Growing at the Speed of Life
Page 27
Because this puree delivers what I call “layered” flavors, it adds greatly to simple stews, soups, and sauces by enhancing both taste and texture. I usually use it 1 cup at a time—and freeze the rest in 1-cup containers.
MAKES 4 1-CUP SERVINGS
1 teaspoon nonaromatic olive oil
1½ cups chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, bashed and chopped
1 teaspoon grated gingerroot
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
3 medium turnips (¾ pound each), peeled and chopped
2 sprigs parsley
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
5 cups water
Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high. Sauté the onion 2 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger, and cook 1 minute more. Toss in the carrots, celery, turnips, parsley, and black pepper.
Pour in the water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer 25 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Drain the vegetables, reserving the liquid. Place the vegetables in a blender and blend at high speed. Stir the puree into the reserved liquid. Freeze in 1-cup freezer bags.
Per serving: 40 calories, 1 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 8 g carbohydrate, 1 g protein, 2 g dietary fiber, 53 mg sodium. Exchanges: 3 Vegetable
The Herb Garden
You will find no surprises in my initial herb selection. To venture beyond the traditional list is to throw the door open to a bewildering array of herbs, many quite unsuited to the kitchen. These, then, are culinary and often used in popular recipes.
My herbs grow outside the “critter defenses” and predate the new garden by more than five years. Our ever-present rabbits, deer, and moles have left these plants alone, so we have set aside a partly shaded morning sun area, and everything except basil has thrived. (Basil needs full sun all day in a wind-sheltered spot.)
The soil is a fertile mix of sand and clay loam, without any added compost. The pH is 6.5, which, I was told, is perfect for most herbs. I’ve added a swift spray of fish-based liquid fertilizer once a month as a side dressing (not on the plants).
After the last frost in the spring, I divided the clumps and set them apart to gain both air circulation and root space. When they got too big, I transplanted some into small pots to give away. I leave the watering to once a week and take that day to check for weeds.
All the taller herbs are at the back and graduate toward the “ground huggers” in the front, so nothing is overshadowed. I found some beautifully colored and naturally textured flagstones, and divided up the herbs with these natural stone barriers. They provide a sure-footed walkway on rainy days.
The whole herb garden is close to the kitchen door and well lit, in case I need a last-minute picking on a pitch-dark night!
As to their use?
Fresh-snipped herbs go brilliantly in both salads and soups, and as a garnish to almost everything. Herbs are not unlike perfumes in their appeal—some you’ll love, others not so much. Only through use will you get the needed confidence to use them abundantly and well!
One very important use is to see them as a partial replacement for salt, with or without citrus and berry fruits and their juices. All of us can do better by reducing salt (sodium) content, and the best solution that I know of is to use herbs, citrus, and spices to add aroma, texture, and taste to foods that normally seem to attract liberal salting.
I have also sown edible flowers among my herbs to add both color and taste to dishes. I grow these in the main fenced garden, again for colorful splashes, because I like to break up the sense of order that comes with carefully planted rows of vegetables as well as attract bees and butterflies.
Basil
Ocimum basilicum
The powerful aroma from this luscious salad herb is one of the reasons I had to grow it. Then there’s that clove/anise flavor and its ease of germination and early growth in the greenhouse—although a sunny window box will do just as nicely. I waited for 70ºF soil temperatures before setting it out in raised beds.
We did a couple of EarthBoxes with four small plants a side that eventually filled the boxes to overflowing. We had a warm summer, and the basil plants became a little long-legged and began to flower early. Because this means losing some of the volatility of the leaves, I made it a daily practice to nip the flowers in the bud.
Don’t put the plants out too early, and do give them the sunniest most sheltered spots—both in the herb garden and around the garden alongside some of your edible flowers.
