Backyard greens

No matter how tired I am -- and I am T-I-R-E-D after what seems like two weeks packed into four days so far this week -- I can't help but get excited when I get to harvest things from my garden and it them within minutes. Tonight marked the inaugural harvest of baby kale, chard, and arugula this spring. Oh, sure, I've chomped on a leaf here and there while doing garden work, but this is the first time there was enough for a full salad. Yum! Why should it matter that the arugula and dino kale unintentionally grew out of my compost pile? So what if the Swiss chard is in its second year? It's delicious, especially with a simple and fresh dressing.

Simple salad with lemony dressing

Ingredients

• juice from 2-3 lemons (about 1/3 cup of juice)
• handful of fresh herbs (rosemary, basil, chives, thyme, sage, oregano, etc), finely chopped
• 1 cup olive oil
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• pinch of sugar (optional)
• 1 large bunch of greens (spinach, baby kale, baby beet greens, tatsoi, chard, lettuce, etc.), washed and torn into bite-sized pieces

Directions

Whisk together lemon juice and herbs in a medium bowl. While whisking, slowly pour olive oil in a slow stream. Add salt and pepper (and sugar) to taste. Blot the washed greens dry using a towel or salad spinner. Toss greens in a large bowl with dressing. Devour.

That's all. Enough salivating over my keyboard. Now it's time to juice some lemons, pick a few herbs, make some of that dressing and get eating....

Focus on folic acid

I do not purport to be a nutritionist. I work with them sometimes, but my realm of expertise is food enjoyment: making and eating and teaching and getting others excited about good food. As such, I was invited to work with a group of staff and patients over at Howard University Hospital last weekend. It was part of a workshop series geared toward improving the quality of life of folks dealing with sickle cell anemia. As participants trickled in around noon, we got cooking. More precisely, we got grinding cumin seeds and tearing kale and shaking vinaigrette as participants helped me prepare some sweet and savory salads from the beautiful seasonal produce I'd pre-washed and brought along.

I'd learned that patients going through treatment for sickle cell disease often have low folic acid levels, so I was specifically looking for easy, tasty, inexpensive recipes using folic-acid-laden ingredients. (And since the workshop was to take place *in* a hospital, I couldn't have an open flame, so I found myself making salads.) In spite of themselves, a number of folks admitted to really enjoying the trio of salads. The massaged kale salad was a crowd pleaser once again, with the apple beet salad a close second. (Carrot salad always comes in third -- why is that?) All were loaded with folic acid, also known as vitamin B9. It was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to the next workshop with this group (which will focus on container gardening).

So, what does folic acid do, anyway?

I was wondering the same thing myself when the hospital staff approached me about teaching a cooking class with an emphasis on folic acid. So I did a little research. Being a food educator doesn't mean I know everything about everything related to food, you know. (I do know a heck of a lot about cooking, though. And eating.) Vitamin B9 is super important in red blood cell formation, and is a major factor in preventing and treating anemia. Even if you aren't anemic you'll want to make sure you're getting plenty in your diet. Folic acid deficiencies are also apparently linked to other health issues, from macular degeneration to depression to a whole spectrum of birth defects. Planning on having kids? Ladies, make sure you're getting enough folic acid before and during pregnancy. (Calm down, mom and dad, I'm not planning on having kids in the near future. You can be sure I'll be eating plenty of kale salad when that happens, though.)

What kinds of foods are high in folic acid? Many of my favorites!

• Avocado (hooray!)
• Asparagus
• Beets
• Berries (strawberries, raspberries)
• Brussels sprouts (send me an email, I'll give you 14 different recipes)
• Carrots and celery
• Cauliflower
• Citrus (oranges, lemons, grapefruits)
• Corn
• Dark, leafy greens (kale, collards, spinach, beet greens)*
• Legumes (beans, peas, lentils)*
• Okra
• Seeds and nuts
• Squashes 

*Note: foods marked with an asterisk (*) are also quite high in iron, so check with your doctor before consuming large quantities while on iron-level-spiking medication for sickle cell anemia.

 

[Photos courtesy of Don Cash]

Spring has sprung

This weekend may be one of the most gloriously beautiful spring weekends on record. I did my darndest to spend as much of it as possible outside. (I have the bug bites to prove it.)

Saturday afternoon I made my way out to Northern Virginia for a garden consultation with mom. After a delicious lunch -- we're related, so of course there would be a proper lunch #2 -- we took a walk about the front yard and then a field trip to a local nursery for supplies.

Oh, boy, do I lose it around pretty flowers and vegetable seedlings -- it's a good thing mom and I got out of there within an hour or I'd have spent my entire tax return. (Oh, wait: I owe money this year. Damn it. Well, all the more reason to get myself out of the heirloom tomato section asap.) Then she put me to work back home, transplanting some beautiful purple sweet potato vines into the front beds, pruning shrubs, and taming the overactive rose bushes along the side of the house. I made it out of there before she got me digging holes for the geraniums -- there were a LOT of geraniums -- and I absconded with dad's car to whisk Kenton into the city for the remainder of the weekend. Dinner out on the back patio was just lovely. I do believe that's when the nefarious ankle biting happened. (Silly me, I thought it was too early for mosquitoes, and was focused on the wine and the pleasant company of our friends Patricia and Peter and the experimental winter squash lasagne. Oooh, but they sure itch now.)

