Not Quite Spice

Not quite a Saturday Spice.... but this incipient pepper is growing in a pot on my deck. It is surrounded by baby parsley plants. Like many others, I'm trying to lessen my carbon footprint on this planet. And like many others, I was heartened by Michael Pollan's article about growing even a little of one's own food as a way to keep green.

In the past my yard did have a vegetable garden, but the growth of neighboring shrubs and trees (planted in anticipation of global warming) keeps the yard in light shade most of the day. My deck though probably gets about 6 hours of sunlight. So...I'm trying veggies in pots--I even found a book at the library: Crops in Pots by Bob Purnell. The book details an assortment of planting combinations that make your veggie plantings look as good as pots of flowers.

Along with the peppers and parsley combo, I'm trying beets with bush cucumbers, tomatoes with bush basil, and separate pots of carrots, mesclun, rainbow swiss chard, fennel, and pattypan squash. At the farmer's market I even found a hanging pot of Tiny Tim tomatoes which now hangs on the fence.
Here's the rainbow chard.


And the Tiny Tim tomatoes.

Trying to keep Green!

Saturday's Spice: Mustard

Mustard Fields Bloom In Napa.

The mustard that grows in Napa is a wild flower (Brassica rapa). It is closely related to green cabbage-like vegetables such as bok choy, napa cabbage, and turnips. Wild blooming mustard signals the beginning of spring in California, and is celebrated in the Napa Valley with the Mustard Festival.

The wider Brassica family is one of the world's agricultural work horses, and is said to include the greatest number of useful edibles. These vegetables go by the name cruciferous and we eat its roots (rutabagas, turnips), stems (kohlrabi), leaves (cabbage, brussels sprouts, kale, collard greens), flowers (cauliflower, broccoli), and seeds (mustards, condiments). Rapeseed oil, and canola oil are also products of Brassica seeds. And maybe sooner rather than latter, we will all be driving cars filled with such biodiesel .

Various mustards sit in my fridge. I'm partial to Dijon in my salad dressings, and my egg casserole. I use honey mustard as a quick and easy rub for grilled pork tenderloin, and nothing says childhood like the spicy brown mustard we used on brats, and ham and rye sandwiches. This site provides a nice listing of the many different kinds of mustards and then there's the Mustard museum.
With just a touch of tang from the Dijon mustard this cheese and egg casserole makes a great entree for brunch.

Touch of Tang Cheese and Egg Casserole

• 1/2# grated Swiss cheese (Gruyer is a nice alternative)
  4 TBS butter (Less does not hurt the dish)
  1 cup milk (Over the years I've used many different milk combinations, from 2% with half and half, to all half and half--basically the richer the milk the richer the dish).

1/2 tsp salt
Dash of pepper
1-2 TBS prepared Dijon mustard

• 12 slightly beaten eggs (I use a fork to break the yolks and swirl with the whites--do not beat).
• Butter 13x9 casserole dish ( I think glass works best)
• Spread cheese on bottom of dish
• Dot with butter
  
• Mix Milk/Cream with seasoning + mustard
  Pour 1/2 of liquid mix over cheese
  Pour beaten eggs over cheese/milk mixture
• Pour rest of milk mix over eggs (The milk mixture will not completely cover the eggs, and I usually pour it on in a zigzag fashion)
  
• Bake at 325 for 35 mins. or until eggs set (no longer than another 10 mins.).
  Serve immediately.
  

• Champagne is always a good choice with brunch and reminds many in my family of the great Easter A'la Carte Breakfast of the early 80's. The restaurant seated us in a remote part of the restaurant, setting several bottles of champagne on the table, and them promptly forgot about us. We managed to snag the champagne server several more times before a waiter ever showed up.....can I say that by then food was simply an afterthought .

Saturday's Spice: Green and Gold Coriander

Coriander (Coriandrum Sativum) is what we call the ground seeds of the green herb Cilantro. I didn't know this till I fell in love with the flavor of cilantro on a vacation trip with a college-aged sister.

