Seed Order

Every year, by January, the Seed Saver catalog arrives. Both of us become starry-eyed with visions of tomato plants, melon patches, and fresh herbs. We pour over the catalog over and over, until the pages become worn and crinkled. Then, February arrives and we finally get to officially make the real order. This year, we plan on adding a few raised gardens, including one solely for tea herbs. Given that we knew our garden space would increase, it was hard to limit our order (and our idealistic and unrealistic visions of a perfectly huge garden), but we eventually managed. Below is what we ordered. We will use these in conjunction with seeds that we  had left over from last year and a few fresh herb plants from West Star Farms.

Calypso Beans
Hidatsa Shield Beans
Speckled Cranberry Beans
Detroit Dark Red Beets
Aunt Molly's Ground Cherries
Scarlet Nantes Carrots
Golden Bantam Corn
Tom Thumb Popcorn Corn
Stowell's Evergreen Corn
Parade Cucumber
Early Fortune Cucumber
Lacinato Kale
Charantais Melon
Eden's Gem Melon 
Noir des Carmes Melon 
Ailsa Craig Onion
Fish Pepper
King of the North Pepper
Gold Medal Tomato
Cherry Roma Tomato  
Sunberry
Bee Balm
Hyssop
Stevia
St. John's Wort
Chelsea Watermelon

And for potatoes...
All Blue Potato
French Fingerling Potato
Rose Finn Apple Potato

In just a few weeks, our house will turn into a blooming crowded "greenhouse." Florescent lights will be hanging from every free space of ceiling, tables and dressers will be full of trays of seeds, and chairs and other large objects will be set up around the trays to protect them from our kitty predators. And then, soon thereafter, gardening season will officially be here. 

Coleslaw with a Spicy Twist!

At this time of the year, it can be hard to create in-season, veggie-loaded dishes. It's always a pleasure to discover some new tantalizing recipe involving winter produce as the season ends and spring begins. Last night, wanting to make something with the cabbage I still had left over from my CSA box, I found a recipe for a red cabbage slaw in From Asparagus to Zucchini that kicks things up a few notches (to quote Emeril!). I modified the recipe a bit, and the slaw turned out wonderfully. Here's my version:

Red Cabbage Slaw
1 head red cabbage
1 pound carrots
1 bunch cilantro
1/3 cup lime juice
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2 Tbs. salt
1 Tbs. ancho chili powder
3/4 cup canola mayo (or to taste) ...not included in the original recipe, but added a nice creamy flavor

Quarter and core the red cabbage. Slice cabbage and carrots by hand or in a food processor. Chop cilantro. Toss all ingredients. Let stand one hour; rinse the slaw if so desired. Ours was really salty before the rinse, so we rinsed ours. Serve as a side dish or as a garnish (yummy with fish tacos!).

Wheat Berry Cereal: Affordable and Healthy!

A few weeks ago, when we made our Garlic and Kale soup, we discovered the wheat berry. Little did we know what a powerful little food we had found. Wheat berries are whole wheat kernels. When ground, flour is created, but as a whole grain, you can use wheat berries as a cold or hot cereal, in salads (as a base or as a garnish), and in soups. Because the grain is whole, and therefore, no nutrients have been stripped away, there are a  number of nutritional benefits. Wheat berries are rich in iron, protein, fiber, Vitamin E, and magnesium.

Additionally, wheat berries are so inexpensive! We buy them in bulk once a month and use them every other week for our daily breakfast.

Prepared Wheat Berries
1. Soak wheat berries 4-8 hours (or overnight) with a two-inch covering of water. We soak three cups on Saturday evening which lasts for an entire week's worth of breakfasts.
2.  Drain and rinse the wheat berries. Put into a pot and cover with fresh water, with about an inch covering.
3. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low. Finish cooking for 45-60 minutes until wheat berries are tender and a bit chewy.

Wheat Berry Breakfast
1/2 cup cooked cold wheat berries
1/2 cup kefir or yogurt
dash of cinnamon
1 tsp. brown sugar or maple syrup
(optional) 1 Tbs. flax-seed oil

Combine all ingredients. Add desired fruit. In the winter time, we like to add applesauce or strawberries from the freezer. In summer, well the possibilities are endless!

Nutritional Information is based on the recipe WITHOUT flax-seed oil.

Nutrition Facts homemade Wheat Berry Breakfast
Serving Size: 1 meal
Amount Per Serving
Calories	230
Total Fat	1.5g
Saturated Fat	0.8g
Trans Fat	0g
Cholesterol	5mg
Sodium	64mg
Carbohydrate	43.4g
Dietary Fiber	8.1g
Sugars	9g
Protein	13g
Vitamin A 5% Vitamin C 3% Calcium    19% Iron 11%

Homemade Veggie Burgers!

At this time of year, both of our jobs get insane. Lots of late night meetings. Lots of school club events. Right now, we're in the thick of the school year with no end in sight. There's no real time to cook, which makes us very happy that we have our own version of "fast food" ready to go in our freezer. Lately, we've been partaking in the veggie burgers we made and froze over Winter Break (we quadrupled our batch and are so thankful we did!). We found the recipe in Vegetarian Times several years ago. We love experimenting by adding the various types of cheese we receive through our CSA cheese share and by whipping up tantalizing sauces!

Chicago Diner Burgers
3 stalks celery, diced (about 1 1/4 cups)

1 small onion, diced (about 1 cup)

1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce

2 tsp. onion powder

2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
12 oz. mushrooms, finely chopped
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

Directions (makes eight burgers)
1.Bring 4 cups water, celery, onion, soy sauce, onion powder, garlic powder and pepper to a boil in pot over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and simmer 5 minutes. Stir in oats, mushrooms and flour, and cook 5 minutes more. Transfer to bowl, and chill.

