4 large sprigs fresh basil
2 cups white wine vinegar
1. Place the basil sprigs into a pint bottle (or divide between two smaller bottles) and pour in the vinegar. Seal.
2. Store for two to three weeks before using.
Yield: 2 cups
Bouquet Garni Vinegar
This vinegar takes on the flavors of a classic French herbal combination. It is ideal in marinades for beef and for dressing roasted vegetables.
1 cup sprigs of parsley
½ cup bay leaves
½ cup sprigs of rosemary
½ cup sprigs of thyme
1 quart white wine vinegar
Using a wooden spoon, pack the parsley, bay leaf, rosemary, and thyme into a glass jar. Cover with the vinegar, seal with plastic wrap, and screw on the lid. Allow to steep for four to six weeks.
Yield: 4½ cups
Mixed Herb Vinegar
Here is an all-natural, instant salad dressing. Just whisk it with olive oil, and you’re ready to toss.
¾ cup chopped fresh basil
¾ cup chopped fresh marjoram
½ cup chopped fresh rosemary
½ cup chopped fresh savory
½ cup chopped fresh thyme
1 quart white wine vinegar
Using a wooden spoon, pack the basil, marjoram, rosemary, savory, and thyme into a glass jar. Cover with vinegar, seal with plastic wrap, and screw on the lid. Allow to steep for four to six weeks.
Yield: 4¼ cups
What Goes with What?
As a rule, stronger flavors go with strong vinegars and subtler flavors with more delicate vinegars. When you anticipate lovely color from your herbs or petals, a white wine vinegar would usually be the best choice. Here are some great combinations.
Red Wine Vinegar
• Rosemary, savory, sage, basil, bay, and garlic
• Sage, parsley, and shallots
• Raspberries and thyme
• Red bell pepper, hot red peppers, garlic, rosemary, and tarragon
White Wine Vinegar
• Dill, basil, tarragon, and lemon balm
• Savory, tarragon, chervil, basil, and chives
• Blackberries and lavender flowers
• Green onions, green peppercorns, thyme, marjoram, and a bay leaf
Apple Cider Vinegar
• Horseradish, shallots, and hot red peppers
• Dill, mustard seeds, lemon balm, and garlic
Sherry Vinegar
• Parsley, thyme, rosemary, and a bay leaf
• Apricots and allspice berries
Champagne Vinegar
• Pears and hyssop
• Rose flowers and lemon balm
Herbal Tea
There’s a knack to brewing the perfect cup of herbal tea that tastes, smells, and looks inviting and has the strength to heal or refresh without calling to mind a dose of medicine. Packaged China teas with clearly spelled-out directions don’t pose much of a problem. But because herbal teas are brewed from petals, roots, seeds, flowers, or leaves — alone or in combination — they require more know-how. Once you master a few simple methods, it’s easy to brew a perfect cup of herbal tea.
Depending on the type of herbal tea you’re brewing, you’ll use one of two methods — infusion or decoction. For either method, brew the tea in a covered container; an open container allows volatile oils to escape.
Brewing by Infusion
Most teas made from leaves, petals, and flowers are prepared by infusion — steeping in boiling water. Infusion allows the oils in these parts of the herb to be released gently; if the herbs were boiled, the oils would evaporate.
Brewing by Decoction
The decoction method — simmering herbs for several minutes — is used mainly for teas made from seeds, roots, and bark whose active ingredients are more difficult to release. Herbal teas prepared by decoction generally tend to stay fresher than do teas prepared by infusion.
Basic Infusion of Leaves, Petals, or Flowers
Bruise freshly picked herb leaves gently by crushing them in a clean cloth. The bruising will help release aromatic oils. Some herbal tea experts say infused herbs should be removed and discarded after brewing. Others believe the tea can steep for as long as a day or two. If you allow the herbs to sit, use boiling water to warm up cold tea and/or dilute it if it has become too strong.
1 teaspoon dried herbs (or 3 teaspoons freshly picked herbs)
1 cup boiling water
Rinse teapot with boiling water (to heat it). Place herbs in the pot, pour in boiling water, and allow mixture to steep for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the delicate flavors are released. Strain and serve.
Yield: 1 cup
Basic Decoction of Seeds
Seeds should be well crushed to bring out their oils. A mortar and pestle work best, or wrap the seeds in a clean cloth and crush them with a wooden mallet or rolling pin.
2 cups water
1 tablespoon seeds
Bring water to a boil over high heat. Add seeds, reduce temperature, and allow mixture to simmer gently for 5 to 10 minutes. Strain the tea, then serve.
Yield: 2 cups
Lavender Mint Tea
Lavender adds a pleasant but not too flowery contrast to the sweetness of mint.
1 teaspoon fresh lavender flowers or ½ teaspoon dried
1½–2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves or 2 teaspoons dried
1 cup boiling water
In a teapot, combine the lavender flowers and mint. Pour boiling water over mixture; steep 5 minutes.
