Brussels Sprouts

Brussels sprouts are the number one underrated vegetables, with beets coming in a close second. Of course, I love them both, perhaps because they are perfect vehicles for bacon. Or that they are both nutritional powerhouses. It wouldn’t be beyond me to love them because they are both beautiful: brussel sprout plants are so fun, and beet puree – how can you not love that color??

This year, I planted 4 stalks. All survived the aphid attacks on the brassicas, though one plant’s growth was stunted because it was sowed into what became a rather shady spot. The sprouts grow just above the leaves. You can harvest the sprouts when they are just ¼ inch in diameter or you can wait until they are larger. Since the sprouts don’t uniformly grow at the same rate, its best to harvest just the ones that are the desired size. While the whole stalk makes an impressive presentation at the Farmer’s market, it’s not the most practical.

My favorite preparation is roasted with bacon and horseradish, though the olive oil roasted brussels sprouts at Toro fall into a close second. Blanch the sprouts first in salted boiling water and toss with rendered bacon. Roast the brussel sprouts with the bacon in a 450 oven until the sprouts are tender. Toss with prepared horseradish.

End of Summer Round-Up, Part 2

In a nutshell, it was a great summer! My garden yielded more produce than I could have imagined. I had enough to share with friends and neighbors, and plenty for my own meals.

This was the first full season with my new garden… it was in the middle of last summer that I dug up all the crappy Cambridge “soil” (bricks, glass, trash with a sprinkling of dirt) and replaced it, 2 feet deep, with high quality compost. The new garden also gave me twice as much growing room as before.


I’ve resigned myself that the sage will be as much as an ornamental plant as it will be for cooking. I started the summer with 5 plants which quickly took over. I moved one to the front yard and dug up a second entirely, dried the leaves and burned it throughout the house to scare away any evil demons. Even with 3 plants (picture on the right), they look as lush as when the sage sagas began (picture on the left).


The aphids had a great time chowing on the brassicas – the kohlrabi, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. Despite regular spraying (with organic pesticide, of course), I still lost a few plants. Speaking of cauliflower, I only got one head from the three plants. I enjoyed watching the flower grow out of the bouquet of leaves. But in the end, it was bitter and the yield didn’t justify the space. The kohlrabi on the other hand, did quite well. Roasted with olive oil and garlic, it was the dark horse of the summer vegetables.

I grew three varieties of tomatoes – 1 heirloom and 2 hybrids. The heirloom, on September 22nd looks as if it might give off one ripe fruit before the first frost. The hybrids on the other hand generated a few dozen. I forced myself to space the tomato plants with at least 2 feet between them – It took great self control to not crowd as many plant into the garden as possible, but in the end I was rewarded. The plants grew much larger with more fruit than in past years.

Similarly, the eggplant rewarded me by giving me lots of fruit. In past years, I’ve tried growing eggplant and have been lucky to get one spiny fruit. The zucchini on the other hand did not give me a single vegetable, though I did get lots of blossoms. The raspberry bush burst red twice – once in early June and a second time in late August.

In past years, I grew cucumbers mainly for my friend Anna who likes them so much. This year, I discovered the joys of pickling so I had very little in the raw form to share. The few that were spared the salty brine were snacks. I was surprised at how sweet they were!

The celery grew slowly throughout the summer. As needed, I would trim off a stalk to add to a recipe. I’m hoping that by mid-October I will have a celery root to harvest.

End of Summer Round-Up, Part 1

In the final hours of summer sun, I harvested 3 Italian eggplants, 2 Japanese eggplant, a large fistful of chilies (of unknown variety – my neighbor Craig gave me this plant), 8 cucumbers and 3 tomatoes. I picked a gallon of basil leaves to freeze. The celery and Brussels sprouts continue quietly growing – they will be the showcase of the autumn harvest.

Training Cucumbers

On my last visit to DC I visited Ed Bruske’s garden. I was particularly keen to meet him since we’d shared so many similar experiences at Even’ Star Farm, though not at the same time. You can read about the pig matanza… part 1 and part 2. I participated too, two years prior. One of these days, I’ll post my story too.

In any case, I was fascinated to see another urban garden. His is impressive in its size but also it’s structure. He has tomato cages that are seven feet high. I could have used those too. And my favorite was how he trained the cucumbers up a trellis. I decided to take this home with me. It worked great to clear up the ground space for my fall plantings, and it also makes it easier to see the cucumbers, and pick them when they’re ready.

Garden Updates and Confessions

Each morning, while savouring my first cup of coffee, I inspect the garden for what’s ready or near ready to harvest. It’s been an exciting week: 3 Chinese eggplants, 2 Italian eggplants, 5 cucumbers, 4 tomatoes, 3 kohlrabi and lots of herbs. I had wanted to take a photo of the bounty, but I’ve been eating everything just as quickly as I harvest. The cucumbers are surprisingly sweet. Cut in half or sticks, they make a great snack. I’ve sliced tomatoes with the intention of making a sandwich, but with a little sprinkle of salt, I can’t get them from the cutting board to a plate without “tasting” them first. Needless to say, I have yet to make a sandwich or collect enough cucumbers to make pickles.