2.Preheat oven to 350F. Coat baking sheet with cooking spray. Shape mixture into patties, and bake on prepared baking sheet 15 minutes. Flip, and bake 10 minutes more. Cool.

3.Heat grill to medium-high. Place foil on grill, and coat with cooking spray. Grill burgers on foil 7 minutes per side.
 
Per SERVING:  Calories 175; Protein 9g; Fat 2g; Saturated Fat 0g; Carbs 32g; Choelsterol 0mg; Sodium 289mg; Fiber 5g; Sugar 3g

In this picture, the burger is served with Otter Creek and Harmony Valley Farm's beet-garlic cheese and our own homemade red aoili sauce. To make our red aoili sauce, we simply blended some of the roasted red peppers from our freezer with Canola Mayonnaise. Yum!

Garlic and Kale Soup

This Garlic and Kale Soup is fantastic! It's perfectly spiced, obnoxiously healthy, and super easy to make. Although this recipe isn't one of our own, we thought we'd share it with all of you. Most of the ingredients are moderately in season ~ meaning that most were either already in our fridge, freezer, or pantry.

According to Vegetarian Times, "Kale and garlic are good for the cardiovascular system; wheat berries are high in fiber; and shitake mushrooms contain eritadenine, and amino acid that speeds up processing of cholesterol in the liver."  Yay for healthy soups!

Garlic and Kale Soup
1/2 cup wheat berries
2 Tbs. olive oil
3.5 oz. shitake mushrooms, stemmed and thinly sliced (we bought these dry and rehydrated them)
10 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced (we used 2 whole heads!)
1/4 cup brown rice vinegar
4 cups vegetable broth
1 bunch kale, stemmed and coarsely chopped.

1. Either soak wheat berries in a large bowl of water overnight, or cook in a pressure cooker if you're pressed for time.

2. Heat oil in 2-qt. saucepan over medium heat. Add mushrooms, and season with salt, if desired. Saute mushrooms 10 minutes, or until beginning to brown. Add garlic, and saute 2 minutes more. Stir in vinegar; simmer until vinegar is almost evaporated,  stirring to scrape up browned bits from pan.

3. Drain wheat berries, and add to mushroom mixture with vegetable broth and 1 cup water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 20 minutes. Add kale, and cook 10 to 20 minutes more, or until kale is tender. Season with salt and pepper, if desired.

Per 1-cup servings: 138 CAL; 4 G PROT; 5 G TOTAL FAT; 20 G CARB; 0 MG CHOL; 103 MG SOD; 3 G FIBER; 4 G SUGARS

A Sunday Morning Favorite: Pancakes

We've always been huge fans of Sunday morning pancakes and coffee. It's become somewhat routine in our household. For years, we've bought Bob's Red Mill's Pancake Mix. We've always had good intentions about creating our own "from scratch" pancake mix, but haven't ever gotten around to it. Last Sunday, we came closer than ever because of a recipe we found in our new cookbook, The Blue Plate Diner.

Using this recipe, you could make huge amounts of dry mix and store it. We made chocolate chip pancakes (because we felt indulgent, and that's what this recipe called for), but obviously you could make them with fruit or plain too!

Ingredients
3 large eggs
1 quart buttermilk (we used yogurt and hemp milk because we didn't have buttermilk in the fridge)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 oz melted butter
3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
3 tbs. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup oats
1 tbs. butter
2 oz. miniature chocolate chips

Instructions:
Mix the eggs, buttermilk (or whatever you use), vanilla, melted butter until well blended. Separately, stir together the flour, salt, sugar, baking soda, baking  powder, and oats. Combine the dry and wet ingredients until they form a smooth batter. In a heated and buttered non-stick pan make 3-inch pancakes. Brown on both sides. Decorate with chocolate chips.

Mexican Lasagna, Freezer Style!

Over Winter Break, we took a day to freeze several meals for our undulating Wisconsin winter, including Mexican Lasagna from The Blue Plate Diner Cookbook (aka The Monty's Blue Plate Cookbook, for you Madisonians). 

We used corn from our freezer, onions and garlic from our cellar, and tomatoes and peppers from our pantry of canned goods. Our CSA is still providing us with plenty of cheese and carrots. We were fortunate enough to receive a Willy Street Co-op gift card to supply the rest of our ingredients for the double batch of this dish.

We froze both pans! Not eating it took every bit of willpower we had.

This recipe is for one batch:
Ingredients
2 tbs. olive oil
2 carrots, sliced thin
3 stalks celery, diced (you could use celeriac for a more seasonal approach)
1 tbs. crushed garlic
1 medium onion, diced
14 ounces corn (fresh, frozen, or canned)
14 ounces of black beans (prepared or canned)
14 ounces of diced tomatoes
2 or more jalapenos, finely diced (fresh or canned)
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper (or more!)
2 tbs. cumin
1 tbs. chili powder
12 6-inch flour tortillas
2 cups shredded Cheddar Cheese

Instructions:
1. In a large frying pan, in olive oil, saute the carrots, celery, garlic and onion for 10 minutes over medium heat until tender.

2. Add the other vegetables and all seasonings.

3. Stir and cook on high heat for 30 minutes.

4. While the vegetables are cooking, line a 11X7 X 1.5 inch dish with a single layer of tortillas, each cut in half. Cover each with a layer of the vegetable filling, then a layer of cheese.

5. Continue making such layers - tortillas, vegetables, cheese - until the dish is filed or the ingredients are all used up.

6. Top with shredded cheese.

7. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.

Note: We put our unbaked lasagnas in smaller, aluminum pans. They were placed in freezer bags. We plan on using these smaller trays for quick dinners on busy work nights.