Green Tomato Pie

So I've always wondered what to do with all of my green tomatoes? It's getting cold and the sun doesn't hit my garden anymore. So I have tons of tomatoes on the vine that won't turn red. So what did I do?? I made a pie!

Ok I know it sounds weird, but it wasn't too bad. I think if I picked the tomatoes off the vine a little earlier then the skin wouldn't be as hard, but it was still a good use for green tomatoes.

This recipe was derived (lots of changes though!) from Food Network's Paula Dean recipe

The crust (not from Paula Dean)
1 1/4 cup flour
4 Tbsp cold butter
1/2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

The filling

• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 tablespoons flour
  
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 pinch cloves
  
• 5 green tomatoes and a dozen green cherry tomatoes, or enough to fill pie crust, thinly sliced

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

To make crust:

Add flour, sugar and salt and mix together. Cut in VERY cold butter into small pieces. Slowly add water while stirring with fingers until just together and slightly dry. Put in freezer for a couple hours to harden. Then cut pie dough in two equal parts. Roll out one half into a circle about 1/8 inch thick. Spray pie pan with butter and sprinkle with sugar. Then put rolled out pie dough into pan and set aside.

Mix sugar, flour, lemon, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves in a large bowl. Lay tomato slices in pie crust. Sprinkle mixture over tomatoes. (Overlapping will occur but tomatoes will shrink in size when baked.) Create Lattice and Pinch dough with fingers to seal edges. Then fold over the sides of the crust with fingers and make V shaped wedges with your fingers to make crust. Put pie in freezer for an hour to set.

Sprinkle lattice with sugar for a shine then cook pie at 375 for 10 minutes then 350 for 40 minutes.

Enjoy!

Broccoli leaves and Squash Risotto

I finally was able to cook again! Yah! My friend Amanda Roelle was talking about fermenting vegetables at the Seasonal Salon and she asked if I could bring some veggies from Les' yard to ferment. So I brought back some peppers and some broccoli leaves. The discussion/demonstration went great! Amanda did a great job and made kimche out of the brocolli leaves and peppers (she added cucumbers, garlic, ginger, and salt also). But there was left over broccoli leaves so I decided to make myself a little dinner... Risotto it is! I bet a lot of people didn't even know that you can eat broccoli leaves, but umm they are tasty!

Broccoli Leaves and Pattypan Squash Risotto

Ingredients
4 large broccoli leaves sliced in thin strips
1/2 small broccoli head
large diced pattypan squash (it was from my garden)
1 hot pepper minced
1 tsp black pepper

1 T butter
1/4 c. onion diced
1 green onion sliced
2 garlic cloves
olive oil
1/2 tsp mustard seed
1/2 tsp Corriander
4 cups veggie broth
2 T red wine
1 tsp salt
1 cup risotto
1/4 cup amaranth seeds

mozzarella cheese to top (not shown in picture)

Directions:

1. Stir fry onions, garlic, butter and oil until just golden.
2. Add risotto and and fry for a couple more minutes until translucent
3. Add red wine.
   
4. Slowly add in 4 cups of veggie broth 1/2 cup at a time until risotto is tender but not mushy. After first 1/2 cup of broth add in the amaranth seeds.
   
5. While the risotto is being stirfried, stir fry up the broccoli leaves, broccoli, squash, mustard seeds, corriander and hot pepper until just wilty about 5-8 mins.
   
6. Combine both risotto and Veggies together. Add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Add Mozzarella on top for some extra tastiness.
   
8. Enjoy!

Serving : 4
Time: 1 1/2 hours prep and cooking

Foraging Walk

This post is going to be a little different. I'll start with a simple recipe (well kind of recipe), but
most of the post will be about all the plants I found out from a foraging walk that are either medicinal or edible. Check out the instructor's website. Her name is Nance, and I'm amazed at all the knowledge she has about the natural world. It was such a great time! I'm super psyched about foraging now, and one of these days I'm going to make an entire meal on things that I foraged. So stay posted. I also got a book on it, and I'm learning more and more each day. Also, if you click on the images they get bigger, and there is some really interesting details that you might not notice just viewing it small.

So for the sort-of recipe (it's perfect for a side salad)...

