Garden Delights - Don't that Beet all!

Business life has been intense lately, mostly because of unexpected computer death, unexpected new computer glitches and all the accompanying headaches. Truly a love/hate relationship. So, to detox from this desk bound electronic entanglement, I wander out to work in the garden.

Our endless late cold and rainy weather finally ended in June, and we were able to get the rest of the garden planted. Greens &  root crops were planted earlier in the raised beds we were able to put up on Mother's Day. As a result, while our first summer squash are just coming on, we have been rich with lettuce, chard, and beets for some time (also radishes, other greens, onions, etc...). We love salads, greens, and sweet, colorful beets. Brilliant gems of the garden, beets are incredibly nutritious. Not only are the roots full of vitamins and minerals, but the greens are rich in nutrients as well. Did we mention they are delicious?

So it was no surprise when my sister e mailed us a link to a New York Times article touting beets as a superfood with a plethora of wonderful recipes.

Well, I can always use more recipes, especially now when the dinner menu question is: "What would you like with your Beets?" (earlier it was Asparagus, then Artichokes.. whatever needs eaten before it gets past it's prime). On top of that, I am always looking for recipes that are compatible with cooking in our solar oven (see earlier post: Sun Worship - of the Culinary Kind ).
We easily roast beet roots in the Solar Oven. Wash the beets and cut the leaves off, leaving about 1" of stem. Place in lidded casserole, add about 1/2 cup of water, cover, and cook in solar oven until tender when pierced with a fork. The time varies depending on the size of the beets, but all should be done in an hour. When done, remove from the oven and allow to cool in the covered baking dish. At this point the ends and skins should slip right off.
Roasted beets are wonderful sliced plain or in a salad, dressed with a vinegarette. They are fabulous heated and served with a dollop of sour cream. They're the basis for borscht, a more wintery favorite around here. They will keep several days in a covered bowl in the refrigerator until you are ready to use them.

But back to the NY Times article. There was one idea I had never had that looked like a Solar Oven winner. I am sure the original recipe is marvelous, the one I modified and made, substituting what I had on hand, sure was:

Beet & Beet Green Gratin Variation

6 to 8 beets with greens 
Salt to taste
3 eggs
3/4 cup skim milk
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup sliced green onions
1/2 cup grated Swiss or other cheese
dash Cayenne pepper
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1. Roast the beets as noted above. Cool, slip off the skins and slice.
2. Wash and sort the beet greens, discard the stems and chop the leaves coarsely.
3. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a medium skillet, and add the garlic. Cook for about 30 seconds, stirring, until fragrant. Stir in the greens. Stir together for a minute, season the greens with salt, cayenne and black pepper, cover with a lid and turn off the heat. The greens will wilt as they steam slightly.
4. Preheat the Solar Oven (regular oven to 375 degrees). Oil a 2-quart lidded baking dish with olive oil. Beat together eggs, salt (about 1/2 teaspoon), pepper, milk, green onions and cheese. Gently stir in the greens and beets. Scrape into the gratin dish. Bake until puffy and lightly browned on the top (35 to 40 minutes in conventional oven). Allow to sit for 10 to 15 minutes before serving. Serve hot, warm or room temperature.
This should serve six.
Enjoy!

Sun Worship - of the Culinary Kind

Patience... must have patience. It is April 16 and it's cloudy again after only 1 day of sun (yesterday) in what seems like forever! It snowed on Easter and several times since, when it wasn't raining instead. I appreciate the good this is doing for the water table, but I WANT SUN!

I shouldn't complain too much. Despite a full work day, we took full advantage of the sunny day we were given, and I hear there is hope for the near future.
I had been hoarding large laundry items such as towels and the dog blanket for the car, and we were able to get these washed and dried outside on the line. In wet weather we have a retractable clothesline and a wooden drying rack upstairs that works great for most stuff.

We also got the solar oven set up and managed to get the two most common (for us) solar dishes cooked before the sky became covered with the high clouds of today's dreariness. First was rice.
By far the easiest way to get perfect brown rice is to bake it, and the solar oven is perfect. We try to use covered glass casseroles for most of our solar cooking, and this is no exception. In a 2 1/2 Qt. casserole place 2 cups of rice and 4 cups of water. Cover and place in preheated solar oven and cook until all the water has disappeared. Voila` Perfect rice! See the wonderful Spanish Rice recipe from Morning Hill Cookbook on an earlier blog post (in the comments section).

Once the rice was done, we immediately replaced it with Banana Cake. Our family has never been big fans of banana bread (which would also bake fabulously in the solar oven), we prefer a cake to use up those bananas that have gotten softer than we like to eat fresh. We bake it in an 8" square pan and serve it without frosting, although you could fancy it up that way if you like.