Yield: 1 cup
Variation: For more interesting blends, add rosemary, lemon balm or lemon verbena, and rose geranium.
Peppermint Punch
Tea punches are economical, low in sugar, and high in fruity flavor.
6 bags peppermint tea (4 tablespoons dried peppermint leaves)
2 quarts water
1 tablespoon honey
1 quart cranberry juice cocktail
Juice of 1 lime
Sprigs of fresh mint
1. Place the tea bags in a pitcher. Bring the water to a boil; immediately pour water and honey into the pitcher. Let steep for 30 minutes.
2. Remove the tea bags. Add the cranberry and lime juices; chill. Serve in tall glasses over ice, garnished with a sprig of mint.
Yield: 3 quarts; 10 to 12 servings
15 Herbs That Make Delicious Tea
1. Anise hyssop
2. Basil
3. Calendula
4. Catnip or catmint
5. Chamomile
6. Lavender
7. Lemon balm
8. ‘Lemon Gem’ and ‘Orange Gem’ marigolds
9. Lemon verbena
10. Mints
11. Monarda (bee balm)
12. Pineapple sage
13. Rosemary
14. Sage
15. Scented geraniums
Growing Herbal Teas
Cooking with Herbs
CHAPTER 4
Homegrown Grains
There’s nothing homier than a loaf of freshly baked bread. And how much homier would it be if that bread were made from wheat or corn you’d grown and milled yourself? Like anything else you grow in your garden, grains taste better when they’re fresh. Their flavor is sweeter, nuttier, and more complex than that of grains that have sat on a shelf for months, never mind grains that have been ground into flour and then stored for an indeterminate amount of time. When you grow your own grain, you get to grind it right when you need it, capturing as much of the flavor as possible.
Depending on how much bread and pasta you eat, you may not have enough land to grow all the wheat needed to feed your whole family. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t start with a “pancake patch” — a small patch of wheat to use for making pancakes on the weekends. Or maybe enough corn to eat during the summer and make popcorn for family movie night through the winter. Of course, you could also plant enough corn to freeze the extra and
eat through the winter (see page 185).
Grain isn’t just for eating, though. It’s also a necessary ingredient in beer making, and fresh grains impart a unique flavor to the brew. Once you’ve got your pancake patch established, why not try your hand at growing and malting barley for making your own homebrew (see pages 206 and 209)?
Growing Grains
When it comes to growing grains, following two simple rules will keep the experience positive: 1) think through the entire process before you begin; 2) start small.
Preparing the ground and getting the seed in is only the first step in a long process. Each step requires time and energy and planning. You don’t want to spend the summer admiring your amber waves only to realize at harvesttime that you don’t know how you’re going to cut the grain fast enough to keep ahead of the birds and the thunderstorms. Before you drop the first seed to the ground, you need to answer these questions:
• How much grain do I want to harvest?
• How will I control the weeds in my grain?
• In case of drought, will I water or give up the crop?
• How will I harvest the grain? Will I need help?
• How will I thresh, winnow, and hull the grain?
• Where can I store my grain to protect it from bugs, rats, and heat?
Which Grain to Grow?
If you’re a beginner and want success, your first grain crop should be corn. Consider the advantage: If you’re already a gardener, you’re probably growing corn, and you only have to let a few ears go past their prime to have a grain crop. There’s no worry about dealing with hulls when you grow corn — just husks, and they’re easily stripped away. It’s easy, too, to twist dried corn off the ear. And you’ll be delighted with the corn and cornmeal recipes in this book and wonder why you waited so long to try growing corn.
If you’re a bit more ambitious, try wheat (or triticale). It’s very easy to grow, and you can harvest, thresh, store, and grind wheat in small amounts with little difficulty.
Like those who have experimented with wheat, you will probably grow fond of having a wheat crop and want one each year. Ah, the thrill of biting into a piece of whole-wheat bread and knowing that it is “your” bread, from planting to oven. And don’t forget the many other dishes for which wheat is the base.
Rye is the crop for the faint of heart. It is almost immune to failure. It’s hardy, so there’s little danger from frosts, and will grow in poor soil. It’s a good cover crop, makes a fine green manure to turn under to replenish the soil, and is easy to harvest, thresh, and grind.
Other grains involve one more step, and it can be a difficult one. The grains have hulls that must be removed, or at least minimized.
Millet hulls easily. Simply rub a handful of grain between your hands and the thin hulls will rub off.
Barley has a hull that fits firmly into the crease of each grain and is hard to remove. The commercial method of wearing this down is called “pearling.” You can pearl small amounts of your own barley crop by popping it into the blender.
Buckwheat, not a true grain, has a kernel shaped like a beechnut and covered with a hard, inedible hull. By grinding the buckwheat, then sifting out pieces of the hull, a flour can be produced.
Oats are one of the easiest grains to grow and the hardest to hull. If you’re growing oats for chickens or rabbits or horses, they’ll handle the problem by ignoring the hull. If you’re growing oats to eat, find a method of hulling before you start or choose a hull-less variety.
