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November 16, 2011

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Heck Yeah! Mint and Rose Petals in Persian Cuisine

There’s so much that I experience on a weekly basis while at home or travelling that is related to plants and food that doesn’t seem to have a place here… but should. As a result of this oversight, I’ve decided to start a regular feature called, Heck Yeah! that’s devoted to the simple, yet wonderful things that are worth a mention.

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.

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November 4, 2011

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Preserving the Harvest Chat Transcript

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…

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October 17, 2011

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Preserving Green Tomatoes

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).
Read more…

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September 21, 2011

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Tomato Skin Powder

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.

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September 6, 2011

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Birds That Have Flown Away

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.

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