weighing the harvest, so while I can’t make an accurate comparison to previous years, I think it is safe to say that it was my best year, ever.

It’s time now to focus on the unripe, green tomatoes. In an attempt to squeeze a few more ripe fruit from the harvest I’ve been nestling those that are nearly there inside paper bags. This sort of treatment isn’t exactly necessary, but with fruit flies still around, I find it easier to keep them off of the goods this way.

In my experience, not all green tomatoes will ripen by this method. The fruit that is really young and underdeveloped tends to go wrinkly and rot rather than ripening, so I reserve this process for the tomatoes that have a blush of colour and save the darker green fruit for eating fresh and preserving.

Eating & Preserving

My favourite way to eat green tomatoes straight off of the plant is batter fried. They are also delicious roasted in the oven. When it comes to preserving, my go-to is green tomato chutney. Everyone loves this condiment, and there is never a lack of friends available to take the surplus off of my hands. If you’re not interested in canning or only have a small batch to work with, you can cut the sugar (and some of the vinegar/acid) from my recipe and store it in the fridge short-term. My no-sugar added, short shelf-life, small-batch version is available in my first book, “You Grow Girl” (see page 154).

Dilled Green Tomatoes

This year, with such a large quantity on hand (I am predicting 20-30 lbs of green tomatoes), I have been seeking out new ways to use up the glut. As I write this, 7 pint-sized jars of pickled green tomatoes are processing in the canning pot. I’ve never tasted nor made pickled green tomatoes before, so while I can’t yet recommend this method of preserving, I also can’t imagine how it could go wrong. Most things taste good when pickled, even crab apples! Why not unripe tomatoes?

Because I have no taste experience with this pickle, I decided to forgo developing my own recipe and instead looked to existing recipes as a start. If I like how this turns out, I will try my hand at developing my own recipe in the future. To begin, I wanted to get the true taste of green tomatoes without a lot of spices or intense flavours added in, so I decided to base my first batch on the simple dilled pickle found in The Ball/Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving (page 319). However, because I had some odds and ends from the garden that I wanted to use up, I added a few ‘Egyptian Walking Onion’ bulbils (peeled first) and teeny ‘Chinese Ornamental’ hot peppers to each jar. I also aded some mustard seeds — I couldn’t help myself.

I can’t legally (or ethically) post the recipe from the book; however, I have found it online over here.

For some reason the Bernardin website does not include this recipe, but it does have a sweetened green tomato pickle that might be worth trying if you prefer. I had considered going that route initially, but was concerned that it might be too similar to my chutney.

I’ll let you know how it turns out in about a month, once the flavours have had some time to infuse into the tomatoes. Until then, I’d love to hear how you are using the green tomato glut from your garden.

The concept is so simple I wish I had thought of it: take the throw-away tomato skins that are left-over in the preserving process and make them into something useful. Something other than compost.

With over 80 lbs of tomatoes (and counting) harvested from my garden this year, it is safe to say that I have been knee deep in canning these last weeks. While I am experienced and adept at canning tomatoes in many forms, I had never heard of drying the skins into a powder until I came upon it a few weeks back in Canning for a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry by Liana Krissoff.

Drying the skins is easy. Simply lay the wet skins out onto a parchment or Silpat-lined baking sheet and slow dry in the oven at the lowest temperature setting until they are crisp. I recently ran out of parchment (and my Silpat is too big for our tiny oven. Long story) and used a paper bag cut open. That works in a pinch, too. You can do this in a dehydrator as well, but I put mine away recently and have been too lazy to lug it back out to test.

Once the skins are dry, grind them into a fine powder using a coffee grinder. I have one exactly like this that is reserved for grinding herbs and spices only. A food processor will work, but it will turn out something more like tomato flakes than powder.

The result is a colourful and tangy flavouring that you can sprinkle on top of your meals. So far I’ve used it on breakfast eggs and in ricotta cheese stuffed zucchini blossoms. I’m sure I’ll discover more applications in the coming weeks as the possibilities seem nearly endless.

No doubt if you are growing even one sage plant this year, chances are great that you have enough of this strong herb to flavour a Thanksgiving stuffing so enormous that the Guinness People wouldn’t even bother showing up to authenticate its title. It would win a placement in the book and keep placing now and through eternity by default.

There are not enough people in the world to eat that side dish.

Recently I’ve been on a break of sorts. Naturally, the first thing I did to prepare for the break is stock up on books. I may have gone overboard. One of the books I purchased was “My Tuscan Kitchen: Seasonal Recipes from the Castello di Vicarello,” a collection of Italian home cooking recipes by Aurora Baccheschi Berti. This is a beautiful book, full of warm and tempting photographs of sumptuous Italian treats. The focus is on simple, seasonal foods that will inspire you to use up the gleanings from your garden. I want to cook it all (although the truth is that I never will), but so far one recipe has stood out, and it isn’t even a recipe at all. It was simply instruction to take two sage leaves, sandwich a thin layer of anchovy paste in between, batter and fry. Apparently this is called, uccellini scappati or “birds that have flown away.

Are you intrigued? I sure was. I have fried sage leaves in butter. I have battered sage leaves in oil. I have even sandwiched sage leaves around cheese and fried that, but this is something different. Sage is a strong flavour, but so are anchovies. The two didn’t seem to cancel each other out, or create something too overwhelming to enjoy. They were delicious. Strongly flavoured, but harmonious.

They flew away, alright. Right into my mouth.