Simmonsville Solar Banana Cake:
Mix together and set aside:
2 1/2 cups flour (we use whole wheat)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

In mixing bowl,
cream 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
Add 1-1/2 cups brown sugar (you can use 3/4 cup honey instead) and beat until light.
Beat in 2 eggs, one at a time
Stir in 1/2 tsp cinnamon
(Optional - add 1/4 tsp cardamom)

In a 2 cup measure mash 1 cup bananas (3 bananas is perfect)
Add 1 tsp vanilla and 1/4 cup yogurt or buttermilk

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in about 3 parts, alternating with the banana mixture, blending until smooth after each addition.
Stir in:
1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans) and/or dried cranberries, dried blueberries or whatever inspires you!
Bake in greasecd 8x8 inch or 9x13 inch pan (thinner, but just as good) in preheated solar oven until done . It will be brown on top and, when tested with a toothpick or broomstraw - should come out dry.
In conventional oven, bake at 350 degrees for about 1/2 hour.

Enjoy!
P.S. I am happy to finally get to post this on a SUNNY day 9 days later...

I'm All Mixed Up...

...With herbs and spices that is!

We are cooking a pot roast in the solar oven today and when I reached for my seasoning blend (Meat Treat) I found the jar almost empty. Time to make more of this and my other blends as well.

I find myself a rather lazy cook. I want to have my herbs and spices pre-blended so I don't have to formulate them for every meal. Over time I have learned of or invented herb and/or spice blends for everything from steak to tofu, Mexican to Chinese. For us the process begins in the garden.

Here are 3 blends of herbs we grow, dry, and combine to brighten our meals:

MEAT TREAT:
Rosemary - Easy to grow perennial in the ground or a pot. Impervious to bugs or deer.
Sweet Basil - Hot weather annual, easy to grow, pick repeatedly to keep from flowering and it will grow back.
Thyme - The regular sort, varigated or plain, perennial with tiny leaves. Harvest before it flowers.
Bay Leaves - Mediterranean Bay (the kind you get in stores) is milder. If you use the west coast native Bay Laurel, use it sparingly. We have a Mediterranean Bay tree in a large pot!
Garlic - OK, we buy garlic granules by the pound and use that. It is slightly coarser than garlic powder, and is definitely NOT garlic salt. I store it in a glass jar with airtight lid.

FISH FEST:
Lemon Thyme - Wonderful fragrant perennial, easy to grow and harvest as for Thyme (above).
Lemon Basil - Another wonderful basil. Loves hot weather. Annual that you can harvest it repeatedly and it will rapidly grow back as do all the basils. Just remember to cut it above 2 new leaf shoots.
I have never found Lemon Basil or Lemon Thyme in a store, so plan ahead and grow your own if you want to try this blend.
Dillweed - The feathery leaves, not the seeds. Plant this annual once and it will re-seed and grow forever.
Oregano - Another hardy perennial. Greek is milder, Mexican stronger, use accordingly. We prefer Greek.
Sweet Marjoram - Very fragrant annual. Relative to Oregano, used with eggs, vegies and meats.
Celery leaves - I actually grow a specific type of celery that mainly produces leaves. When I have tried to grow nice stalks of celery I always got wimpy stems with lots of leaves anyway - it just does not like our climate. I also save the leaves from celery (organic) I buy at the market and dry them in a colander after trimming them from the stalk.
Garlic - (See above)
Onion Powder - this we buy as well.

ITALIAN SEASONING:
Oregano, Sweet Basil, Rosemary, Thyme, Garlic
See above for all of these.
Fennel Seed - We buy this, toast it lightly in a small, heavy pan (we use cast iron) and then crush it slightly with a mortar and pestle.

PREPARING THE HERBS:
All the herbs listed here are harvested early in the morning after the dew has dried off of them, and hung in bunches by their stems in a well ventilated place out of direct sunlight. I like to use a rubber band to hold the bunch and a twisty-tie from vegetables I purchased at the store, or string, tied on to hang them by. The rubber band conveniently stays tight as the herbs dry and the soft stems of basil and others shrink in diameter. Woody stemmed plants such as rosemary and thyme have no problem. As to the bay, I just prune off a very small branch full of leaves and dry it and that lasts us a year or 2!

When dry, strip the leaves from the stems and store as whole leaves in airtight containers (we use glass jars) in a cool, dark cupboard. When you make a blend or use the herbs directly in cooking - that is the time to crush or chop them. Once broken they will lose their aromatic and flavor qualities faster.
By the way, you can save the stems and bundle them, tie with cotton or jute string, and throw on hot coals when grilling for herbally smoked meats.


ASSEMBLING THE BLENDS:
This is the inventive part. I never measure anything unless I have to, and cannot begin to give you exact measurements for any of these, but I do have some "rules of thumb". In all the blends you use equal amounts of the large leafy herbs (basil, oregano, dill, celery).
Grind these coarsely with a herb grinder (there are many styles, I like the Mouli Parsmint best - shown in photo) or chop with a knife. Thyme, more condensed, should be around 2/3 the amount of one of the others after grinding. Ditto rosemary. You can run the rosemary through the grinder as well.
To 1/2 cup blended herbs add 1 large bay leaf, ground, and/OR 1 Tablespoon garlic granules OR 1 Tablespoon onion powder, or 2 teaspoons fennel seed, as called for. If you use bay laurel, use less.
Mix all ingredients in a bowl, then store in an airtight container until used.

