i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
If anyone had been willing to listen the last few years, they know that I had been battling deer in my garden and had been losing. Overnight, my poor fruit trees would be stripped of their leaves, and their odd gastronomic decisions made me think …
For those wanting a less Asian approach to using shiso while using a large quantity of it, this is the recipe for you: Sauteed Clams, Shiso Batayaki style. My husband (who is part Italian) LOVES this sauce as it is wonderful for all kinds of …
**The longer you keep them, the more moisture gets pulled out of the yolk and it will be firmer. It’s normal for the yolk to shrink in size and take on a darker color.
About two years ago, one of my best friends told me about a book she read called “The Art of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo, and how, in it, there is a method of figuring out what to keep and what to throw away when …
I was walking through my garden, taking stock of things, and realized that my Hardy Chicago figs had ripened. I picked them, ones which were soft and drooping, ate a few on my way back into the house, and then set to make a simple …
Figs (ficus carica) is a fruit that we often come across in higher end supermarkets, expensive, but oh so delicious. We all have that grandpa/uncle/old neighbor next door who tell tales of their fig trees producing bountiful fruit, but it gets a little daunting when you want to start planting it yourself. After all, isn’t the reason why it’s so expensive when you see them fresh in store because it’s difficult to grow?
Actually, that’s not the case at all. It might have to do with the fact that they don’t ripen off the tree, so it makes storing and transporting difficult. This isn’t an issue when it’s your own backyard, and all you want is a bunch to make an impressive appetizer for your dinner guests (although, in my house, they never actually make it to any guest, let alone dinner.)
The variety I chose to plant (of which I have 3), are Hardy Chicago Figs–a purple skinned variety with a beautiful, almost blushing magenta flesh that is decently sized and delicately sweet. They get their name from the fact that they are one of the most cold hardy fig varieties, surviving down to zone 5 (with some protection.) While on Long Island, they can definitely survive our winters (without help), and can die down to the roots and still come up the next year.
They are self pollinating, so you can plant one or plant many, and they don’t have to be close to each other (some say 10 feet apart or more is best so they don’t compete too much.) They start to ripen in August (so any recipe posts for them will definitely be this month or later), and prefer not to be watered too much (once a week is fine). Indeed, too much water and the fruits will not be as sweet. Their soil requirements are slightly acidic, rich in organic matter but drains well. Full sun or very light shade.
They can get big (my parents have one that reaches 15 feet tall and just as wide) so some pruning is desirable for larger fruit and keeping it in check.
***A generous tip someone gave me (and showed me!) that if near the end of the growing season, you still have unripened figs (or if you just want them to ripen quickly), dab olive oil on their “butt” ends and they will ripen and swell up within a day or two.
Recipes With Figs:
Roasted Fig With Gorgonzola And Honey
Usually, the herbs and tomatoes I grow in the garden will culminate in panzanella at least once, if not more times during the summer. This is usually after a party of some sort where I have a crusty loaf of bread sitting in the fridge …
I was never as fond of Japanese grilled eel as my sister was (my sister once had to go to the hospital when she was 3 because there were leftover bones in the unagi-don that got stuck in her throat) mainly because I couldn’t stomach …
I never had those inhibitions since my parents would use raw egg in many things such as the dip for hotpot or sukiyaki, and I LOVED it. We would slurp a raw egg yolk if my mom needed the whites for something else as well, and it’s one of my fondest memories when we lived in Taiwan. (Maybe one of the few because I contracted pneumonia from the construction in Taipei four times and had to be hospitalized.)
Neither myself nor my daughter have ever gotten sick from it and we eat it fairly regularly. The main thing being that I wash my duck eggs (which I personally like better for this than chicken eggs, but you can use both) before using.
It’s creamy, gooey, rich, and decadent, who knew something so simple could bring about so much joy?
If you’re adventurous, try it, you might find it to be the new “fast food” in your house.
Recipe:
The trick is to have hot, steamy rice, so I will zap leftover rice in the microwave–this very, very lightly cooks the egg, which creates an even more flavorful and delicious meal, especially if you like chawanmushi, which is steamed egg custard.
Optional
After the abysmal hatch rate last time, I decided to do dry incubating and dry hatching this time around. It will likely be my last hatch of the season as I had sold my white male, and my blue juvenile male is not of age …