What to Do with Stems from Greens

I made a delicious recipe one day and it's my new favourite for getting rid of stems from kale, chard, spinach etc. Don't throw them away!!  People throw them out, did you know? It's crazy! Don't waste perfectly good food!

Steam the stems until partway cooked.

Blend fresh tomatoes into a sauce or use a can/bottle of passata.

Blend the two together in a casserole dish, top with cornmeal (my gluten free version) or breadcrumbs and grate cheese on top.

Bake until cheese in melty delicious and enjoy!

Feast of Fields and Brassica Sprouts

I went to Feast of Fields today (www.feastoffields.org) as a volunteer with the Guelph Organic Conference. What a wonderful event!! I ate ALL of the most beautiful, bountiful, local, fresh food, phew!
A few thoughts over the next few days...
I spoke to one of the Sprouts for Life vendors (www.sproutsforlife.ca) and asked him about the problems I seemed to keep having with my brassica (radish, kale, etc) sprouts: they always go mouldy! His response: Wash them more often!  They don't like heat AT ALL so wash them to cool them down about 4 times daily. New things to try...

Produce Box Delivery

My wonderful friend Derick has been farming his parents land for the first time.  He's managed to build some crazy hugelkultur beds (more on that in another post) and has a crazy variety of produce growing. I noticed last week that he's been supplying some friends with boxes once a week when he comes down to Toronto and I've gotten myself on that list! Wahoo!  Here's my first beautiful, bountiful box: beets, carrots, chards/kale, a massive leek, soooooo many heirloom tomatoes, 2 baby eggplants, some cucumbers, onions, basil, a bag of mixed salad greens, radishes, and a mixed bag of tomatillo, okra (yes okra in Ontario!), and ground cherries.  Half the tomatoes, a bunch of basil and all the onions are already gone too–I made a huge batch of tomato sauce before remembering to take a photo. I feel so blessed!

Steamed Greens Dinner

I made a delicious and super simple dinner tonight. I picked some beautiful big kale and chard from my garden and washed it well.

 I steamed the stems first for a minute, then added the greens for another 30 seconds. I transferred it to a bowl, poured a bit of dressing on it (tahini, sesame, ginger, lemon juice) and some fresh sesame seeds.  I then ate it with 2 "dipping sauces"–siracha sauce and tahini!  A beautiful fresh easy meal :)

Handful of Salad To-Go

I was really hungry on my way out the door and so I collected a salad to to! I picked some kale, chard, lambs quarters, romaine lettuce, arugula, kept them in a bunch like a bouquet, and biked where I needed to go, snacking as I went–delicious and so fresh!

Friend Visits and Seed-Saving

 My friend Catherine came over today to visit and we pitted cherries and seed-saved while chatting.  I feel so connected to human history–working away while chatting and singing...  Ah folk life...  While we didn't sing, I'm sure that if some of my singing friends were around, we would!  Haha

 Arugula seeds in their pod–so cool!!

The seeds I have saved so far (from left to right) arugula, radish, mystery... (kale?), mystery 2 (arugula?). I know I was drying arugula and kale but am unsure which is which!  Labelling while drying is helpful! Your brain won't always remember...

Saving Seed

 I've hung up some kale and arugula gone to seed in my kitchen to save the seed. I've read that you need to allow it to "cure" wherein the seeds become dry enough to store.  You can see the difference between the arugula on the right which was hung today and the kale on the left (and below) which was hung a week or two ago (I forget how long ago now...) In any case, once everything is dry, I'm going to take them out of their pods and store them for later in the season or for upcoming years!  It's incredibly exciting and empowering! I'm starting to understand how violating not allowing farmers to keep seeds is, even from just doing it a little bit. It's a cost, it's a livelihood, it's native, or at least can be slowly acclimatized to your location.  So many important things.

First Garden Filled Hearty Salad!

My first pickins!

From left to right top row: bok choy, kale, mustard, chard, radish, arugula.

From left to right bottom row: lovage, chive flowers, arugula flowers.