The eggplant is too bountiful to consume on my own. On Thursday evening, my neighbors (who have since returned from vacation and reclaimed their CSA subscription) and I combined the corn from their farm share with my eggplant for a Japanese-inspired vegetable feast: Miso-Rubbed Grilled Eggplant and Chile Glazed (think Spicy Tuna Roll sauce) Corn on the Cob.

Last week, in a fit of discouragement, I started yanking up the non-zucchini producing zucchini plants to make room for my fall lettuces and broccoli raab. As I inspected the plants for squash blossoms that would be worth saving, I discovered that I had been premature: the plants had *finally* started to produce fruit. I immediately stopped, and now have two or three zucchini-ettes well on their way to become a full-grown zucchinis.

Miso-Rubbed Grilled Eggplant
(inspired by Nobu)

3 Japanese Eggplant, sliced in half lengthwise
3 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons olive or canola oil
1 cup white miso
½ cup sugar
¼ cup mirin (sweet rice wine)
¼ cup sake

1. Finely chop garlic. Toss eggplant with garlic and oil to marinate.

2. Combine remaining ingredients in a sauce pot. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until completely combined and sugar has dissolved.

3. Prepare a charcoal grill. Grill Eggplant, cut side down, for 3 minutes or until lightly charred. Flip over and brush with miso paste. Cook for 2 minutes more. If you’d like, flip again to char the miso paste onto eggplant.

4. Serve with rice, or shrimp or grilled corn.

Kohlrabi – Cultivating Creativity

On a regular basis, I browse the supermarket aisles looking for inspiration for dinner. I’m hoping the mix of unrealized cravings and fresh produce will elicit a creative flash. More often than not, my plan fails and I usually fall back on a few standby’s: Clay-pot Chicken with Chinese Sausage and Mushrooms, Fish Tacos with Chipotle Slaw or Chicken Piccata with Spicy, Garlic Broccoli (yes, I cook this way on an idle Tuesday night). If you’re like me, the produce aisle (and the fish and meat counters, too) tends to look the same after a while… and I glaze over the unfamiliar or uninteresting like kohlrabi or jicama.

I only recently tried kohlrabi for the first time… at a Yoga Retreat in Costa Rica. I waxed on about its virtues here, so I won’t repeat myself now. I decided to grow some in my garden this year. Because Kohlrabi is so little known, though, it’s hard to find a recipe for it. And with my kohlrabi finally ready for harvest, my research has reached fever pitch. My two vegetarian cookbooks, Greens and Vegetarian Planet, have nary a reference. The old standby: Time-Life Cookbooks had a few.

I like to think of myself as a creative chef, but it’s hard to come up with ideas without a frame of reference. For example, I know tomatoes and basil work well, so I can season a ricotta filling for squash blossoms or cannolonis with basil and serve with a tomato ragout, toss pasta with fresh tomatoes and pesto, or serve beef with a tomato sauce dotted with basil. You get the idea: the same two ingredients in various configurations. This summer, I’ve eaten kohlrabi twice in restaurants: at Oleana in a cucumber slaw served with fried oysters and at No. 9 Park, pureed and served with beef and chanterelles. Though the texture is different than zucchini (with no seeds in the middle) the flavor profiles seem to marry well as they are paired together in many recipes, or kohlrabi is used in a recipe where I might expect zucchini:

- Zucchini – Kohlrabi Gratin
- Kohlrabi Apple Slaw
- Kohlrabi and Carrots
- Kohlrabi Squash Empanadas
- Kohlrabi stuffed with Dill and Sour Cream

Bear with me in this train of thought…. Kohlrabi and zucchini seem to substitute well for each other… my stuffing recipe for stuffed zucchini also works well as moussaka filling… kohlrabi works well in gratin…. So I’ve come up with these ideas:

- Kohlrabi Moussaka
- Parmesan Breaded Kohlrabi with Tomato Sauce (think: eggplant parmesan, or zucchini fries)
- Roasted Kohlrabi tossed with Mint and Bacon (a side dish for trout, char or halibut)

Garden Updates - Mid Summer

My summer crops have just come into full swing and I’m thinking about the fall plantings. I’ve made the same mistakes in years past – planting the lettuces and cooking greens after Labor Day. I’ve barely made a salad before the first snow comes and ends my growing season. This year will be different!

Gardeners and farmers must think about the next season in the middle of the current. Most plants have at least a 60 day cycle from seed to harvest. While farmers have the luxury of acres of land (and therefore, can appropriately rotate crops through different fields), urban gardeners must carefully plan for the entire year, not just each season, in order to maximize the space. Before the spring crops bolt, the summer crops have gone in the ground. And when the summer crops are in full force, fall seeds are planted.

So my first challenge is to determine where to plant. The spring crops were very tidy. I planted a row of lettuce, and they pretty much confined themselves within a few inches on either side of the row – leaving ample room for the coveted summer vegetables. And let’s be honest, when it comes time to plant the summer tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers and squashes, I get a bit zealous, planting as much as my yard can manage. I’m always surprised by how much they grow, and the boscage leaves little room for the fall crops.