USING THEM:
Sprinkle Meat Treat over chicken, turkey, whatever, before cooking. Add 1 or 2 teaspoons to oil and vinegar with 1/2 teaspoon salt for a nice herb vinaigrette.
Sprinkle Fish Fest over any kind of seafood before cooking. Also sprinkle with a bit of lemon pepper or a squirt of lemon juice.
Italian seasoning can be added to tomato sauce for pasta, lasagna or any tomato dish.

YUM! I'm hungry just thinking about it all. Now off to transplant my basil plants (sweet, lemon, purple (for salad dressing), mammoth (mild - good in salads), and Thai). I think ahead, as I work in the garden, to the harvest and culinary delights ahead.

Spring in the Garden... Baking in the Sun

Wahoo! A few consecutive days of warm, sunny weather! After weeks of on and off snow and a definite chill in the air, despite signs of spring like blooming daffodils and fruit trees, this warm interlude is very welcome.
We have been out in the garden preparing for the growing season. Working on the strawberry bed, mulching the rhubarb, weeding the asparagus, planting lettuce and peas, tending the garlic, and generally mowing down the cover crop and preparing to till and plant when our clay soil dries up some.
The end of winter/early spring is one of the least productive times in the garden, but we still have carrots, chard, beets, and even found a cabbage sprout that did not go to seed, but made a small cabbage instead. Better yet, there is finally new growth on the rhubarb and the asparagus is coming on.

Poor asparagus, the first spears that poked up were turned to mush by freezing cold. Now that it is not going below the mid - 30's we have been able to harvest the first of it. Even better, the rhubarb seems to have come up in force almost overnight!

We love rhubarb. Tart rhubarb pie with cold vanilla ice cream is to die for. We even like it made into a sauce to pour over custard or ice cream. This first rhubarb inspired me to indulge in one of our other favorite sunny day pastimes - cooking in our solar oven.

Solar ovens are wonderful. The first one here was modified cardboard boxes with foil lined reflectors and insulation between the boxes. It worked excellently, but despite our best care the cardboard started to warp and disintegrate in a couple of years. So we finally purchased a commercial one (then another!) and have been cooking in them almost every sunny day ever since, even in mid winter.
Think of them as a solar powered crock pot that also can bake. It is absolutely the best way to cook brown rice. Beans, stews, curries, lasagna, casseroles, pot roasts... all of these cook to perfection. Breads, cakes, brownies, and cobblers do just as well. We even use it to bake granola - which is the only thing we have ever burnt in it (oops...).

On the day we picked the rhubarb we just happened to have some organic strawberries I got in town, so it was obvious we had to make a strawberry - rhubarb treat.
I had already made some Spanish rice in the Sun Oven in the morning, so it was set up, pre-heated, and ready. I put together a quick and easy crisp and we had it by late afternoon, it cooked while we worked in the garden. All we had to do was check it and turn the oven now and then.
Now, you can easily cook in a solar oven without turning it. Just aim it somewhat west of the direct sun so the sun will hit it for the longest period of time. We built a giant turntable for ours using the base for a "Lazy Susan" and a scrap piece of countertop. This way we can turn it to follow the sun all day using a wedge to hold it in place so it doesn't turn freely in the wind.

You can build a solar oven easily yourself. There are many plans available on the internet, from simple Pizza Box "warming" ovens to a good basic cardboard box model: Solar oven plans . Lots of good information and more plans are in the book, "Heaven's Flame" .

For a wonderful, durable, reasonably priced solar oven, we use and recommend the Global SunOven.
Links to more information and cookbooks can be found at: Morning Hill
By the way, you will want some glass casserole dishes with lids. Colored glass is best, but they can be hard to find and/or expensive. K mart had the least expensive new ones I could find, and they crop up all the time in second hand stores.
--------------------
Now, about the Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp... Here is the recipe:

Solar Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Use all organic ingredients, if possible.
3 to 4 cups fresh rhubarb stalks, cut in 1 inch chunks
1 pint of Strawberries, sliced
1/2 cup sugar or honey
1 Tbsp minute Tapioca
---
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup flour (whole wheat or white)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, or almonds)(optional)
a pinch of salt
5 Tbsp. butter, melted (you could use oil, but it is not near as tasty)
---
Preheat your Solar Oven.
Mix the fruit, sweetener and tapioca in a 2 1/2qt casserole or 9"x 9"x 2" baking dish, set aside.
In a medium size bowl, mix together the remaining dry ingredients. Add the melted butter and stir until just mixed. Now sprinkle the oat mixture over the fruit and pat lightly.
Bake in the solar oven until top is crisp and browned and the fruit is bubbling up around the edges, 40 minutes to 1 hour (or more) as needed.
Best served still warm with ice cream.

I would love for others to share their favorite spring and/or solar oven recipes.