i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
Sometimes I fall down the rabbit hole of making things traditionally in order to experience and understand the work and history that goes into food (and subsequently culture.) Mei gan cai kou rou (梅乾菜燜肉) is a dish my mom and grandma used to make–soft fatty …
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” ~ The Little Prince It’s been a year–and boy, it’s been a year. I spent most …
Summer is when I break out my shaved ice machine, which is kind of cheating because my kids love this thing even though technically it’s literally cold water, so I could’ve made a smoothie too, but snow cone style it is.
I use the syrup I make by blitzing my black currants and rose petals with equal weight sugar, and then straining out the solids after it sits in my fridge for a week. The resulting syrup is always a hit with everyone I give it to–for use in mixed drinks, desserts, or over shaved ice. No real recipe except make sure you have a bucket large enough, and a hand blender to make things easier. I find I like the flavor of black currants fresh better than I like them cooked down for jam.
I grow roses for their petals and hips, so you’ll rarely see them in bloom in my garden before they’re feretted away into my kitchen. I am always smelling varieties at the local nurseries since some are fragrant while others smell like nothing (or just bad.) They’re a lovely ornamental edible and I am a huge fan of rose flavored anything.
My kids love sushi. Actually, let me amend that. My kids are crazy about raw seafood and raw red meat–like ceviche, sushi, sashimi, carpaccio, tartar. Sometimes when I am too lazy to cook, I’ll set a pot of rice, grab some frozen salmon or frozen …
Everyone hates garlic mustard, generally. I know I wasn’t a big fan even after turning it into pesto because there really is only so much you can eat of it before you can’t. It’s considered a noxious and invasive weed, crowding out everything in it’s …
It’s kind of hard to explain the flavor of indian aster, Kalimeris indica, also known as Ma Lan Tou (馬蘭頭), herby and little cooling on the tongue, a hint of bitterness that you’re almost not quite certain is there, but refreshing and somewhat addictive. Most of the time it’s served as a cold Shanghainese side dish (or an egg drop soup, or dumplings) that exists for only a short period in spring while the leaves are tender, blanched quickly and finely minced and dressed with tofu, sesame oil, sugar, and soy sauce. Eyeball it so that it just lightly coats everything, you can’t really go wrong there. Start light with the soy sauce and add more if you’d like it saltier, same with the sugar if you want it sweeter. I sometimes don’t have tofu, but on it’s own is quite delicious too. If you do use tofu, you can do dried five spice, firm, silken, tofu skin, whatever strikes your fancy in the moment.
You can serve with rice, or with some scallion pancakes to wrap with.
The reason I’m showcasing it is because it is a rather attractive perennial creeping groundcover in my garden, staying low and growing no higher than an inch or two but slowly and steadily spreading. It flowers into light purple with a yellow center in the fall, and was one of my grandmother’s favorite dishes–fresh was unheard of here in the states when she was alive, so now that I get to enjoy it right from my backyard is an homage to her memory. It’s pretty hardy, from zones 5 – 9 with some varieties capable of surviving zone 4. Sun or shade, and relatively drought tolerant although it spreads quicker with regular watering.
It also easily propagates in just water, growing roots in days, so my oldest spent one year propagating a bunch for fun, as she enjoyed seeing them grow and then plopping them into a new location.
My parents had given me a huge bag of plums about two years ago that I had layered in syrup until all the liquids leeched out into a runny syrup, which I used for cooking anything that needed a bump of sweetness. From teriyaki sauces …
I keep frozen ahi tuna blocks in my freezer for hot days when I have no energy to turn on the stove. A simple carpaccio paired with some bread is always a hit with the family who like raw fish in all shapes and forms. …
Sometimes simple is best! When I have cured meats at home, like some pastrami my sister brought to me, I like to pretend I’m in a medieval fantasy game and make an old timey tavern spread. I’ll boil up some eggs (from the chickens of course), bake some crusty bread, buy some nice cheese, pull out any jams or preserves I’ve made, and make a dip for the bread–it could be a gravy or an olive oil dip depending on what mood strikes me.
Currant tomatoes are a PAIN to collect and when I do they can’t really be used much except for salads so I end up with a lot of these tiny pearl sized tomatoes. In a desperate attempt to store them, I dehydrated them and realized they make for a really nice addition to herbed olive oil dip. They also naturalized in the garden, coming up unprompted every year. I leave them alone and they become bushy monstrosities with thousands of itty bitty tomatoes in drooping clusters. I don’t grow them on purpose any more but won’t say no to free.
I also grow a lot of herbs which makes this the perfect and easy garden to table fare: marjoram, oregano, basil, parsley, rosemary, sage minced with course salt and pepper, and then some dehydrated tomatoes and peppers (if I have.) Drizzled with olive oil and it’s bursting with the flavor of adventure. It’s a fun thing to do for picnics too, or for fighting dragons.
Chickweed is a common plant found in my garden, and it has a crisp, mild, and refreshing flavor, making it great for salads and sandwiches. The only problem tends to be that it’s a bit of a pain to collect. Early spring and fall is …