New Foods or Don't Throw That Away, You Can Eat It!

So my dad and I were shopping at one of my favorite boutique grocery stores when I ran into a vegetable that I was unfamiliar with. Garlic Spears. Garlic spears or “scapes” are the seed pod of the garlic plant. The spears are cut off when they appear to allow the garlic plant to focus all it’s energy on the bulb rather than on the flower. Often this part of the garlic is just thrown away as a byproduct of garlic production. The spears also came with some instructions: drizzle them with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and grill until browned. The salesman in the store claimed that they were like french fries. I must say that I was intrigued by this new vegetable. So we made our purchase and brought them home.

 

We decided that we would try the “recipe” on the spears the first time we tried these new veggies. On the grill they went. After they were cooked they looked like this:

 

The flavor was slightly garlicky. The garlic was just a hint in the flavor. They had a texture closer to cooked asparagus, a little fibrous. They were actually very good. Something that we will definitely try again.

This got me thinking though. What other plants have edible parts that we usually discard or just don’t make it to the supermarkets? I started my research, it turns out that many of the leaves from the vegetables we usually eat are also edible and you can find someone on the internet that loves them. Squash leaves are apparently very delicious, as well as the leaves from broccoli and brussels sprouts. The winner in my research however was radish pods. Apparently, if you let your radishes go to seed (something no one does because when you grow radishes you harvest them before they go to seed) they produce hundreds of seed pods that are tasty when you eat them when they are green.

I have now decided that I will let a couple of the radishes that I have been growing go to seed and we will try out the radish pods. Who knew? Radish pods are used frequently in Indian cuisine, but are something that we don’t see here. Radish flowers are also edible. So I think some radish flower and pod salads are in my family’s future. I am sure that these will make it into a blog post in a couple weeks when the radishes mature.

Bread Baking or Stop! Don't Use That Yeast!

I have not bought a loaf of bread in over 10 months. This is not because I have put my family on a low-carb diet, nor is it because we have problems with gluten. I made a commitment that I was going to bake the bread for our family. I had always wanted to buy that 25 pound bag of flour at the store. (Don’t ask me why. I just wanted to have the giant bag of flour.)

 

I experimented with several different recipes, and I found a recipe for bread that was flavorful, without having so much flavor it wouldn’t work for both sweet and savory uses. It is also basic enough that you can make just about any type of flavored bread.

One of the coolest parts about this new commitment of bread baking was that I could now buy a 2 pound package of yeast to go with my 25 pounds of flour! I know that there are some people out there who are intimidated by yeast. First of all, if your reaction to a yeast bread recipe is to say, “I have some yeast in a drawer somewhere, not sure when I bought it...” Stop right there! Go buy new yeast, right now. You can finish reading this later. The most disappointing thing you can do is mix up your dough, wait an hour and....nothing. It doesn’t rise.

Baking bread is something I have always enjoyed. I started when I was a teenager. I would get up real early so I could make a mess in the kitchen without being disturbed by my other family members. Usually by the time anyone else got up I had my dough rising and the kitchen cleaned up. Now I have a fun time with my bread. I will try different spices and flavors in the bread. Sometimes they work and sometimes they get put into the “at least I tried it” pile of recipes.

The ingredients:

2 cups warm water, no warmer than 110 degrees F

1 ½ Tablespoons FRESH active dry yeast

⅔ cup sugar

¼ cup vegetable oil

½ teaspoon salt

6 cups flour

1. Combine the first 5 ingredients in a bowl (I use a stand mixer) and give a little stir. Wait 10 minutes. You must wait. After 10 minutes the yeast mixture will be bubbly. If it is not bubbly then your yeast was too old or your water was too hot.

2. Add 2 cups of the flour to the yeast mixture. Mix it with your mixer or a wooden spoon until combined. Add 2 more cups of flour and mix again until combined. Add the last two cups of flour and mix until combined. If you are not using a mixer you may need to use your hands to incorporate the last of the flour.

3. Knead the dough for 10 minutes if by hand, 4 minutes if you are using the dough hook in your stand mixer.

4. Grease or oil a bowl. Place dough in it and then turn it upside down so that the dough is covered on all sides with the oil. Take a damp kitchen towel or paper towel and place it over the bowl. If you are using cloth make sure it does not leave lint behind on your dishes. If it leaves lint on your dishes it will leave lint on your bread!

 

5. Set your bowl in a draft free “warm” place for 45 minutes to an hour. If it has risen properly it will look like this:

 

6. Grease or oil two loaf pans. Split the dough in two equal pieces. In your hands smosh it around a little. Then work the dough into an approximate rectangle 10” by 15”. Roll the dough up the short side and then fold the two ends under. Set the bread in the prepared pan and repeat for the second loaf. Cover with a damp towel.

