i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
My sister (follow her on Instagram), who is a chef working at an upscale Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, gave me three hamachi kama (yellowtail collars) the other day when I went to visit her and my parents where they live in Queens. I was daunted …
I was so excited when I saw a goji (Lycium chinense or Lycium barbarum) plant for sale at my local nursery, ladened with fruit. The first time I tried it, after the initial burst of sweetness, it became so bitter I spat it out, and …
This is the story of how I started out with one horseradish plant (Armoracia rusticana) and ended up with over 20. Horseradish is one of the few condiments that I can’t do without when eating raw clams or oysters. It’s also a delicious compliment to roast beef or a thick, juicy slice of prime rib.
It’s a hardy perennial down to zone 2 and, as I found out, can be invasive if you aren’t a big horseradish fan as any little piece of root regenerates itself into an entirely new plant. I found this out when moving my original mother plant to a new area in the garden–baby horseradish are still popping up yearly where the original was because I don’t dig deep enough to get all the pieces. The roots also snap fairly easily, so while I may have gotten the main root, some offshoots always remain. It is tolerant of both frequent and infrequent watering, and tolerates a wide range of soil acidity and conditions (had it in both sandy soil and compost heavy soils–but sandy soil makes it easier to harvest.) I’ve had it in both sun and shade and the only thing that seems to bother it (but not hinder it) is the caterpillars (cabbageworms) of those white butterflies that are often fluttering around my garden.
One thing to note is that there is a plant called “curly dock” that looks very similar to horseradish–same leaf shape and root system. The way to tell the difference, aside from the hallmark pungency of grated horseradish, is that the roots of the curly dock has yellow flesh, while horseradish roots are white fleshed. They also have different flowers.
I had been wondering what to do with the sundried tomato in olive oil I had prepared some days ago, knowing that I will have to use it up soon or risk botulism (no matter how small) when I came across fresh mozzarella pearls in …
Lemon Balm (Melissa Officionalis) is a perennial herb part of the mint family with very similar growth habits. It’s hardy and invasive if left to its own devices, so like my mint, it’s been relegated to the invasive herb box where it holds its own …
If you’ve never used mint (or mint jelly) on a sandwich, you really should start. Seriously, you won’t be disappointed. I don’t know how to describe the deliciously fresh taste that using mint imparts, but it’s what I think of when I think of Summer. I actually started doing this when my mom told me she had a delicious sandwich in Manhattan, where it was a turkey, cheese, arugula, and mint jelly panini, and she said it was surprisingly delicious. I began using mint jelly and peppermint interchangeable when making turkey sandwiches, and, while I usually hate turkey in any way, shape, or form, this actually redeems the usually dry and tasteless bird.
Ingredients:
Recipe:
1. Toast bread if not doing panini style.
2. Spread mayonnaise on one side, mint jelly (if using) on the other. Or spread mayo on both sides and arrange peppermint leaves on one side.
3. Sprinkle black pepper on mayonnaise (optional.)
4. Arrange turkey and cheese on bread.
5. If doing mint jelly panini style, add arugula and put under panini press.
Mint, of the genus mentha, is one of the herbs that I always have on hand. Several different species exist, although I usually only keep one or two (currently, I have peppermint and chocolate mint.) It’s probably the least picky herb I have had the …
I’ve been wanting to do this DIY for a while, but could not, for the life of me, find the bar of beeswax I had used to seal my mason bee house. I wanted to be as close to plastic free as possible, not only …
In any case, it’s almost Fall and I’ve broken out the Nesco Snackmaster Pro dehydrator I bought almost 5 years ago, when I first forayed into the world of drying fruits and vegetables. I haven’t tried meats yet (even though they give you packages of meat curing seasonings) but I imagine it would work just as well.
My cherry tomatoes, despite it getting quite cool at night, are still going strong, and I’m overrun with pounds and pounds of them in my fridge. One can really only eat so many tomatoes, right? I could sauce them, but because they are all different colors, the sauce would come out roughly the color of vomit, and due to the high sugar content of cherries, probably too sweet anyway.
So here’s where the dehydrator comes in handy. I bought this thing myself and have been using it every year (so this isn’t a sponsored review or anything like that) and I like how many tiers it has and how fast it dries the fruits I put in (I’ve done apples, tomatoes, strawberries, goji berries), but not when I attempted to dry flowers (my edible chrysanthemum for tea) because it caused them to be discolored. I don’t know if it’s the type of flowers or the temperature setting for their flowers, but at least for chrysanthemum, it doesn’t come out pretty. I haven’t done herbs in it because I just hang bunches of herbs around and they dry very quickly that way anyway. I’m also very happy with how long it’s lasted–5 years and counting for something like this is great!
One thing that I noticed is that the apple chips and strawberries only become crisp once they’ve been cooled–they’ll still be rubbery right out of the dehydrator, but give it a few minutes and they’ll firm right up, so don’t be alarmed if you see that.
I washed the tomatoes, dried them with a paper towel, and halved them, although you could just poke a hole in the skin to allow the moisture to be pulled out, but this dries faster. Then you set it and forget it until the next day. It’s not a quiet unit, by any means, but no worse than a dehumidifier or an air conditioner would be.
I checked them the next day and they were nice and dry, and now it was time to store them. I bought a nice bottle of olive oil specifically for this purpose. As a word of advice: Use glass jars as plastic may leech the flavor into the olive oil, and no one likes plastic tasting olive oil.
Ingredients:
Recipe:
1. Place tomatoes, rosemary, and garlic cloves inside the glass jars.
2. Fill jars with extra virgin olive oil until all the dry ingredients are submerged.
3. Keep in the fridge and use within a week.***
4. Optional: Pressure cook the jars which will raise the temperature to 250 Fahrenheit and is enough to kill the spores and infuse the flavor faster. It is still recommended to be used quickly.
***I’m highlighting this part in bold and red because it’s very important that we are aware of the risks of botulism when it comes to submerging fresh herbs in olive oil (the anaerobic environment causes the spores to multiply). Keep it in the fridge and using it within a week or two of making will ensure you and your family do not get sick from it. Infected oils will look, smell, and taste fine so take precautions when making this. Or, keep the ingredients separate and make it 24 hours ahead of time of use.
I love having an extensive herb garden because I can just go outside and pinch some off, without having to worry about where to store large quantities of it (and, if I don’t use it up soon enough, the flavors may fade.) Oregano (Origanum Vulgare) …