Suffice it to say, I need to clear away something to make room for the lettuces. First out: the zucchini. I sowed about 20 seeds, hoping to get a few zucchini. So far, I’ve had nothing… though plenty of squash blossoms. And I’ve had my fill out squash blossoms. Next out: kohlrabi. I had planted 20 of those, too. As hard as I tried, spraying organic pesticide once a week, the aphids decimated at least half the plants. Of the remaining, only two plants showed promise of reaching maturity. The “mid-season” peas came out, too… the first batch were stringy, so it seems silly to take up precious space for a vegetable that will likely end up in the compost bin.

What's been spared: The tomatoes and eggplant continue to proliferate. And the Brussels sprouts, happily growing in the back corner, won’t be ready until Thanksgiving. The cucumber sprawl produced its first 3 this week, and I expect many more in the coming weeks. I will likely have enough to make pickles - an exciting prospect! And the chilies inconspicuously grow in the front.

On the docket for fall: arugula, mizuna, tatsoi and broccoli raab.

When Life Gives You Lemons… OR squash blossoms.

… Make Tempura!

I know that the zucchini plants yield about 1 fruit for every 8 flowers, or so. Given those odds, I planted about 20 plants hoping to optimize my potential for zucchini. So far, no luck, but I have plenty of blossoms.

The blooms need to be picked at about 5pm the day before they bloom. This will yield the largest flower – the better for stuffing. The flowers open up first thing in the morning, and close after about 2 hours. Once they’ve opened, they rot pretty quickly. But if you catch them before they open, they will last about 3 days in the refrigerator.

Given that, I started harvesting 3 days out for a dinner party on Tuesday. I yielded about 18 blooms, enough for a generous appetizer.

Stuffed-Fried Squash Blossoms with Roasted Tomatoes

18 squash blossoms, stamen removed
¾ cup fresh ricotta cheese
¼ cup fresh grated parmesan cheese
1 tbs. fresh basil
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

½ carrot, peeled and diced
½ celery stalk, diced
½ onion, diced
1 tbs. butter
2 cups chopped tomatoes
½ cup white wine
½ cup parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

½ cup flour
½ cup corn starch
1 tsp. salt
1 egg
½ cup ice cold soda water

1 cup plain oil

Mix ricotta, parmesan and basil together. Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice. Gently stuff each squash blossom with about 1 tbs. of filling.

Meanwhile, sauté carrots, onions and celery in butter. After 5 minutes, add wine and tomatoes. Simmer until carrots are tender, about 20 minutes. Puree with parmesan. Season with salt and pepper.

Make the tempura batter: Mix together the flour, corn starch and salt. Add the egg and soda water. Whisk just to combine.

Heat a large skillet with oil over medium heat. Dip each squash blossom in the batter and add to the pan. Cook until lightly golden on both sides, about 4 minutes. Drain on a paper towel and serve immediately with sauce.

Update: Growing Ginger

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how to store ginger: in the garden where it keeps growing. When you need it for a recipe, you can dig it up, break off a piece and then rebury it. I don’t remember where I learned this, though probably from my friend Brett. I’ve never been methodical about the process and it’s always worked. Another blogger has written out more specific instructions, as well as tips for growing it in pots. Thanks, Lydia, for pointing this out!

Garden to Table: Raspberries

The raspberries are starting to kick into high gear. I’m yet not harvesting enough in any given two day period – which is as long as I can keep them before I start snacking on them -- to make a pie or other berry-laden dessert. I do have enough to significantly embellish muffins or pancakes, which is what I did this morning.

Raspberries grow on thorny sprays of branches. Ripe ones hide under the foliage. To make sure I find all the ripe ones before they mold or rot, I have to inspect the plant from many angles: pushing away branches, lifting leaves and getting behind the plant. With careful inspection, I filled a 6 ounce ramekin with berries in 5 minutes.

I only wash the berries just before using them; otherwise the rotting process is hastened.

My favorite pancake recipe comes from The Joy of Cooking.

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
3 tbs. sugar
1 tbs. baking powder
1 ½ cup milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 tbs. melted butter
Butter for cooking as needed.

1. Sift dry ingredients together into a bowl and make a well in the center.

2. Mix wet ingredients. Pour into well of dry ingredients. Mix until just incorporated.

3. Heat pan over medium heat. Add butter. Ladle in about 2 oz. of batter per pancake. Cook for about 3 minutes. Flip, continue cooking. Serve immediately, or keep warm in a 200 oven until ready to serve.

For the raspberry pancakes, I dot each spoon of batter with berries.

When I’ve finished making all the pancakes, I add the remaining berries to the pan along with some maple syrup.

I pour the berry-syrup over the pancakes just before serving.