I harvested the lot in late August and made up some pesto in bulk, using 2 cups basil, ¼ cup pine nuts, 4-6 garlic cloves, and ¼ cup grapeseed oil, which I whizzed together until relatively smooth in a food processor. I froze the pesto in ice cube trays (1 tablespoon a cube) to defrost and mix with extra-virgin olive oil and good grated Parmesan cheese for pasta dishes. I use about 1 tablespoon of pesto for each portion of pasta.
When we don’t make our own bread (which is mostly the case nowadays), we buy Health Nut (whole-grain bread) and make sandwiches with goat cheese, basil leaves, and sun-ripened vine tomatoes seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground white peppercorns—it’s hard to imagine anything better!
Whenever I make a vegetable stir-fry, I’ll scatter in a cupful of basil leaves just before serving to keep their aroma intact.
Unless a recipe calls for the leaves to be sliced, as in a chiffonade (very finely diced), simply tear them apart, because the pressure of the blade will crush the sensitive leaf, and it blackens quickly. Torn leaves retain their color much longer, but you still need to leave this step until the last possible moment.
Basil
Annual/Warm Season
Water: Light
Sun: Full
Companion Planting: PRO: Tomatoes, peppers CON: Cucumbers, snap beans
Pests: Slugs, snails
Diseases: Botrytis
Soil: Rich humus
Fertilizer: Low feeder
pH: 6.0-6.5
Varieties: Genovese (green leaf), Dark Opal (purple leaf), and a wide variety of scented culinary basil, including lemon and cinnamon
Zones: 4-10
Planting: Seed ⅛ inch deep, 10 inches apart
Germinates : 7-14 days
Harvest: 50-60 days
Rotation: Don’t follow marjoram or oregano (keep them apart in the bed)
Edible: Leaves
Chive
Allium schoenoprasum and A. tuberosum (garlic chive)
I’ve had an untidy clump of chives that has been struggling in the midst of a sea of dandelions for 7 years. They’d still come up regardless of frost, snow, and below-zero periods, but they didn’t look very happy until I learned of their need to be divided every 3 years. So in the fall I dug them up, used pruning shears to cut vertically through the shallow roots, and spread out my clump into six parts, set 6-8 inches apart.
This year I’m going to companion plant the chives with carrots, which I’m told will help the carrots avoid a common fungus. In any event, the idea of purple chive blossoms bobbing about in a bed of bright green carrot tops seemed too good to pass up.
I’ve had two types of chives for years: the one with purple flowers and thin, empty stems (Ruby Gem), and the larger solid strap-like stemmed garlic (Chinese) chive, with a pure white edible flower that really has a garlic lilt to its taste.
I use both types in mixed-egg dishes: scrambled, omelets, frittatas, and even savory pancakes. Another major use is with pasta and potatoes as a final garnish. The garlic chive is especially good with pasta and makes a brilliant addition to an otherwise all-green salad.
The fine, slim, bright green stalks are a perfect garnish to elegant Asian-styled dishes, where there’s a lot of open plate space; just two chive stems casually crossed can say more than words will ever say about your ability to finish in beauty.
And while on the subject of beauty, I happened across an unusual companion planting suggestion: chives flourish in the company of roses. Since making this di
scovery, I intend to try this myself and find yet another reason to see plants as a kind of community that celebrates diversity.
Chive
Perennial
Water: Low
Sun: Part
Companion Planting:
PRO: Tomatoes, peppers, carrots, roses
CON: Beans, peas
Pests: None
Diseases: Fungus
Soil : Good humus content, well drained
Fertilizer: Fish fertilizer 2-3 times a year
pH: 6.0-7.0
Varieties: Ruby Gem (purple), Forescate (red flowers), Chinese (garlic; white)
Zones: 3-9 (garlic chive, 4-8)
Planting: Seed ½ inch deep, thin to 6 inches apart
Germinates : 7-14 days
Harvest: From seed, 75-90 days
Rotation: None (except for dividing every third year)
Edible: Stems and flowers
Cilantro
Coriandrum sativum
Now here’s the plant that some love and some hate; the haters declare that it tastes like soap—or even bugs, although I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could legitimately make that comparison!