Sunday was spent largely outdoors as well. That morning as I perused the stands at the Dupont farmers' market I was unable to resist the lure of herb transplants. Thankfully limited by the cash I had on hand after doing the bulk of my shopping for the week, I biked home with two little plants in my pannier, along with quite the haul of produce, cider, eggs, bread, and yoghurt. Kenton joined me out in the garden for some brunch and then some garden time. Doesn't he look serious, meticulously recording in my garden journal the varieties of and arrangement of seeds planted in the hand-rolled newspaper pots?

Yes, awfully serious fun. Heirloom burgundy okra. Wisconsin pickling cucumbers. Four different kinds of basil. And lots more than I might have space for, should they all germinate and become legit plantlings. But we'll figure that part out later.

Meanwhile, I was crawling around some of the planters and in-ground beds, cleaning up and reseeding some of the flowers and salad greens. And some seeds I'd saved from last year. Celosia. Marigolds. Bell peppers. Jarradale squash. And putting in my new sage and thyme additions, of course. It felt good to have my hands in the dirt after so many months. I can't wait to see what does well this year. I'm a little behind on my March Madness seedling bracket, but my money's on the hot peppers.

Check out my mussels

Awhile back -- goodness, nearly two months ago, now that I look at the calendar! -- I hosted my second beer dinner of the season. (I was especially proud of myself for including some Tall, Dark, and Belgian in 3 separate elements: mustard, mussel sauce, and bread.) What is more suited to a beer dinner than mussels steamed in Belgian-style beer? I couldn't tell ya. Plus, it was high time to break in the new cast-iron skillet from Cousin Sonia.... It's hard to go wrong when you start a sauce with some thick-cut, pastured bacon.

I love beer. And bacon. And, lord, do I love mussels. Mind you, I had recently decided that I would NOT be ordering mussels OUT anytime soon, following my reading of the scandalous chapter of Kitchen Confidential that detailed the horrific practices of mussel storage common in the restaurant industry. They sit in the fridge in a bowl of their own excrement, to give you the long and short of it. Ick! As if there were not enough things keeping me up at night. (I had read up on how one should safely and hygienically store live bivalves in the fridge: in a colander with plenty of airflow and a damp towel on top.)

The evening before the dinner, as Kenton and I picked up a couple of pounds of fresh mussels at the local Whole Foods, I got to thinking about clams and mussels that I regularly saw sold live on beds of crushed ice, right out there in the open air. "How it is that they stay alive out of the water, and in my fridge for a day or two?" I mused. Kenton was stumped as well. So were our dinner guests when I posed the question during our beer floats. I pondered, I looked online. Nada. So I called in the experts. I recently got a note back from my friend -- and card carrying seafood aficionado -- Marco, of Taylor Shellfish, with an explanation:

"To answer your question, mussels, clams and oysters are adapted to the intertidal environment. This means that twice a day they are out of the water for a few hours (more or less). Because of this they are very good at sealing their shells tight shut with a small drink of salty water. When you steam mussels with beer this salty “liquor” mixes with the beer and make that tasty broth that soaks into crusty bread so well. (I have recently gone gluten free, so I now only dream about soaking up mussel broth with crusty bread, but alas.)

In any case, the short answer is that the same kinds of shellfish that are well adapted to the intertidal environment also tends to have a long “shelf life,” and if properly handled can last for days out of the water."

Hmmm. Makes sense. Clearly this food educator still has much to learn -- thanks for the explanation, Marco. And happy (almost) Easter, readers! Hope you learned something today. I did.

Cutting the mustard

Readers, please don't think for a moment that I have abandoned you. Tales are forthcoming about community garden workdays and cooking lessons and working with various farmers markets leading up to the start of the season. (Farmers' market season, that is, though tax season is also breathing down my neck.)

Today -- or tonight, rather -- I offer a simple recipe, one which I have been fiddling with for a couple of years now. I recall the evening my friend Vinnie and his partner had me over for dinner those many nights ago, toward the end of which I left with an old issue of Saveur magazine that contained the base recipe for my now much beloved mustard recipe. There are a few standard ingredients -- namely, the ground spices -- and there are some variables: 1) mustard seeds, 2) vinegar, and 3) beer. The variations on this theme are endless.