Garden to Table: 30 minutes

Digging for Gold

I love experimenting with Asian cuisine, especially Chinese recipes. I try to keep my pantry stocked with all sorts of spices and condiments so that when the mood strikes, I’m prepared to follow any direction. Friends have often commented that my refrigerator looks like it belongs to a Chinese grandmother and not a Jewish thirty-something. In the summer, my “pantry” is further supplied by growing scallions, cilantro and ginger in my garden. Yes, ginger.

We’ve all experienced this… we go to the market and buy a knob of ginger knowing that we only need an inch of it for any given recipe. The rest gets buried in the bottom of the vegetable crisper. And while it’s not so much waste that we should feel guilty, we still hope to use it up before it turns shriveled and mold. Some have suggested freezing ginger, but this sufficiently alters the composition that when eventually cooking with it, the aromas are a little more difficult to coax out.

During the summer, the best storage method is in the ground. I take a regular, ole supermarket hand of ginger and bury it in the garden. Invariably, I forget the exact location. The next time a recipe calls for ginger, I forage in the dirt until I find it. Fortunately, after a few weeks, the ginger as it continues to grow, shoots out sprouts to announce its location. After I break off what I need, I re-bury it in the ground again. This resilient rhizome continues to grow despite the multiple disruptions.

You can see the sprouts are attached to young ginger. The skin is thinner than "older" ginger, the flavor is more mild and the ginger itself is less fiberous.

A note of caution: One winter, I experimented with growing ginger in a pot indoors, and leaving a hand outside, buried. The ginger inside turned mushy, fiberous and hollow: a disaster. The wintered-over ginger was equally disastrous. If you've had success growing ginger in the winter in a snowy climate, I'd love to hear about it.

For more insight on fresh ginger, visit Lydia's blogs: The Perfect Pantry and Nine Cooks.

Thanks, Lydia, for taking great photos!

Peanut Dipping Sauce

This is great for an Asian style crudités or Chicken Satay.

5 tbs. fresh ginger, chopped
3 tbs. lemon grass, chopped
3 tbs. garlic, chopped
3 tbs. shallots, chopped
1 tbs peanut oil
chicken stock
10 oz. raw peanuts, toasted
1 tbs. mirin
½ lime, juiced
2 tbs. rice wine vinegar
3 tbs. soy sauce
2 tbs fresh cilantro chopped

1. Sweat 3 tbs. of ginger with lemon grass, garlic and shallots in peanut oil

2. Puree above in a food processor with peanuts, remaining ginger, and chicken stock to thin.

3. Season with lime juice, rice vinegar, mirin and soy sauce. Adjust seasoning to taste.

4. Stir in fresh cilantro

Recipes for the Impatient Gardener

I’ve always known my garden is a few weeks behind everyone else. As I spy the neighbors’ yards in early spring when the crocuses start to burst, mine are still under a mound of snow. And when I go to the farmers markets, they already have mounds of zucchini, while I only have flowers. Their kohlrabi is just winding down, and mine still has a few weeks to go before harvest. Nonetheless, I’m eager to push the garden along.

Two weeks ago, I reported that the tomatoes had flowered, but not produced fruit. A little on-line research yielded a useful tip… Cut the leaves below the first flower. This enables to the plant to focus its energies on producing fruit as opposed to maintaining the foliage. Sure enough, two days later the first bump of a tomato emerged. Now all tomato plants show fruit, though still several weeks away from ripeness.

At dinner Thursday night at Garden at the Cellar, we munched on Fried Green Tomatoes with Smoked Paprika Aioli. One friend opined that the origins of this dish come from resourceful gardeners using up end-of-the-season tomatoes before the first frost hit. Knowing the tomatoes wouldn’t have a chance to ripen, they picked and fried them. To offer this dish seasonally, it should only appear on menus in the fall. I would counter that fried green tomatoes are also a great option for the impatient gardener looking to cook something before the crops are truly ripe. Should you go this route, be sure to pick the tomatoes when the green has a “matte” finish. Once they become shiny, they’ve reached a different level of maturity and will get mushy when cooked.

Zucchini is the ideal crop for the impatient gardener. The plant produces flowers at a prolific rate. Most flowers are male and will not produce a vegetable, so there’s no harm in harvesting them. If the flower is attached to a thick stem, likely it will produce a squash. For me, I’m happy to just eat the flowers. I know in a few weeks, I’ll be up to my eyeballs in squash and peddling them the way I did sage.

Fried Green Tomatoes with a Squash Blossom Relish.
3 green tomatoes
½ cup buttermilk
1/2 cup fine corn meal
½ cup flour
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. pepper
Pinch cayenne
2 slices bacon
2 garlic cloves
1 tsp. capers
12 squash blossoms, stamen removed
2 tbs. canola oil

Slice tomatoes about ¼ inch thick. Soak in buttermilk. Season cornmeal with salt, pepper and cayenne.

Dice bacon, and cook in a skillet until the bacon starts to render fat, and the bacon just starts to look crispy. Add garlic and cook for until the garlic is lightly golden. Pour off any excess bacon fat and set aside. Add capers and squash blossoms and set aside.

