Beautiful Food – December 2015

Beautiful food often comes in whole plates like this one: Brussel sprouts with orange marmalade glaze, potato skins (there butter melting inside…my husband only like the inside of the potato and I have always favored the skins; we’re a good match), roast, and a cranberry sweet potato bread.

Sometimes even when it is cold, I get hungry for a salad. This one had no lettuce at all! It was hearty meal of celery (complete with leaves), cucumbers, carrots, cranberries, and peanuts! I like the bright colors and the melding of flavors. This time of year I like cranberries in lots of dishes.

The last stir fry with CSA veggies included watermelon radish, turnips, sweet potatoes and a few Brussel sprouts. The green beans were some I’d put in the freezer; they thawed quickly when added to the stir fry. The different shapes appeal to me almost as much as the colors.

A more recent stir fry is just as colorful but everything is from the produce section of the grocery store. I like different colors of bell pepper and carrot chips roughly cut…and I am enjoying Brussel sprouts although I’m going to wait a bit before buying more.

Food that is brightly colored and tastes good….beautiful!

Beautiful Food - August 2015

With the bounty of fresh veggies in August, it is easy to prepare a beautiful plate - full of color, great flavors, and nutrition. One of my favorites is a large heirloom tomato with cucumber….a little sprinkle of salt and a few leaves of fresh oregano.

Apples are often not so good in August because it is just before the new harvest. I had a bag of apples that should have been great for eating fresh but they had too many brown spots - so I made a huge apple crisp to use them up. I modified the recipe to give it a summer flavor by replacing the cinnamon with lemon and mint. And I replaced the flour with flaxseed meal and teff flour since I already had them on hand.  There is beauty in the ingredients, the big skillet in the oven, and the finished product! I always like the hint of red in from the cooked apple skin.

Topping:

• 1 cup oatmeal
• 1/4 cup flaxseed meal
• 3/4 cup teff flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• Pinch baking soda
• Pinch baking powder
• 1/2 cup olive oil

Apples+

• 2 lemons
• 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves (or 1/4 cup dry mint) --- optional
• 10 cups apples
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1/2 cup water

Spray the pan with cooking spray. This recipe will take a large one!

Process/grind the oatmeal if you want a fine texture topping. Combine topping ingredients in a bowl and mix with a fork until the lumps are small.

Cut the ends from the lemon and then cut into 8 wedges. Take out the seeds. Put the wedges (pulp and skin) into the food processor along with the mint leaves. Process until pureed.

Use the slicer on the food processor to slice the apples. I cut an apple into 8 wedges, cut the seeds/core and any bruise away, then start the food processor. Drop the apple wedges through the smaller opening in the top of the processor to get even slices (this was recommended in the booklet that came with my Cuisinart food processor).

Heat the oven to 350⁰ F.

Place the apple slices with the lemon/mint pulp into the pan. Use a spatula to distribute the apples and lemon/mint evenly in the pan. Sprinkle sugar and flour over the apples then drizzle the water on top.

Arrange the topping mixture on top of the apples.

Cook for 45 minutes.

Enjoy just out of the oven or cool from the refrigerator. It is good any time of day - for breakfast, snack or dessert!

Deck Garden - June 2015

Mid - June - and the garden is mostly green. The only plant that is blooming so far is one of the purple pea vines. It is climbing on the peacock pot sticker that the gold finches like to perch on.

There are buds on some of the other plants. By July there should be more color.

I am enjoying the greens at the moment.

Some purple basil came up in the pot that I planted some seeds from a packet that was over 5 years old. More of the seeds were viable than I anticipated! I’ve been pulling seedlings to use in salads so that there will be a mix of green and purple basil leaves in plants that have enough room to grow.

The mint in the turtle sandbox is root bound and can’t seem to grow any more around the edge. I’ll give it a through trim at some point then churn up the sandy soil and start over. There is a very thick mat of stems entwined over the surface so I’ll start the churn with long handled pruners!

I’ve already harvested some of the red potatoes (posted about it here) but there are several more plants from those same sprouted potatoes. My plan is to harvest when any of the potatoes peek above the soil. The pots are probably not large enough to get an outstanding crop….but maybe over the course of the summer they will all yield a serving!  The lighter green leaves of the celery that sprouted in the kitchen window sill is a nice contrast to the the darker greens of other plants.

I was trying to use old seed so I probably have cucumbers in some of the pots too. There were a few seeds left from last year and the cucumbers did well as ‘spillers’ in many of the pots. Thrillers will be whatever is not green. I am anticipating zinnias and sunflowers but there could be some other flowers too from seeds in the soil from last year. July will tell! RIght now i am enjoying the delicate red in the stems of last December's poinsetta!