Yellow Sorrel and Mushroom Salad

4 sprigs of yellow sorrel (the first picture)
4 button mushrooms
1/8 c of raisins
1 1/2 T of pecan meal
2 green onions
balsamic vinegar

cut up the mushrooms and green onions, separate the yellow sorrel. Then mix all ingredients together. Sound easy? Yep! It is and super delicious!

Please realize that these are notes that I took a couple weeks ago and pictures, and my mind tends to be very forgetful. So before you go and eat or use any of the things I describe, do some research or ask an expert.

The first picture is yellow sorrel from my garden! I had no idea it was edible, and boy is it delicious. I had noticed a lot of it in my garden, but I thought it was clover. Luckily, I thought "oh I won't pick the clover because it's a nitrogen fixer for my garden." Come to find out it's not clover at all, but I'm happy I didn't pull it out. I have so much of it my garden, and it tastes like a lemon. Please don't confuse it with clover though. I just made Moroccan Mint tea today and added a little of the yellow sorrel in it to give it a hint of lemony goodness. In the book that I got, it says not to eat in excessive amounts because it is high in oxalic acid which excessive consumption may inhibit the body's absorption of calcium. The Chinese use this to clear fevers, resolve clots, and reduce swelling, and snake'sbit treatment. Nance suggested making a pesto out of it. I'll have to try that!


This is catnip, which is good in lemonades, is a sedative, and cats go kind of crazy about it. I'll have to bring some over for Mae (Les's cat). Wikipedia said, "Research suggests that in a test tube, distilled nepetalactone, the active ingredient in catnip, repels mosquitoes ten times more effectively than DEET, the active ingredient in most insect repellents,^[5][6] but that it is not as effective a repellent when used on the skin.^[7] "


This is Yellow Dock. The leaves and roots can be used as a liver tonic and sedative. The seeds are full of protein. In fact, if you were to live by foraging for your food, these seeds are one of the best ways (well besides meat), to get your protein which is hard to get when you are foraging.

This is Burdoch. The roots, leaves and stalk are edible, but you need to eat it early in the season on the the first year (it's biennial). It takes like artichokes. My book says the roots are good with sesame seed oil, ginger and soy sauce after the root is peeled and boiled (you might need to change the water twice because it can be bitter). You can also make mock celery soup with it.


This is another bienniel that you need to eat only in it's first year. So if it reaches the point of what it looks like in these pictures. You've waited too long. It's called Woolly Mullein. We had this in a tea with mint before we started the foraging walk. It opens up the lungs. You can soak the flowers in oil and it helps with ear infections. My book says that Native Americans lined moccasins with the warm woolly leaf.

This Yarrow or Milfoil. It is an antifungal. The flowers are delcious in tea. It helps sweat, heals cuts when added to oil. The book warns that it looks similar to poison hemlock so you need to get expert identification. The poison hemlock has purple spots on the stem.



These are prickly lettuces. This is very bitter, it's a mild sedative, and antifungal (Nance suggested I use this on my wart on my hand).

This is Chicory. In New Orleans they roast the root and add it to coffee. I should have Les try to use it in his next barista competition. The book also says that the young leave are edible, although bitter, and the you can combine the chicory blossoms with 1 pint of cottage cheese. Sounds interesting.


This one came as a surprise. It's a wild carrot but more commonly known as Queen Anne's Lace. I knew this one before because my dad is allergic to it. But the root has a carroty taste! This is another one that looks like a hemlock which is poisonous. So you need to be careful, but it should have a carroty smell. It is also believed to be a form of birth control, but Nance suggested to not test that theory. The book also says that the florets can be stripped and sprinkled over salads or in meatloaf. It's also a worm expellant. So if you are traveling abroad, this could be something good for you if you think you have worms.

This is mugwort or Artemesia Bulgeris. Nance burned some of this that she dried earlier in the season before we started. It suppose to clear the mind. It is also believe to turn a baby who is breach. It is also a bitter that can be used in home brews (Dad, maybe you could try this in your next beer batch)

I found this one in my garden also! It's Wild Spinach, lambsquarters, or goosefoot. Lots of names for this one. At the end of our walk we ate a wrap made out of this. We wrapped up mint, homemade cheese and wild tart cherry jam that Nance had made. Delicious!