Rice can be raised at home, but it is a challenge. It’s a delicious grain that can be used in many ways, all of which most of us would forgo if we had to raise our own rice.
Remember that all of these can be purchased, ready for cooking or grinding, at natural-food stores, and some of them are available in your supermarket.
They are generally inexpensive, far less costly than foods that have been processed.
If you buy grains at places other than food stores, make certain they have not been chemically treated in some way to prepare them for planting.
Planting the Grains
Backyard Corn
In Europe, it’s maize; South Africans call it mielie or mealie; early Virginia colonists wrote home about learning to grow pagatour. Call it what you will, you can’t get away from corn.
Even if, by some quirk of nature or orthodonture, you were indifferent to chewing it from fresh steamed ears in summer, never touched cornbread, and had Thanksgiving without corn pudding, you’d still get your share of corn. It would take a lot of doing to avoid cornstarch, corn syrup, and corn oil. And the person who doesn’t go for corn flakes with milk may be the same guy who sips a little corn squeezins (whiskey) after dinner.
Commercial growers choose from the tremendous number of corn varieties according to their highly specific purposes — cattle feed, starch, oil, and so on. On the smaller, garden scale, you can plant one or two varieties that will successfully serve all your intentions.
For the home gardener, the most important distinction is between field corn and sweet corn. Unless you’re growing corn for animals as well as people, growing sweet corn exclusively is probably your better choice. You can use it not only for eating fresh, but also for drying and grinding into meal. If you want to get more serious, you can try growing corn especially for cornmeal — sometimes called “flint” corn. These varieties were developed for shelling after 100 or more days and are usually left on the stalk until after several frosts.
Growing Corn
Begin preparing the corn bed in fall. Apply at least an inch of compost or rotted manure and work it into the soil with a garden fork. To encourage worm activity, mulch the bed before a hard freeze.
Sowing. In spring, remove the mulch to let the soil begin heating and apply some finished compost. Cover the corn beds with black or IRT plastic at least a week before sowing. Sow the seeds 1 inch deep and 8 inches apart down the center of a 30-inch bed. To ensure good pollination, plant each variety in blocks of four short rows rather than a single long row. Sow new blocks every two weeks for successive harvests throughout the season.
After sowing, keep the soil moist and install a fabric floating row cover supported by hoops to maintain soil temperature and protect seedlings against frost. Remove the cover when night temperatures are consistently above 60°F (16°C).
Growing. Corn is a heavy feeder, particularly of nitrogen. Yet for a plant of its large size, corn does not have a very deep or extensive root system: A good blast of wind can flatten a corn plant. This means that corn needs deeply tilled, fertile soil with readily available nutrients. This combination allows the plant to produce roots that compensate in density for what they lack in range.
Field Corn
Field corn is a term that lumps dent, flint, and flour corn into one category. The names are unimaginative but accurate:
Dent corn has a dent in each kernel when dry.
Flint corn has rock-hard kernels.
Flour corn makes the best-quality corn flour.
If you’re a beginner and want to ensure success, your first crop should be corn.
Like other plants with relatively shallow roots, corn is sensitive to fluctuations in soil moisture, which stress a plant. Regular and shallow (about 1½ inches) cultivation controls weeds while making nutrients available. Water regularly and fertilize every two weeks with a complete organic fertilizer, such as fish emulsion.
Harvesting. It’s easy to know when to pick a tomato, but knowing when to harvest corn is a little trickier. The secret is to examine the silk at the top of the ear. A ripe ear of corn has a small amount of pliant, greenish silk near the top of the husk, with dry, brownish silk at the ends.
The time of day to pick is another concern, and it’s one about which you’ll hear different advice. Very soon after picking, the sugar in corn begins turning to starch. Some people like to pick their dinner corn a few minutes before it gets dropped into the cooking pot. These folks believe the faster an ea
r of corn moves from the garden to the plate, the sweeter it will taste. It makes sense. Yet corn actually has its highest sugar content in the early morning, not just before the evening meal. A good idea, then, is to pick corn early in the morning, before it’s warmed by the sun, and refrigerate it in the husk until supper.
Corn for Popping
Popcorn, as well as field corn and ornamental corn, has a higher starch content than sweet corn, but the growing requirements for all these are the same as for sweet corn. The difference is in the harvesting. For a kernel to pop, it must have just the right amount of moisture inside it, and this balance is influenced by curing.
Harvest the ears before a hard frost, when the husks have dried and the kernels are plump, well colored, and shiny. Remove the husks and spread out the ears in a cool, well-ventilated space. After they’ve cured for about a month, test-pop some kernels. If they pop nicely, remove the kernels from the cobs and store them in dark glass containers. If they pop weakly, they still contain too much moisture. Continue curing, but test-pop every few days, because you don’t want them to get too dry.
Popcorn comes in many varieties, from red and blue to white and yellow. Popcorn takes longer to mature than sweet corn, so choose a variety that has enough time to develop in a typical growing season in your area.
The Backyard Homestead Page 17