In a large skillet, heat oil with leftover bacon fat. Dust tomatoes slices in the cornmeal dredge. Add to oil, and cook on the first side until golden brown, about 5 minutes on medium high heat. Flip and cook for 3 minutes more.

Drain tomato slices on a paper towel and serve with chutney.

Cooking from the Larder and Garden

Perhaps it’s a combination of rising food prices, my concern about the impact of wasted food on the environment (both up and down stream) or my general laziness to do anything in the heat of summer. In the past 24 hours I needed to cook 2 meals – dinner for myself and breakfast with a friend – and I decided to cook with what I have in the house.

What I have in the house is limited. Further complicating matter is that I like to have vegetables at every meal, but I don’t typically keep them on hand. My schedule is varied enough that I only buy things that will keep for at least a week or two. Fresh vegetables, which decline rapidly, I buy on an “as-needed” basis. The garden is still in the early summer lull – the spring crops are over, the summer crops haven’t yet ripened.

I piecemeal together the vegetables:

• Canned tomatoes from last years’ crop. Organic, truly vine-ripened. And since they’re really “jarred” they don’t have that tinny taste like commercially processed tomatoes. The yellow tomatoes won’t give a vibrant color to a meal, but they are exceedingly delicious.
• A few squash blossoms. As I just learned, zucchinis give off male and female flowers. The female flowers produce the vegetable, the males… well, the males don’t do much. J. The ratio of female to male is typically 1:5. Given that, I have no compunction about snagging all the blossoms that don’t have fruit behind them. That’s about a dozen over the course of two days.
• The celery is not yet fully sized, but I could probably lop off a stalk or two without harming the rest.
• The snow pea plant will be dug up in a few days, so I can snip off what’s left of the tender leaves and the last few peas.

The larder is pretty well stocked: eggs, milk, pastry crust, bacon, cheese, bread, black beans. And I have some left-over grilled vegetables – ¼ of a zucchini (from the farmers market) and ¼ of a bell pepper.

For the first meal, my dinner, the solution is obvious and easy: I pureed the canned tomatoes, warmed them and served it as soup with a grilled cheese sandwich. I garnished with some squash blossoms and fresh basil.

For the breakfast, quiche seemed like a great option because I have crusts in the freezer (left over from the strawberry-rhubarb pies. I could make a variation on an Alsatian Quiche with onions, bacon and cheddar (instead of gruyere). Instead, I opt for “summer vegetable.” I like that I can use up some leftover grilled vegetables, another can of tomatoes (I have about 8 pints left from last summer that I need to use before this year’s canning adventure begins) and the basil and scallions from the garden. The onions and bacon will keep for another meal.

Summer Vegetable Quiche

Pie Crust
1 ½ cups milk or half-n-half
½ cup pureed tomatoes
3 eggs
1 cup left-over summer vegetables: zucchini, red peppers, snap peas, celery etc.
½ cup cheddar cheese grated
Fresh basil, chopped
Fresh scallions, chopped
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

1. Combine milk and tomato puree in a sauce pot. Heat over medium flame until small bubble form on the edges.
2. While milk is heating, whisk eggs. Slowly drizzle milk into egg mixture until combine. Season with salt and pepper
3. Line pie pan with pie dough. Sprinkle vegetables, cheese and herbs on top. Pour egg mixture over the vegetables until the pie shell is full
4. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until quiche is set.

Farmers Market - Part 1: Zucchini and Squash Blooms

Zucchini and other summer squashes proliferate in the garden at an astonishing rate. This plays out in the supermarket when the price plummets from $2/pound to $.49/pound during peak season. Grocers practically give it away, and home gardeners usually do.

For me, this is good news since most markets (farmers’ or traditional brick and mortar) don’t sell squash blossoms – the flower that precedes the vegetable. And with their prolific growth rate, I may actually get enough flowers to serve a meal to more than one guest. The few times I’ve seen them in the markets they can cost $1/each.

I’ve seen squash blossoms in Native American, Mexican and Italian Cuisines. This suggests to me that they are not a faddish new vegetable… they have been enjoyed for centuries. In Oaxaca, Mexico, Squash blossoms are a frequent filling for Quesadillas or a garnish for tortilla soup.

Harvesting squash blossoms requires careful timing. You want them before they bloom, though sometimes it’s tough to distinguish between a bloom that opened and closed, and one that has yet to open. You can see here that the tip of the flower on the left is slightly curled. This is a sure sign that the flower already opened. Once you harvest the squash blossom, gingerly pull open a petal and snip out the stamen – which can be especially bitter and ruin a perfectly good meal. I had tried to take a picture for you – when the blossom was fully open, stamen poking out, but in the 10 minutes it took me to run inside and grab my camera, the flower had already started to close up. Sometimes, the bloom grows out of the zucchini, and sometimes it just grows out of the stem. If can get it off the vegetable, then you are in for a treat.

In the Italian style, squash blossoms are stuffed with mozzarella and prosciutto. They can be battered and fried and served with a light tomato sauce. In the Mexican style, I stuff them with black beans, goat cheese and mint. I spice the batter with a little cumin and chili and serve them with a tomato salsa.