 

7. Let rise another 45 minutes to an hour. During this time preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

 

8. Bake for 30 minutes.

9. Remove from oven and let sit in pans for 10 minutes. Turn out of the pans and let cool. I know the smell of fresh baked bread is unbelievable, but if you want to use this bread for sandwiches you need to let it cool.

10. At our house I slice a whole loaf of bread at once. It makes it easier for those who are used to grab and go bread. I keep it in a large ziploc bag and off we go. We eat a lot of bread and it is unusual for one loaf to last more than 3 days.The second loaf I wrap completely in plastic wrap. I need to find a proper reusable container, but for now it is the plastic.

Substitutions and additions for this recipe:

Honey White Bread

⅔ cup sugar = ⅓ cup sugar, ⅓ cup honey

You may need to add a little more flour at the end of step 2

Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.

Olive bread

¼ cup vegetable oil = ¼ olive oil

Between the first and second flour additions add 1 cup chopped olives.

Bake as usual.

Dinner Rolls

2 cups water = 2 cups milk

¼ cup oil = ¼ cup butter, melted

When shaping bread after the first rise shape into 24-32 small balls and set in 1 or 2 pans just barely touching. Bake for 20-30 minutes depending on the size.

I have added spices to the mix as well. I add spices to the dough during step 1. I have used whey in the place of the liquid and I have used margarine in place of the oil. I have also made it with olive oil and added chopped olives to the dough for olive bread.

Determination or How Did You Get Dirt On Your Face?

Determination, a word that seems to describe my children (and I think most others). When they set their minds to do something we all need to watch out. When they set their minds to a safe, non-destructive, mom-approved activity everything is great. It is when they set their minds to do something that is unsafe, destructive and most certainly not mom-approved that I cringe, and then most often end up yelling. My oldest, who is four, has a weakness for cookies. He can’t help but try to sneak them. I have found him with cookies all over the house at different times. His favorite place to eat contraband cookies is in his bed under the blanket. Which then means that I need to punish him for sneaking the cookies, and then I have to change his sheets.

I try to keep the cookies up high, but as he has grown “up high” has changed. It used to be that on the kitchen counter was “up high”. No longer, now on top of the refrigerator is “up high”. It still didn’t stop him from trying yesterday. I found him on a stool reaching as high as he could trying to get those cookies.

Determined is also a word that describes the garden. Volunteers is what they are called. The plants that just grow whether you want them to or not. I have found many volunteers as a result of the great seed mixing/spillage. Radish plants that have sprouted even though they will not make it. Like these sprouting between the slats in the deck.

We also had a tomato plant that we purchased that was in a container that was very small. It was probably okay when we purchased it, but since we have to wait 2 more weeks before we can plant anything in the ground at the new house, it has outgrown the small starter pot it was in. It was really trying hard to grow. Again the word determined comes to mind. So the boys and I got a pot ready for it. Playing in the dirt is always a welcome activity with them, especially when mom gets dirty too. We got the tomato planted.

The boys got dirty.

Everybody was happy.

An update on the beans: as I suspected four of the five bean plants did make it. The fifth just had too much trauma. However, I did find one more that had been thrown further than the dog water, the day after the tragic event happened. Determined. This poor little bean plant was still alive and trying. So I replanted it and I can report that several days later the little plant is still alive and seems to be doing well.

Search and Rescue: Gardening Style

Today in the garden we had a real near miss. My youngest, left unattended for 3 minutes decided it was time to pick all the bean plants we had been growing in the pot. I know that we have lost some of the plants already, as less than half of the originally planted beans have sprouted. He seems to gravitate to that pot. He plays in the dirt and scoops it up throws it out. He even helped plant the beans. So he knows that we are trying to grow plants  in that pot. The few plants that have survived his frequent visits, maybe seven plants, today suffered a serious trauma. He plucked them all up and tossed them in the dog’s water dish. Luckily I was not away for more than a few minutes and I was able to do a little backyard gardening search and rescue. Five of the plants were intact with all the roots. I was able to replant them and I am pretty sure that at least four of them will make it. One lost it’s roots and didn’t look like it was going to make it and the last was snapped in half.  

I think that we are going to start growing one of the beans in a bag on the window so he can see the roots whenever he wants. He seems to want to see the roots of the plants and I don’t think he fully understands that we don’t usually get to see the roots of the plants. Hopefully one plant he can see the roots of will satisfy him so that we don’t need to look at the roots of all the rest.

We had another “baby plant” talk and he, as usual, seemed to understand and have genuine concern for the small plants he had uprooted. I have planted a few more beans to make up for the ones that didn’t make it past his play times.