I made a delicious rice pasta salad after I baked some organic chicken with dijon mustard and fresh cracked black pepper, roasted a red pepper, a yellow pepper, and 2 asian eggplant, and diced them all up. The herbs and greens I cut up nice and fine and yum! Fresh, hearty garden salad!

Barter Gardening

I planted a chunk of seeds and seedlings in my friend's garden that i'm planting as a barter for drum lessons.  It was a beautiful day! I'm always amazed at how time flies when I'm gardening–I tend to forget to eat...

We made a bed of beans, tomatoes, peppers and spinach, and a second bed of bok choy, beets, and arugula.  Yum!

A Beautiful Day

I spent the day today planting a bunch more of my garden–so revitalizing!

I planted a few herb seedlings: basil, rosemary, and lemon thyme (soooooo tasty!)

I also planted a bunch from seed: calendula, korean mint, callaloo, more radishes, a few mammoth sunflowers, basil, feverfew and sorrel, more spinach, more kale, more swiss chard, and more romaine lettuce. Phew!












The day was beautiful, the sun was shining, and I had 3 friends helping me–it worked out so that as one friend left, the next came!  I shared a meal with each one and we planted and dug together!  I'm realizing how tied together community, food growing, bartering, and questioning our current economic model are...  Work doesn't seem like work when I'm with friends, things go faster, and there is something so soul nourishing about being helped and helping in return at another time. The knowledge that we can give when we have the capacity and will be supported in times of need. What a beautiful day it was indeed!

Living With Roommates

It's spring and part of the roommate deal for growing food on my kitchen window ledge was that I'd get rid of the clutter of it when I had lots of food growing outside.  I'm headed away for the weekend and have been taking up all the window space with other seedlings so the indoor free food ledge is done for the year.  I'm particularly impressed with the beet tops:

 and the celery:

although the lettuce was also pretty spectacular and beautifully tender.  You really do forget what literally just picked produce tastes like!  Everything is divine!!!  I snuch a bit of a beautiful kale plant that was growing at my community garden plot–SO TENDER AND SWEET!  Yes, KALE.  Tender and sweet–PHEW!  Getting me extremely excited for the upcoming harvest!

On a side note–look at the size of my potato plants!  Wow!! And I only planted them 2 weeks ago!

Direct Seeded Seedlings!!

I got WAAAAAAAY too excited the other day when I came outside to THIS

 Onions!

 Swiss Chard!

 Romaine Lettuce!

 Kale!

Snap Peas!
SO MANY BABIES!!!
It really is the best feeling in the world seeing seeds you planted start to grow. You are filled with so much awe at nature's ability to flourish and really connect to weather and rainfall in a way you never have before.  The best feelings ever :)

Another "Garbage" Recipe!

I came across a pretty awesome easy recipe that I've used a bunch of times now whenever I steam a lot of large greens like kale and swiss chard. I've seem people just throw away the stems... Don't! Eat them! Delicious!

Steam kale, chard, and any other hearty green stems for a few minutes until mostly cooked through
Mix together with some tomato sauce, a freshly blended tomato or tomato paste
(I usually do it just with these but I fot fancy and added some sauteed onion and garlic and grated fresh zucchini too)

Top with breadcrumbs, organic cornmeal, crushed nuts, or any other crunchy type topping.
Top that with cheese, or vegan cheese, or nut cheese.

Bake until cheese is melted and everything is heated through.
Delish!

First seeds planted outdoors!

Today was an exciting day: the first of my seeds got planted outdoors!
Heirloom Organic Romaine Lettuce
Organic Ruby Red Swiss Chard
Pak Choi
Organic Russian Red Kale
Organic Bloomsdale Spinach
I was going to plant more but ran out of time...  Tomorrow maybe?

Seeing as all my cold hardy veg are nitrogen hungry, I mixed in a bit of extra coffee grounds into the soil before I planted my seeds.

For speed of planting, I used a tool that I don't know the name of that I got from my parents house to make narrow troughs to lay the seeds in.
I spaced the rows according to the directions on the seed packets or information that I found online and recovered with the displaced soil.

After I finished and lightly watered the ground where I planted, I covered the plot with a floating row cover (with rocks on the corners) to keep the soil warm on the still cool nights:

So soothed :)