You Grow Girl: Gardening for the People

MEASURING THE LIMITS OF THE KITCHEN

by Kelly Gilliam

A young urbanite has her go in this feared domain.

I've long harboured a great fear of the recipe. Well, maybe fear is taking it too far - more like hesitant. I like the idea of doing it all myself, that includes growing my own food as well as creating my own recipes. Being the picky eater that I am I just decided to give it a go and start experimenting in the kitchen. After all, I was a hip young urban 20-something girl; I could do it, right? Must I fear the domesticity of the kitchen in my life-long battle to go against the grain?

In my lowly opinion, food is something that is far too overlooked today. Everybody seems either too intimidated or busy to take the time to really get familiar with the kitchen. Most of the time the thought of cooking is seen as a chore - which is a travesty in and of itself in my eyes. Cooking seems like a natural extension of gardening. Why bother growing fresh tomatoes, or snipping your own herbs, if you really aren't going to use them? Sure, plants are great to look at - I'll be the first to rave about the great benefits of simply having plants present in your life — but there's so much more than tat, tat is far too often overlooked. The process of growing , harvest and cooking the plants is possibly one of the most satisfying things one can do in life. Everybody, in my mind, should at least give the process a go before swearing it off completely.

In the kitchen I've learned some great things about food and cooking, not to mention things about myself. The past three years I've been working my way slowly through the kitchen, and recently just made the decision to pursue a career as a chef - something that I never, ever would have thought of doing five years ago. Following is a list of hints, tips and tricks I've picked up over the past three years from friends, family, various cooking shoes and most importantly, from my own experiences. More than anything, remember to have fun. That's what cooking is really about. It's about indulgence, good taste and fun. Learn how to balance a good diet with lots of flavour and you'll learn that cooking can be more rewarding than you've imagined — that's the number one thing I've learned myself.

Don't overdo it! Remember, all ingredients should compliment one another, not battle for dominance.
Preparation is key - you don't want to be scrambling for an ingredient if you have something frying, something in the oven and something boiling.
Go fresh or go home. I don't understand the need to bottle everything. Just go for the fresh lime, squeeze the juice yourself as you are cooking. Don't go with a bottle, believe me, you'll be able to tell the difference.
Invest in a t least one or two good, expensive, high quality knives. Ikea sets are great for the everyday, but when you're cooking a good meal, the last thing your want is to have to battle to cut through a tomato skin.
Kitchen gadgets are great, but not necessary. Don't think that just because you don't have a food processor means you can't make great food - remember they did it somehow 100 years ago you can do it again!
Try everything. Better yet, try it twice. Even if you don't like it, at least you know you don't like it.
Don't be scared to change a recipe to suit you. I promise it won't be horrible if you do and that goes for the following ones that I've included as well as any others.

Mediterranean Style Lemon - Lime Avocado and Rice

This is a good, quick and really tasty dish. It quickly became one of my favorites and I now eat it usually once a week. It's filling as well as healthy, but also really nice and light on a hot summer day.

Items available right from the garden: yellow pepper, tomato, garlic, lemon, lime and basil.

1 half yellow pepper
1 half of a large tomato
1 clove of garlic
1 quarter slice of lime
1 half of an avocado
1 tsp dried basil
1 cup rice

Prepare rice. I like to use an oriental rice, just because I prefer the flavour so that's what I'd suggest (aka short grain perl rice or sushi rice)

Turn a frying pan on low. Now the purpose of this dish is not to cook the veggies through and through - simply to warm them up a bit and help the garlic, basil, lime and lemon flavours infuse, so keep the temperature low. Throw in pepper, tomato, garlic and basil. Simmer until warm. Squirt the lemon and lime juice on top. Peppers should still be crunchy but tomatoes should be slightly soggy. This should only take 5-10 minutes.

Put your rice on a dish, place veggies on top. Cut up chunks of the avocado and garnish.

Makes on meal size serving and two side-dish servings.

Guacamole

There are so many ways to make a good guacamole, and there are so many things you can add. Here's a basic, user-friendly recipe that I like to use. It's tasty, and no matter what anybody says, with ingredients like these, there's no way it can be unhealthy. Substitute, add spices, take something out, or change as you see fit. Accompany with blue corn tortilla chips - I will always say that blue corn is the only way to go.

Items available straight from the garden: onion, garlic, tomato, jalapeno, cilantro, lime.

2 rip avocadoes
1 quarter red onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 half tomato(or one whole small tomato)
1 tsp salsa
1 tbsp chilli powder
1 jalapeno, seeded
1 half lime
1/2 tsp dried cilantro

Mash up avocadoes, but leave a few chunks about the size of dimes. Add all ingredients except lime. When ingredients are all combined squeeze juice from the lime and mix guacamole again. Serve with sour cream and salsa or serve alone and enjoy!

This will feed about 2-3 people.

Spicy Orange - Lime Enchiladas

A lot of enchilada recipes call for meat of some sort, usually chicken or beef. While I'm not vegetarian, I usually don't have a lot of meat on hand, and sometimes I'm too damned lazy to run to the store to get any! Here's a really tasty recipe for a vegetarian enchilada. The only this recipe requires is time - so if you have somewhere to be in an hour and a half, I'd suggest you not make this one. Most of the time, however, is spent waiting for the sauce to reduce and waiting for the enchiladas to bake. This recipe is easily changeable, so I've included approximate measurements. Change them to suit your tastes.

Items available straight from the garden: tomatoes, garlic, onion, jalapenos, and anything like sweet peppers if you should so decide to include them.

Enchilada sauce:

6 oz of tomato sauce
1-1.5 cups of black beans
1 cup red onion
3 cloves of garlic
1.5 tsp of sherry vinegar
Olive oil(enough to coat the entire pan plus a little extra, approx 1/8-1/4 of a cup)
1 half of a large jalapeno - don't seed it, you want those in there
1 whole tomato, diced
1 tbsp chilli powder
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 quarter orange
1 half lime

For the enchilada (place these to the side):

3 tortilla shells (I recommend blue corn, but regular corn will do, and If you prefer, flour will work)
Cheese - about 1.5 cups packed
Guacamole
Sour cream

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees

The sauce:

Over medium heat, warm the sherry vinegar and olive oil. Combine tomato sauce, black beans, red onion, garlic, jalapeno, tomato, chilli powder, crushed pepper and cumin in the pan and stir together. Squeeze the orange and lime into the sauce. At this point the sauce should look quite runny, this is where the reduction comes in. Allowing a sauce to reduce concentrates flavour, so don't rush the process. It should take about 20-25 minutes, or until it's no longer runny. Make sure you stir occasionally, but if your heat isn't up it shouldn't burn.

The enchiladas:

When the sauce can hold itself up, take out three tortillas and pack the sauce into them and roll them up. Place in a casserole dish and sprinkle cheese on top. Place them in the oven; covered and let them bake for about half an hour, checking on them occasionally. After half an hour they should be crispy and the cheese should be well melted.

Serve with the guacamole and sour cream.

Makes three enchiladas.

Kelly Gilliam is a full-time greenhouse employee from the Greater Vancouver, B.C. area gardening out of primarily containers due to her urban enclosure. Because of her discount at work she is utterly hopeless about bringing home plants, doing it on a weekly basis. Her favourites are any kinds of cacti and succulents, which she also obsessively cultivates from seed. When she's not at work or puttering around the local second-hand shops for interesting junk she runs Devileye.net.

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