The original recipe calls for stout, brown mustard seeds, and red wine vinegar. I tried that the first time and it was inarguably delicious. I gave most of it away as Christmas gifts that first winter. Necessity -- i.e., it being too cold out some nights to head out on my bike when I'd sense the first tinglings of a mustard craving -- has led me to try everything from balsamic to apple cider vinegar, and all kinds of mixes in between. I've sometimes snagged a few cups of yellow mustard seeds, and other times the smaller dark seeds, and still other times a mix of the two from dad (who should probably start buying stock in bulk mustard seed, considering his frequenting of the Middle Eastern spice shop since I picked up this mustard making habit). I've experimented with porters, English ales, apricot ales, my own pumpkin ale. Most recently, one of the last bottles of the Tall, Dark, and Belgian made its way into a batch of exceptionally spicy, stone-ground mustard. (The real secret that puts the current batch over the top? Garple.) Slathered on corned beef for a St. Patrick's Day gathering or two this weekend, stirred into horseradish for a sandwich, or mixed into salad dressings, I assure you, this mustard holds its own.

Okay, enough stalling: here's the recipe so you can make your own
Basic Spicy Mustard
Ingredients

• 12-ounce bottle of beer
• 1 1/2 cups whole mustard seed
• 1 cup vinegar
• 1 TBSP salt
• 1 TBSP freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a glass, plastic, or ceramic mixing bowl (or if you're really careful with the beer pouring, this fits EXACTLY into a glass quart jar -- yeah, I just threw down that challenge).

Cover with a towel or recycled sandwich bag and let the mixture sit on your counter for about 2 days. This allows the flavors to talk to each other and the mustard seeds to soften.

Puree in a food processor, pausing occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. After about 3 minutes, you'll suddenly see the mustard thicken and become creamy. (It's kind of like magic. At least Kenton and I think so.) You're done! And friends and family will be so impressed, while you secretly know all it took were a few simple ingredients and a couple days of patience.

You can smear some on a sandwich right then, but be sure to put the rest into a glass container, or a few smaller containers, and store in the refrigerator. It starts off quite spicy, but it'll mellow after a few weeks. Use it within about 6 months... not that I've had ANY mustard last that long around here....

Back to my roots

This past Saturday, aspiring and accomplished urban gardeners celebrated the 6th annual -- and best ever -- Rooting DC. It was the fourth time I attended the free, all-day conference, and the second time I've presented. (Me! An expert at something! I have been known to preserve a thing or two in my day....) This time, instead of demonstrating how one could make vegan kim chi, as I did in 2010, dozens of us made kim chi together. And pickles, too. It was an exercise in controlled chaos.

As soon as I finished giving a primer on the basics of pickling and fermenting, the workshop attendees pounced on the tableful of produce, spices, and equipment. (I forget sometimes that adults need instructions and parameters, too. At least they were all avid handwashers, if not so much washers of tables and dishes.) The enthusiasm was electrifying, though, and as I made a few rounds passing out additional kim chi mashers and suggesting folks pass along ingredients they weren't using to other groups who needed more greens or mustard seed, I couldn't help but smile.

There were easily double the number of people I'd expected. Luckily we had enough jars, kindly donated by my fellow Slow Food DC board members, supplemented with more jars donated by my friend Jessica at GrowingSOUL, and a random assortment of glassware I'd amassed in the weeks leading up to the hands-on workshop. Using a big, beautiful crate of beets, turnips, radishes, cabbages, kale, and onions from the lovely Farmer Mo at Moutoux Orchards, plus cucumbers from the grocery store (they're not in season yet, but I didn't want to get attacked by folks expecting traditional pickles at a pickling workshop) and a load of spices picked up at GLUT, we chopped, peeled, mashed, and stuffed jars full of savory treats. Cinnamon sticks were hammered on cutting boards, vinegar solutions concocted in mixing bowls.

People asked lots of good questions, and I left with some research to undertake. (Like what is this about pickling grapes?? I'm so on it!) Nobody lost a finger, and the only missing implement after all was said and done was a set of measuring spoons. Not bad.

Shhh, we're cooking!

Okay, well, no heat was involved during the 2-hour, hands-on food prep class I led this past Saturday morning at the beautiful, recently restored Mt. Pleasant public library, but those salads were smokin'. Tasty, that is. While the crowd wasn't huge, my aspiring sous chefs were certainly enthusiastic at this flavorful event, sponsored by the Mt. Pleasant farmers' market.

Families and kids (and kids-at-heart) joined up to make surprisingly sweet beet and apple salad, savory carrot salad, and the now locally famous massaged kale salad. They did love my 1960s food processor, and luckily none of the librarians complained about the high-pitched grinding sound or giggling during its use.

By noon, we had four sizable bowls of healthy, seasonal fare to share. Lots of folks sampled our brightly colored salads, including library staff and patrons strolling past on their way to the circulation desk. Many stopped back in to pick up the recipes. Some took ziploc baggies of salad home to friends and family, exclaiming things like "I've never tried raw beets, but this is delicious!" or "I'm so glad I learned about this kale salad -- it's so tasty and I can't believe how easy it was to make!" Me, I was glad to be about 25 pounds lighter, no longer laden with ingredients like the 5-lb bags of carrots and apples, for the bike ride home. (I did have to get a bunch of cooking equipment + the 20-lb food processor back to the homestead, so I still managed to warm up on the return trip.) We left the remaining recipe copies and samples for the good folks at Occupy DC, who were shuffling into the space for a meeting as we wiped down the tables. I think they enjoyed 'em.