In the farmers market this week, globe zucchini flank the tables. Their bulbous shape makes them ideal for stuffing. My favorite is a traditional Eastern European flavored beef filling – mixed with rice, onions and tomatoes, seasoned with cinnamon, lemon zest, pine nuts and raisins.

Fried Squash Blossoms with Tomato Salsa

20 squash blossoms, stamen gently removed
¼ lb. goat cheese
½ cup cooked black beans, seasoned with dried cumin and oregano
1 tbs. fresh mint, chopped
1 cup flour
1 egg
1/2 tsp. baking powder
salt, pepper and cumin to taste
oil for frying

1. Mix the filling by combining cheese, black beans and mint. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

2. Gingerly stuff each squash blossom with about 1 tablespoon of filling.

3. Make a batter by combining flour, baking powder, salt and cumin. Make a well and add egg and 1 cup water. Whisk to combine.

4. Heat a large pot with oil. Gently dip each blossom in batter and fry in oil until golden brown on all sides. Serve with salsa.

Salsa
2 tomatoes, diced
1 red pepper, diced
¼ red onion, diced
2-3 tbs. cilantro, diced
1 jalapeno or chipotle, diced
1 lime, juiced
2 scallions, cut into rounds
salt and pepper to taste

1. Mix everything together.

Stuffed Zucchini
2 globe zucchinis
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ onion diced
2 garlic cloves chopped
1 pound ground beef
2 tomatoes, diced
¼ cup red wine
2 tablespoons raisins
1 tablespoon pine nuts
1 cup cooked rice
Zest of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon fresh mint, chopped
Pinch cayenne
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Cut Zucchinis in half, through the stem. Scoop out the seeds and place in a roasting pan, cut side up.
2. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add oil. Add onions and garlic and cook until soft and aromatic, about 5 minutes. Add beef, breaking it up with a wooden spoon. Season generously with salt and pepper. Let cook, without stirring for 10 minutes, or until meat starts to brown on the bottom.
3. Add tomatoes, red wine, pine nuts and raisins and continue cooking until most of the liquid is absorb. Remove from heat. Stir in rice, cinnamon, cayenne, lemon zest and mint. Adjust seasoning with salt pepper and lemon juice
4. Fill each zucchini with ¼ of the filling mix. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes, or until zucchini is tender.

Garden Updates - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I left for a week’s vacation a little apprehensive about my garden…. Would it rain enough? Had I controlled the bugs, will vegetables actually emerge from these leafy masses?

First, the good news… it rained. The soil was pleasantly moist. More excitingly, the first burst of bright color has emerged… several raspberries are deep red – ready to be plucked. Though not yet enough to make anything of substance, I could garnish a few cocktails if I managed to not eat them before guests arrived.

The cauliflower sprouted its first floret. The basil that was sickly two weeks ago (on the right) has recovered nicely (same plant on the left), and the Brussels sprout plant that nearly withered from aphids has recovered too.

The bad news…. Tomato plants that flowered two weeks ago have yet to produce fruit. Instead of a little bump of a tomato pushing the flower off, the flowers instead fell off without any fruit behind it. With my favorite resource (Brett) on vacation, I am left to wonder the reason. Is it not hot enough yet? Do the plants need more nutrition (in the form of compost or organic fertilizer)? Was it too wet? Dear reader, do you know the answer?

The ugly…. With so much rain and too little attention, the weeds have thrived this past week. A solid hour or two will be necessary to clean up the beds – not just for the aesthetics. If there’s a dry spell, I don’t want the vegetables competing with the weeds for water and nutrients.

With only a few raspberries, but plenty of mint, a raspberry-mint mojito seems like the perfect diversion.

Raspberry - Mint Mojito

yields 1 cocktail

4 tsp. sugar
1 ½ oz. rum
5 mint leaves
½ lime, juiced
Crushed ice
soda water or 7-up to taste
Raspberries and mint to garnish

Muddle sugar and mint with ice until sugar dissolves. Stir in rum, soda and lime to taste. Garnish with raspberries and mint sprigs.

Organic Vs. Conventional... The Debate Rages On?

Cost aside, most people would choose organic over conventional. The pesticides and chemical fertilizers may produce flawless looking produce, but I’ll take my bug-holed arugula over conventional because I know the flavor will be better and more importantly, I won’t be ingesting chemicals whose long-term effects I still don’t know.

The debate hit home this week, when I inspected my three cauliflower plants and noticed that one was decimated, and those little bug holes in the other two didn’t seem so quaint anymore.

The question of “organic or conventional” is rather simplistic. So many factors go into the equation including the rising cost of organics (and food in general), the tedium of achieving “organic status” and where the food was grown. Given the choice of a local, conventional tomato versus an organic tomato shipped in from California, I’ll take local! The added benefit is that I can talk with the farmer about his growing practices. He may not, for example, have the organic certification, but he works the land sustainably. My (organic farmer) friend Brett recounted to me the hoops he had to jump through to maintain his organic status after the laws recently changed. He admitted that he would rather forgo the certification than deal with the bureaucrats. As he states it, his practices won’t change and his customers are loyal and don’t need a seal to prove it.