This is Pepperweed, also called poor man's pepper. It is a substitute for pepper. My book also said that the tea from the leaves is said to restore sex drive also.

This is Smartweed or Lady's Thumb. It's called lady's thumb because the leaf looks like a person pressed their thumbprint into the leaf. This leaves are good in salads. This is another one that I see ALL over the place, and had no idea it was edible. The flowers are just beautiful!

This one another one that I see all over the place, and is prolific in my garden is Plantain or Buckhorn. These leaves can be crunched up and used to sooth cuts, burns, and stings. The seeds can be milled up for flour. The seeds are also a very mild laxative. The book also says that the tender young leaves can be used in salads while the tougher ones can be boiled in salt water.

And now here are just some pictures of the people I went on the walk with and Nance (the wonderful instructor). I know what you are thinking. Are they really eating things that are directly off of a train rails, with the run off everything? And yes we were but at our own risk. Nance said that if we were planning on feeding guests to not use the plants here, but this area had a great collection of the plants that she could point out for us to find other places. I'm sorry this was so long winded, but I really wanted to document what I learned, and I thought you might be interested too!

Happy foraging! Oh and if you are interested in what book it is Basic Essentials: Edible Wild Plants and useful herbs by Jim Meuninck.

Amaranth with Hardy Veggie Stirfry

While in Belize we would cook with Callaloo leaves as a leafy green. Andrea would tell me that most people just think this is a weed, but the greens and the seeds are actually quite healthy and tasty. Then low and behold, I come to Chicago and Dr. J (the women who started Black Oaks Center that we work with through ADPSR) told me she had a dream about giving me amaranth. So she brought some over for me. It was crazy because I had no idea that you could get Amaranth around here. She said that Amaranth grows all over their land. Supposedly Amaranth like buckwheat is a complete protein which is rare for a grain. So tonight I decided to experiment with what I had in my fridge. In Belize they told me you could use the seeds in baking bread, but I read the package and it said that it does well in numerous things. Last week I made a dahl soup and threw some of them in. Quite good. Probably my favorite soup I've made in awhile. Tonight I though hey lets cook it like couscous. It kind of looks like it anyway. And this is what I came up with...

Amaranth with Hardy Veggie Stirfry

Ingredients

2 cups veggie broth (use the broth made from veggie scrapes)
1/4 cup amaranth seeds
(i'd suggest doubling this recipe for the amount of veggie stirfry)

1/2 small onion largely chopped
1 zucchini thinly sliced
1/4 head of red cabbage chopped
1 small beet peeled and thinly sliced
handful of fresh spinach
2 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp poppy seeds
1 T tumeric
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 T lemon juice

Start with boiling the veggie broth and slowly add amaranth seeds. Lightly boil seeds with veggie broth for about 25 mins. You might need to add more water. Cook until seeds are chewy but still firm and liquid is gone.

Heat oil in a wok. When almost to the point of smoking, add cumin seeds and poppy seeds until they become fragrant (about 2 mins). Toss in onions and garlic until golden. Add beets, cabbage, lemon juice, tumeric, and worcestershire sauce and cook for about 4 minutes. Add zucchini and cook for about 2 more minutes. Lastly add spinach. Cook until spinach is only slightly wilted.

Place stirfry on top of a layer of amaranth seeds.

Enjoy!!!

Pesto, Hollandaise, hardboiled egg Sandwich

When I made that delicious Vegetarian Eggs Benedict, I had a lot hollandaise sauce left over. So what can you do with it?? Make a sandwich!

• Multigrain Bread (from Flourish, I am interning there and helped bake this bread, but I can't share their secret recipe... sorry.. but it's good!!)
• Hollandaise Sauce (look for recipe on previous blog)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp pesto (I used my mom's homemade pesto. You'll have to ask her about it...)
• lettuce (got from my CSA box from Farmer Tom's CSA)

This is a quick and easy sandwich! Slice the bread. Smear pesto on one piece of bread. Smear the refrigerated hollandaise sauce (now should be the consistency of spreadable butter) on the other. Hard boil an egg about 12 minutes so that it the egg yolk isn't completely chalky yet, but it's cooked through. Slice the egg and place on sandwich with the lettuce. Perfecto!