To be fair, it does have a strange, somewhat unattractive aroma in its early leaf form, before it goes to seed and produces the extraordinary spice seed coriander, which is widely used in curry powders.
I’ve become a fan through an appreciation of Tex-Mex foods as well as classic Mexican dishes, where cilantro plays a major part both as a garnish and in great fresh salsas.
Just squeezing a fresh lime (or Meyer lemon) over a quartered avocado and sprinkling it with chopped cilantro is enough to justify a valued spot in the herb garden.
In late summer, as the seeds form, you can bind a bunch together and place them upside down in a large jar and let the whole thing dry out. The coriander seeds drop off the drying plant, and you’ve got your second harvest—the spice coriander.
You can also dig up the roots, dry them, and whiz them up into a powder just before using them to flavor soups and sauces. The aroma is remarkably complex and a great mystery waiting to challenge your gourmet friends: “And now . . . which herb did I use to flavor this?” I can almost guarantee they won’t get it!
Try coriander seeds freshly ground (treated like peppercorns in the peppermill) over beets, onions, potatoes, and lentils. (Lentils are a superb high-fiber food, and by adding ground coriander and garnishing with the fresh leaves, we may have found a perfect starch dish for those who live with diabetes!)
Cilantro
Annual/Hardy
Water: Lightly drip irrigation; earth needs to be moist
Sun: Full
Companion Planting:
PRO: Fruit trees
CON: None
Pests: None
Diseases: None
Soil : Rich humus, well drained
Fertilizer: Very low feeder; don’t add nitrogen, which causes plants to grow more and yield less flavor
pH: 6.0-6.7
Varieties: Santo (slow to bolt)
Zones: 2-9
Planting: Outdoors after last frost; seed ½ inch deep, 2 inches apart; thin to 6-8 inches
Germinates: 7-10 days
Harvest: 65-75 days; may need a light fabric shade in hot weather; best when 6-inch stems
Rotation: None
Edible: Leaves, stems, roots (dried and ground) and seeds (coriander)
Mint
Mentha suaveolens (apple mint); M. x gracilis (golden apple mint)
Queen Elizabeth I of England delivered an edict that every Englishman that partakes of sheep meat shall take with it a bitter herb as a penance. The herb selected was mint.
At the time, there was a brisk and profitable export trade in wool, but apparently the Brits had taken a fancy to lamb and were upsetting exports by putting the cart before the horse, so to speak!
Eating mint, which is an excellent digestive, is fine with the stronger-flavored, less tender mutton, but mint with lamb, especially when pickled in malt vinegar, wasn’t only a penance—it was in one fell stroke the best example of how not to use herbs.
An herb, of any kind, is culinary perfume. Its purpose is to complement but never overwhelm the main ingredient. Mint goes well with beans, carrots, eggplant, potatoes, and peas.
In the herb garden, you must take steps to control mint’s invasive nature. We put bricks ends down (to about 12 inches) to create a defined box just 2 feet square—quite enough for our purposes. You can also cut it right back in midsummer for a lovely fresh fall-to-winter crop.
Divide the plant in spring and autumn. Stem cuttings root easily in vermiculite—keep good air space or ventilation.
I listed two mint species by their botanical names in the header to this description, but I would be remiss not to include some exotic mints that you may wish to try in your garden. Peppermint and spearmint are obvious, but much less likely is the extraordinary chocolate mint (Mentha × piperita ‘Chocolate’) and bergamot mint (also called orange mint), which is remarkable when served as a garnish to iced tea.
Mint
Perennial
Water: Moist but not soaked
Sun: Full
Companion Planting:
PRO: Peppers, tomatoes
CON: None
Pests: Aphids
Diseases: Verticillium wilt
Soil: Common garden soil is fine
Fertilizer: Low feeder
pH: 6.0-7.0
Varieties: Apple mint (Variegata), pineapple mint,
golden apple mint, Vietnamese mint (good for food), chocolate mint, bergamot (orange) mint
Zones: 5-9
Planting: Seed ¼ inch deep in spring; from root stemtip cuttings in water or moist soil, spring to summer
Germinates: 7-10 days (seeds)
Harvest: 60 days
Rotation: Permanent (sometimes you wish it was not!)