On a personal note, I had to decide how to deal with my aphid problem. I rationalized that I’d rather have non-organic cauliflower than no cauliflower at all! When I went to Weston Nurseries I found several organic pesticides. The oily spray coats bugs’ wings and prevents them from flying. It also works on bees. I thought this would be a good thing since I’m allergic to bees. No, I was scolded. We need bees to pollinate flowers and plants and maintain an important balance in our gardens. Besides, bees don’t sting… it’s the wasps that do. Therefore, I can only spray after 5pm when the bees have gone to their hives for the night.

Garden Updates and Micro Climates

With the record temperatures of this past weekend, I eagerly inspected the garden for transformations from a spring garden to a summer garden.

The arugula and mizuna decidedly prefer cooler weather. In this heat, they feverishly bolt and go to seed. Unlike basil, in which you can trim the flowers to prevent this process, lettuces develop thick stalks that are impossible to retract. At the top of the stalks are the buds and flowers that are the precursor to the seeds. Leaves continue to grow, but they become bitter as the season continues. I decided to harvest as much lettuce as possible – the lettuce at this stage will keep longer and better in my refrigerator than in the ground.

In the off-chance that I have a few more salads to come from these plants, I harvest in the “cut-and-come-again” method. That is, I cut the leaves just above the smallest leafette – about 2 inches above the soil line. The smallest leaves are spared and given the chance to mature.

The first of the tomato plants started to flower last week. I’m guessing that I have to wait another 4 weeks until the first fruit is ripe.

The biggest curiosity of the garden is the basil. Four weeks ago, I purchased a six-pack of basil plants. Since the garden has various degrees of sun and shade, I decided to hedge my bets and plant in different locations. Some plants get more morning sun, others afternoon sun.

Here are two of the plants:

I had heard rumors that morning sun is better than afternoon sun. But intuition told me that afternoon sun would be better for “full-sun” plants like tomatoes and basil because the light is more intense. Given the huge disparity in these two plants, I decided to do a little research.

In the pro-morning sun column: The morning sun is better as it evaporates the morning dew and prevents leaf rot. Afternoon sun can be too intense and burn the plants. In the pro-afternoon sun column: plants that like full sun do better with the intensity of afternoon sun. The best sun is between 11am and 2pm.

More important, I discovered, are the micro-climates. Believe it or not, in my little swatch of land in Central Cambridge, there are at least 10 micro-climates. The variations and sun and temperature come from the obvious: shade providing trees and structures such as houses and fences, and the position in the garden. The bit of garden on the side of the house where the lettuces grow have 4 regions. As witnessed by the vigor of the plants, the center path gets the most sun. On the right side, closest to my house, gets slightly less sun. On the left side, closest to my neighbors gets the least. The front portion gets more than the back.

Less obvious are the reflections from windows. My neighbor behind me has windows that act like mirror to the sun onto my garden. Especially the morning sun hits at just an angle that the plants along the back fence get double duty – direct natural sunlight and the reflection from the windows. The plants in the “afternoon sun” section only get a single dose.

Determining the micro-climates of your garden is a matter of trial and error. You can observe the sun’s patterns across your yard. Another option is to plant and see what happens. Based on what thrives and dies, you can figure out what works best where.

In case you didn’t figure it out, the sickly looking basil was in the afternoon sun section, and the thriving basil was in the morning sun section. Over the weekend I moved the smaller plants to what I hope to be a better location in the morning sun section.

Balsamic Vinaigrette

All this salad is great to ensure that I get my 5 recommend daily servings of fruits and vegetables. But salad dressing quickly cancels out the benefit with all the fat and calories. Here’s a reduced fat version of the classic balsamic vinaigrette (unlike bottled dressings, this is all natural).

2 shallots
½ cup olive oil
1 tbs. fresh thyme
½ cup balsamic vinegar
½ tsp. sugar
¼ tsp. pepper

1. Peel shallots. Mix with ¼ cup olive oil and wrap in tin foil. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until soft, and nicely roasted

2. In a blender, puree shallots, thyme and vinegar together. If it’s too thick, add a few tablespoons of water. Slowly drizzle in remaining olive oil. Season taste with salt and pepper.

Garden Updates and Sage Sagas

Glorious, hot sun followed by torrential downpours. Welcome to Spring in New England. As I peered out the window yesterday afternoon, streams of rainwater rushed across the fledgling zucchini plants. I wondered if they would be washed away…

Much to my delight, this morning the garden is doing well. The Brandywine tomatoes have already started to flower. This provides great relief since I tempted the weather gods by planting tomatoes in late April, even though New England can have frost as late as Memorial Day. And the brussel sprouts, though nowhere near sprouting, have big full leaves: another good sign. The zucchini plants still seem rooted in their original location

The arugula was in full force last week. I’ve been cutting salads every night, dressed simply with lemon juice and olive oil, or with a few drops of reduced balsamic vinegar. Arugula does not like the heat, though. And at the first sign of summer, like we had on Sunday, the plants start to bolt. The stalks shoot up ready to flower and then go to seed. Try as I might to cut them back and stave off the process, the plants grow leggier every day. The downside is that the plants produce less leaves, the upside is that the salad gets spicier with each warm day. Photo of bolting arugula comes courtesy of Ed Bruske. If you visit his blog and read about a pig matanza and a turkey matanza... these are at my friend Brett's farm (aka Tales from the Farm). Though I was not with Ed during these adventures, I have had the same adventures on the same farm.