Healthy Blueberry Banana Muffins

In my previous blog I talked about some muffins that I made with egg whites... hence the hollandaise sauce. This is it...

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons white sugar
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 really ripe mashed bananas (if you have bananas that became too ripe to eat. Don't throw away. Place them in the freezer until you are ready to bake.)
  
• 4 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp plain organic yogurt
  
• 1 cup fresh blueberries

(I got the base recipe from allrecipes...submitted by ELEMMIRE) I just make a few amendments.

Grease muffin pan and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together flour, sugars, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder in one bowl.

Then mash up bananas in another bowl with egg whites, vanilla extract and yogurt.

Add the two mixtures together until mixed completely. It's best if you have a whisk (I unfortunately don't have this).

Put batter in 12 muffin pans, filling them about 2/3 full. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the inside is done (you can check with a toothpick. If there is uncooked dough on the toothpick after you poke the middle, it's not done.)

Enjoy!

Veggie Eggs Benedict (not vegan)

I just started getting a CSA box from Farmer Tom's CSA and I've been experimenting with all the new food. It was like Christmas time when I opened up my box of foodies. I didn't even know what some of the items were, and I thought I was pretty well versed in types of food. I was wrong. Friday night I made some stewed Indian red and yellow beets (yellow beats? who knew!), and some kale in peanut sauce over rice. They turned out not bad, but I couldn't find my camera. So I'll have to make it again to put it on the blog sometime.

But today I woke up inspired... After all the stress this week brought. I needed to cook with abandon to work out some of my anxieties. Yesterday I baked Blueberry banana muffins (I'll show you this soon), but it only used egg whites so I had egg yolks left over. I decided to freeze them (with a little salt) in ice cube trays so I could use them again. Not wanting to waste the yolks, I started with the idea of Hollandaise sauce....yumm... I am very impressed with this dish and I'm excited to test it out on some friends/family. If you cook this meal, please let me know what you think!

Now to the recipe. *please rememeber I don't measure so the ingredients are estimated* This is what came out of it...

VEGGIE EGG BENEDICT
(pan fried eggs with stir-fryed kale, onions and sesame seeds on top of fresh sourdough with a light topping of hollandaise sauce.)

Sourdough
3 small slices
*see previous blog on how to make your own. Please note amendments to the recipe at the end.

Hollandaise Sauce

• 4 scrambled eggs yolks
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 stick melted butter

Kale Stirfry

• 1 head of kale chopped
  
• 1/2 medium white onion
  
• 2 cloves garlic (1 tsp chopped)
  
• 1/4 c water
• 1 Tbsp vinegar
• 1 Tbsp lemon juic
  
• 1 Tbsp ginger, garlic and grapeseed oil
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• dash of sugar
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 t savory
• 1 t sesame seeds

Fried Eggs

• 2 eggs

First thing you need to make the sourdough.

Hollandaise Sauce (I tried making this at the Speckled Bird Cafe, but mistakenly used egg whites instead of yolks. Doesn't work!!!)
Melt the stick of butter and set aside. Whisk together the egg yolks (please don't throw away the egg whites use them as merengue or in a baking recipe like healthy blueberry muffins OR instead of fried eggs have scrabbled egg whites), salt and the lemon juice. Set up a double broiler, or if you don't have one like me, place a pie pan on top of a small soup pan (preferably one that you can fit the pie pan into but is still resting on the sides) with water in it. Don't let the water boil. It should only be on the verge of boiling and the water should not be touching the pie pan. From there put the lemon juice, egg yolk, salt mixture into the pan and keep whisking. Gradually pour the melted butter into the mixture whisking the whole time. It should thickin and grow in size. It took me about 3 minutes. Take sauce out of pan so it doesn't keep heating and place to the side covered. It probably will form a slight layer on the top if you let it sit for awhile, but if you stir it up it'll be fine.