On a brighter note, the carrots are starting to sprout! I find the new plants very exciting. I also have a new appreciation for the plants that thus far have survived the reach of my two year-old.

Ice Cream Success Stories or Don't Touch My Pile of Gum!

Ice cream. It makes you think about being a kid. I think back on the different flavors of ice cream that I used to enjoy as a young child. I think my favorite was the bubble gum. It was the brilliant pink color that I now associate with medicine. It was filled with tiny pieces of gum. I used to save those pieces until I was done and then I would chew that gum. It was excellent. I haven’t seen bubble gum ice cream with gum pieces in it in a long time. Perhaps because it is totally gross. Maybe because putting gum, something you are not supposed to swallow into ice cream, something you are supposed to swallow is not the greatest idea. At any rate, my ice cream tastes have evolved. Thank goodness. I can’t imagine sitting around with adult friends with my pile of half sucked gum pieces just waiting to be chewed.

Since receiving my ice cream machine five months ago. (Thanks Mom!) I have made many different flavors. Some great, some not so great. I started simple: Chocolate. It was very good. Then I found a bottle of mint extract in my closet and made mint chocolate chip. I got adventurous and made a batch of bourbon peach - not a favorite. My first batch of vanilla came out tasting more like whipped cream, which  was excellent on rich chocolate cake. The second batch with more vanilla was perfect. I have made earl grey ice cream, good, but has a limited audience. My latest success was the blueberry muffin ice cream. I actually made blueberry muffins just so I could crumble them into ice cream. Success!

Yesterday I outdid all of my ice cream successes with Mexican Vanilla. It was about as perfect as ice cream can get. For those of you who don’t know Mexican vanilla, it is different from the vanilla we usually use (unless you are in Mexico I suppose.) A slightly different vanilla flavor and super delicious.

I must confess that I instructed the adults in the house that the Mexican Vanilla ice cream was not to be fed to the kids. Give them the peanut butter that we all felt had a little too much peanut butter in it.

Here is my recipe:

Mexican Vanilla Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup milk

5 egg yolks

⅔ cup sugar

1 tablespoon Mexican Vanilla

1. Mix one cup of cream with the yolks.

2. Add in the second cup of cream and the milk.

3. Add in the sugar. Mix well.

4. Add the Mexican Vanilla and stir.

                                      

5. Put in your ice cream machine and wait. My machine takes about 25 minutes to get the ice cream churned properly.

6. Put it in a container. I use Chinese take-out soup containers, I also use large yogurt containers.

7. Wait some more. I would say at least 4 hours for the ice cream to set.

A few notes on ice cream:

If you are squeamish about raw egg yolks you can cook the custard mixture to 140 degrees. Then you must strain the mixture and then cool it for another 4 hours before putting into the machine. I have done this both ways, it really depends on how fresh the eggs are for me. If I am cooking the custard anyway I will cook it to 140 to cook the yolks.

You don’t have to use 5 egg yolks, you can use less. I happened to already have five in my fridge. Egg yolks make the ice cream extra rich, you can make ice cream without them completely, but it will not be as rich.

Mother’s Day - The Holiday That Makes You Resent Having To Do What You Are Being Celebrated For

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Moms out there! This is one of those days that I think makes me a bit of a bad person for a day. It is branded as a day for Mom’s to rest and relax and be pampered. So when my children ask for food and daddy isn’t right there to give it to them my first thought is, ‘it is my day off, what do you mean I need to feed you.’ Grrr. Then I think back on the fact that if my children were not here, today would just be another day. I can’t possibly expect to sit around and eat bonbons all day, but the part of me that watches commercials has been programmed to think that that is exactly what I am supposed to do.

So now I have expressed my horrible Mother's Day thought process, I am so happy to have my children. They are a blessing. Even when they are making messes and fighting over who gets to play with the fire truck. I love them dearly. I will even feed them on Mother's Day.

A celebration of mothers is a good thing. My mother is a wonderful source of support for me. We only talk three or four times a day. I know that she is always there for me, something I take advantage of sometimes. She taught me how to be the mom I am today. I have so many things to thank her for that I am sure I will miss something if I try to name them all.

My two year old was looking at my baby radish plants yesterday. He was touching them and trying to play with them. Something that you really shouldn’t do with plants that just broke through a couple days ago. We told him he had to be gentle because they were babies. His first response was, “Where’s the mommy.” Um... now I am in a pickle. It was like he wouldn’t believe that these plants were babies unless they were accompanied by a mommy plant. We eventually landed on the mommy plant is at the farm where the seeds come from. That seemed to satisfy him. It is also true, the mommy plant is at the place that packaged the seeds, I am not sure it is a farm, but it works for now. The lesson I took away from this: my two year old believes that mommies and babies go together, and he is right!