The sage continues to proliferate. Even after several whacks – an indulgent meal of pasta with sage brown-butter, several gifts to friends, I still have *gasp* too much. It seems that if I don’t consume it, I befall the same fate as all the other wasted food. Perhaps not as drastic, it seems if I grow it, I should eat it. Or let someone else eat it.

One solution: deep fry the leaves in plain oil until just translucent. After they drain on a paper towel, I season them with salt. The leaves seem thinner and melt in my mouth. They’re addictive like potato chips… light and crispy and salty.

A little on-line research revealed that sage has many medicinal qualities, including: reduces bad breath, reduces perspiration, reduces the symptoms of menopause and premenstrual cramps, increases brain concentration, and reduces blood sugar in people with diabetes. Be cautioned, if you are pregnant, you should not consume this wonder herb in great quantity.

And, of course, burning sage leaves can cleanse a home of negative energy.

Confessions of an Urban Gardener

I have a confession: I plant seeds and seedlings too densely in my garden.

I could have kept this secret, but in light of my overgrown sage, I had to come clean. I was wondering why Lydia’s two plants behaved so differently—one spindly and thin, the other full and robust. The truth is, I know why my sage is so hearty this year and hadn’t been in years past – each plant had plenty of spreading room.

This does not come easily to me. Each year, I plant lettuce from seed. Maybe it’s just the minuscule size of the seeds and my clumsy hands or my distrust that such a small seed will produce a full head of lettuce. Either way, the little sprouts are so tightly packed now that even the Square Foot Gardner would shake his head. Similarly, the tomato plants get about 8 inches… they’re just so small when the go in the ground, I can’t seem to visualize how big they’ll become.

Then comes harvest time… and I look at the size of everyone else’s tomatoes, or my friend Brett’s lettuce (who’s using the same seed as me). I’ll admit I have size envy.

This year, I’m fighting every urge to crowd. I’ve already screwed up. On close inspection of my lettuce bed, about 5 sprouts crowd each millimeter hole. Crouched on my hands and knees, armed with office scissors, I first cut back about 50% of the sprouts. I didn’t pull them out as I would have disrupted the roots of the remaining plants. A week later, I went back, cutting out everything except 1 plant every 1/2” – 1”. From the second trimming, I yielded a gallon of baby arugula. Miraculously, the arugula is still growing strong, and I’ve managed to have a salad every day this week. Phew, I think it’s going to be okay.

My other vegetable bed is huge by urban standards, about 15’ by 4’. Nonetheless, I only planted for 5 tomatoes, giving 2 feet between each plant. This left me room so that I could also plant celery, eggplant, cauliflower and brussel sprouts, each with appropriate spacing.

Composting - Cambridge Style

Many farmers as well as home gardeners compost. This process converts food scraps and organic “matter” (leaves, weeds, etc) into soil. Oxygen, worms and heat decompose all this from recognizable things to soil in a matter months. The soil is rich in nutrients and fortifies a garden depleted by growing plants. Ah, what a cycle – We take what the earth gives us, return it back when we’re done and then we get back. Now, more than ever, we think about reducing our carbon footprint, and what better way than to compost. Instead of filling land-fills with our trash (and which rots and creates methane gas), we convert it to nutritious soil so that we can continue growing without artificial garden enhancers. And as an added bonus, it’s cheaper to compost ($95/ton) than hauling trash ($97/ton).

Cambridge has just launched a pilot composting program. While it’s not as evolved as San Francisco, it’s definitely a start. I picked up my composting bin at the DPW, which thankfully is just 1 block from my house. Unlike San Francisco, where the compost is picked up with the trash and recycling, I must drop off my composting at the DPW during open hours.

When I returned home, I promptly filled up the green 2-gallon bin with left-overs in my fridge that had been, em, er… aging. This is going to be a challenge. Less than an hour into the program, I’m already back at the DPW to unload. The obvious downside of this program is that I don’t want to run over to the drop-off center once a day.

I can also get a composting bin from the city. It's not particularly attractive and, unlike the bins available at Urban Gardener, the city-subsidized bins require heavy mixing. It’s a pretty basic contraption. The compost goes in the top, and drawers pull out of the bottom to get at the good soil. On the plus side, it's 1/3 the price of the "Tumbler" and require much less space. Two neighbors have used these... one still composts afer several seasons... the other gave up.

Given how quickly I accumulate compostables, I think I will try my own bin. Stay tuned…