Edible: Leaves
Nasturtium and Edible Flowers
Tropaeolum majus
Have you ever wondered how botanists come up with such extraordinary and mostly unpronounceable names for plants? I’ve finally come upon one I get, and it’s almost humorous!
Nasus tortus, one name given to the nasturtium, means “convulsed nose” and refers to that odd-shaped beak of a flower that droops backward to the soil. My convulsed nose did brilliantly at the sunny end of a row of cabbages, flanked on either side with green onions, like organic sentries. I separated the cabbage from the nasturtiums with a buffer zone of mesclun lettuce, basil, and arugula.
I love the flat disc leaves for their peppery almost arugula taste, and the flowers dress a salad or garnish a main dish brilliantly with yellow, orange, and red shades. The droopier or longer the nose, the sweeter the flower. Very long ones can garnish a dessert.
It’s just one of several edible flowers that you might want to plant in the odd bare patch throughout your raised beds—just to get some splashes of natural color amid all the greens.
Nasturtium does have the reputation for attracting aphids, which is actually not such a bad thing if you can get them all in one place (like having a Starbucks for aphids). At least it’ll keep them out of my tea shop!
I did a whole border of alyssum around the tomatoes and peppers and basil, which wound up keeping the lower hanging fruit from touching down in the dirt!
This coming year, I’m setting out a range of edible flowers that will include pansies, begonias, calendula, daisies, geranium (I use the leaves only), Johnny-jump-ups, lavender, marigold, and an old-fashioned deep red rose (it makes an intriguing jam).
It seems that many flowers work, but only a few should not be eaten, including lily-of-thevalley, sweet pea, oleander, and foxglove. Please check first to ensure that a flower is, indeed, edible, and never eat anything that has been grown or protected by inorganic chemicals.
Nasturtium and Edible Flowers
Annual
Water: Moist, not saturated
Sun:
Full
Companion Planting:
PRO: Good for most plants (attracts aphids away from tomatoes)
CON: Cabbage family
Pests: Cabbage maggots, flea-beaten aphids
Diseases: None
Soil: Sandy loam, well drained
Fertilizer: Light fertilizer at planting; don’t compost heavily
pH: 6.2-6.8
Varieties: Copper Sunset
Zones: 5-10
Planting: Seed 1 inch deep, 2-3 inches apart, after last frost
Germination: 9-12 days
Harvest: 50 days
Rotation: Avoid following cabbage family
Edible: Leaves and flower
Oregano
Origanum vulgare; O. × hirtum
There is some confusion about two commonly used herbs that crop up in hundreds of Mediterranean-style dishes: marjoram and oregano.
They are almost interchangeable in the way they are used in cooking and how they are grown. However, oregano tends to be more assertive—and, for some, almost harshly so. As a result, it’s often called wild marjoram. It grows prolifically on the barren stony Greek mountainsides and takes its name from oros, meaning “mountains,” and ganos, “meaning joy.”
When tasted side by side with oregano, marjoram is less powerful and, if anything, slightly sweet. Unlike its heartier cousin, it grows amid lush pastures and is often called pot marjoram because of its use bunched with other herbs in meat and poultry stews.
I tend to use oregano in Italian and Greek dishes and marjoram in southern French and Spanish recipes, but frankly the two are, for all practical purposes, the same.
One way to think about both of them is their FABIS factor. They tend to come up fresh and best in season alongside tomatoes, sweet bell peppers, and eggplant, so it’s no surprise that local folks in these regions put them together and created special recipes that have become justifiably famous: Provençal basquaise (marjoram), marinara sauce (oregano), and so on.