Have a happy day, mom or not.

You Put Beer In That?! or My Time Has Got to Be Worth More Than This

The rain is coming. As the last day of this unusual warm spell is coming to a close I have to say that it was very nice. Unexpected, perhaps even confusing to some of the plants. It did get us all to clean off the grill a month earlier than usual, so next time we will be ready to grill.

I was in the mood for culinary adventures today. We were eating pork chops for dinner, so I decided to make some apples to go with them. I started making my own applesauce many years ago. I found that I was usually happy with the flavor and sweetness without adding much sugar. Tonight, however, I was a little more creative. I made Browned Apples in Cinnamon Beer Sauce. Super delicious and not terrible for you, not that it is healthy. Here is what I did:

First I peeled and chopped the apples. Then I put them in a pan with a little butter and cinnamon.

I cooked them until they started to brown like this:

Then I added some water and reduced the heat. I cooked the apples about 15 minutes. Until the water was almost all cooked away. Then I added about 1 cup of beer. I chose an ale. I would imagine any medium or dark beer would be good in this, if you used a light beer the flavor might be lost.

I cooked these apples for another 15-30 minutes. Adding water if necessary to keep them from burning. At the end I tasted the sauce, it was a little bitter so I added a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar. I would definitely taste before adding the sugar because the difference between apples and beers is going to make this a little different every time.

Then I added a little cornstarch and water mixed together to thicken the sauce.

Super amazing.

While I was fixing this amazing apple dish, my sons found several packs of seeds. They dumped them all over the patio table. Sigh. So now I am off to try to sort these out.

Browned Apples with Cinnamon Beer Sauce

4 large apples

1 Tbsp Butter

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup medium or dark beer

0-2 Tbsp brown sugar

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1. Peel and chop apples.

2. Combine butter, apples and cinnamon in a large fry pan.

3. Brown in butter over medium high heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Add 1 cup water. Reduce heat to low and simmer 15 minutes.

5. Add 1 cup beer. Turn heat up to bring to boil, reduce and simmer 15 more minutes.

6. Taste, if necessary add brown sugar to taste.

7. Mix cornstarch with ½ cup of cold water. Add to apples and stir. Remove from heat when sauce begins to thicken.

New Beginnings or That Poor Lavender Plant

So today is it 84 degrees, something that is all but unheard of in May in the Pacific Northwest. My kids are playing outside with the kiddie pool eating homemade peanut butter cup ice cream and I am in a tank top drinking...yup...hot coffee. I have never been able to get behind the iced coffee phenomenon.

Today I am thinking most about our garden at the new house. We purchased some of the plants we want (as we got started too late in the season to grow most things from seed.) Right now my biggest concern in the garden is keeping all the plants alive for the next 3 weeks in their containers. The new house is supposed to close at the end of the month and then we can get this garden really going. I can’t wait. I would love to be able to grow at least 80% of our vegetables in the garden. It is going to be a real labor of  love, but totally worth it in the end I'm sure. So here we go. The last few seed varieties have been ordered, and the garden is planned. Beans have been started, peas have been started too. Now I know the garden purists out there are going to say that it is too late to start peas and I should wait until the fall. To those purists I say, “I know.” But I would much rather have a small crop of fresh peas in the summer than none at all. I will be starting more for a fall harvest but I have my eye on a fresh pea ice cream recipe and I only need enough of a harvest to make that, (about 2 cups.)

It made me jump for joy, emotionally not physically. My seeds are advanced! 3 days early! There won’t be any average radishes in this house. 

Now the hard part starts. Keeping the kids from “picking” my new additions to our garden. If my two year old hadn’t just stripped a poor little lavender plant bare I might not be concerned, unfortunately now it looks like this:

I have been teaching my boys about growing plants. We all planted the peas and beans in the jiffy pods together. My youngest thought the dirt pellets that expand in the water were way more fun than putting the seeds in the dirt. I mean if I were two that would be my favorite part too, lets be real. Gardening is a huge lesson in patience. That is why I have such a need to do it. I think I need a lesson in patience. Blogging about it is only going to give me a space to vent about how impatient I am. Hopefully I will be able to get over it and if I do it right I will have a constant list of things that need to be done even in between the harvest times.

Four days ago I planted some radish seeds. If everything goes right we should be able to harvest them before the big move. But I have been horrible about them. Staring at the pot willing the seeds to grow, even though the package says it takes a week for them to germinate. I know that my seeds are going to be advanced and sprout early, that is why I stare. I know that any second the dirt is going to part and I will see the little leaves spring up. This is what I was thinking on day 2 of planting. And again on day 3. Now this morning, day 4, I was pleasantly surprised to see two little green leaves popping out of the dirt.