Kale Stirfry
Place the olive and grapeseed oil into a hot pan on medium heat. When the oil is hot, fry onions (keep left over onion for another dish tomorrow) with garlic until golden brown. Add the chopped kale into the pan and stir fry together. After a about 30 seconds put the water (can use the water from the pan in the hollandaise sauce. waste not want not) into the pan. It should sizzle immediately. Then add vinegar and lemon juice. Keep stirring the ingredients all the while. Then add sugar, salt, savory, and sesame seeds. Continue stirfry until the greens looks slightly wilted but not completely limp. Set aside covered

Fried eggs or (scrambled egg whites)
Make sure you use a flat non stick pan. Put a small amount of olive oil in the pan then break two eggs into the pan making sure they don't touch and egg yolks remain intact. Once the whites turn white on one side flip the eggs. If you like the eggs gooey don't fry too long, but i like mine not gooey so I end up having to break the yolk once the white parts are set.

Now put it all together. Place three slices of sourdouch on a plate. Layer kale then eggs, then a little more kale. Garnish the top of the masterpiece with some hollandaise sauce.

Umm umm good.

Sourdough Bread

I shadowed this wonderful women at Blackberry Farm about a month ago, and she let me take home some of their 10 year old starter. I brought the starter up to Cincinnati and baked some delicious bread with it!!! I didn't have a baking stone or a proofer. So instead we put it in the bathroom and made a hot bath that made the room hot and steamy. Perfect large proofer. We made two loaves and they worked out great! It's quite easy to make too!

It's based on a baker's Percentage. I made two 1 kg loaves which is the gram measurement. um um good!

Ingredient Percent Gram
Flour 100 940g
warm Water 70 658g
Salt 2.54 24g
Yeast .1 2g
stiff 40 376g
total 212.64 2Kg

Feeding: 25% starter
50% water
100% flour
*I've found that for me equal parts of everything works better

to make liquid start : equal parts flour and water
- feed couple times between converting from liquid to stiff and visa versa
- feed about every 8-12 hour outside and 1/per week in fridge

I realized I forgot to say how to actually make the bread...
Mix together dry ingredients. Then add stiff and gradually add water. Sometimes you'll use less water so just work with it. It'll take practice. Start kneeding bread for about 10 minutes until everything is worked together and the dough is very elastic and cohesive. Place dough into a greased bowl and cover loosely. Place in an area that is preferably 80 degrees F. Let rise for about 2 hours. Take out dough onto a table that is lightly floured. With fingers punch down bread. Form into a tight ball (for shaping you should read some books or articles about it). sprinkle flour on top and Let rise again for about an hour loosely covered with syran wrap and flat on the table. Then punch down again and mold into whatever shape you want boule, baguette, loaf, etc. Let rise another 45 minutes covered in a humid place. About 20 mins in start to preheat oven and place a metal pan in broiler and baking stone in the oven. Cut slits on top of bread with seratted knife and place on baking stone in preheated oven. Also put three icecubes in the pan so that it'll moisten the oven and set the bread crust. After about 35 minutes check the bread. It should be golden and the bottom should sound hollow when you tap it. Let it cool, and enjoy.

Rollinia and Malay Apple

I was looking through my posts and realized I didn't blog about this craziness. It kind of feels like a turf ball, but the inside taste like a keylime pie. It's found in Belize, but you won't ever get this in the states because after a couple hours after you pick it, it wilts and isn't edible anymore. It's called a Rollinia... The little red thing in the back ground is a malay apple (not sure how to spell that). That is kind of sweet with a white center.

JaCeKa - Mediterraen Vegetable Couscous

Saddest thing... my dad and I decided to play chef about 2 months ago, and I wrote the recipe down, but now.... 2 months later, I lost the sheet and forget what was on it. It was DELICIOUS!!! Incredibly rich and just umm good. Here is a picture of it. I'll try to tell you what was in it, but it could be completely wrong, and I don't remember the amounts.

Diced eggplant
artichoke hearts
onions
canned tomatoes
kalmata olives
cumin
olive oil
lemon juice
cayenne pepper
allspice
Parmesan cheese on top (this was VERY VERY STRONG cheese. I found out later that I'm allergic to it. It makes my geographic tongue act up. Sad because this was some incredible cheese.)

on top of garlic and pine nut couscous.

Man it was so good. I'll see if I can duplicate it.