Imagine a sunny California afternoon in 1980--we stopped at some fresh food vegetarian outdoor cafe...she was the vegetarian. It might have been somewhere in Sonoma, but I don't really remember. What I still recall with sunlight clarity is the taste of the finely chopped carrot, onion, and tomato salsa generously flecked with the greenness of cilantro. It was the very first time I thought I have to make this at home. The Food Lover's Companion suggests that cilantro is the world's most used herb.

Poor 1st cousin coriander, I generally consigned it to Christmas cooking until I discovered its role in Indian food. Even Wikipedia notes that coriander is underused in European cooking traditions except for flavoring sausages and sometimes rye bread--both part of my food heritage. In an attempt to use more of what's in the spice drawer, I now sprinkle ground coriander on peeled, cubed, and olive oiled butternut squash. Roasted at 350º for 45-60 mins. It's an easy side dish for roasted meats of any persuasion.



Sunny Cilantro Salsa
1 Medium Carrot
1 Medium Red or White Onion
Fresh Garden Tomatoes
Cilantro to Taste (I start with 1/2 bunch)

Use the food processor, or finely chop with a knife
Thin with tomato juice, or pure tomato sauce

Sometimes a squeeze of lemon or lime
SpicyBBQ would probably add a jalapeno

Serve With Chips while humming....

Saturday's Spice: Cinnamon

This spice is nice. This spice is my favorite. This spice is now on my kitchen counter at all times. DO NOT STORE in a cool dry place--You know, out of sight is out of mind. For me cinnamon was a baking spice; a spice most often associated with Christmas, and apple pie, and the comfort foods of childhood like cinnamon toast. How do the food habits of childhood become so ingrained? Why did it take me so long to find out that cinnamon is not just for baked goods? Is cinnamon such a special spice that it should be reserved for unique occasions? Its not that expensive.

With the introduction of the wok in the ‘70s or early ‘80’s, many of us explored Chinese cuisine. But I didn’t find Indian cuisine, which uses cinnamon and other sweet spices with lentils and meat, till the late late’80s. And even then, I really didn’t attempt to cook Indian at home till the ‘90’s. Later still, SpicyBBQ showed me that sprinkling cinnamon on a piece of salmon, or pork tenderloin before grilling really enhanced their smoky rich flavors.

Today cinnamon is getting much more attention as a healthful ingredient, and Saucy Mama has found it to be a helpful component in her skirmishes with glucose. Somehow cinnamon helps slow down food digestion and this helps insulin do its job with out getting out of hand. Saucy Mama now delightfully adds cinnamon to her oatmeal along with a handful of walnuts or pecans. She adds cinnamon to her toast and tea. And she wonders for all the sliced apples she’s had in her life, why only now does she think to sprinkle them with cinnamon?

Saturday's Spice: Garlic

I have to admit I'm not quite the fresh garlic fan as is SpicyBBQ. Oh, I think its very useful, but speed cooking often requires time saving ingredients such as (read in a very whispered voice) a jar of chopped garlic. In an attempt to add more authentic freshness to my meals I did buy a nice head of garlic last month, and placed it in a charming little pottery bowl on the counter as a hint to use. Last week in a mini-fit of counter-re-efficiency I found my fresh head of garlic. My little pottery bowl had been lost among the coffee pot, coffee beans, tea tins, colander, Christmas nuts, can goods, and wine bottles that are always going in and out of my pantry. I was pleasantly surprised on that gray snowy day to find my garlic head obeying a call of nature that I probably won't be hearing till April....it was sprouting green.

I didn't resist the urge and potted the cloves up right then and there, and added some bottom heat by way of a heat vent. I've tried growing garlic in the garden several times without much luck. I'll see if they like my pot culture. These tiny green serendipitous sprouts make me smile. And now I'm thinking that green garlic sprouts are the perfect antidote to those gray vampire days of winter. Check out these links if you need to know more about "spear leek" history, or its healthful properties, or its cultivation, or its celebration.