More pickling: Sweet pickled beets and onions

We haven't tasted the first batch, but screw it. I'm sure it will be decent, right? But we had some beets and a waaay too many onions, so why not go for more? The onion stalks got blown over in a storm so we had quite a few that didn't develop much past mini's.

The onions went the way of the gherkins last week. Vinegar brine with herbs.

If you can read dutch please ignore the message on the lid. Then again, they might taste good on toast. Why not.


We found a recipe for sweet pickled beet with apple and changed it up a bit. Instead of red wine vinegar (which we didn't have) we used quite a bit of balsamic vinegar. The same herbs from the last time: bay leaves, cloves, etc (you can also buy ready made pickling-herb packets), plus a teaspoon of cinnamon and 3 tablespoons of sugar.

The process was more or less the same as the last time. Only difference is that we boiled the beets and cooked the apple in the vinegar mix before proceeding with the rest of the process.

Beet, apple and vinegar mix into the jar and boil the thing for 20 minutes. Klaar is kees.

Leonie got creative and made some labels.

Pickling pickles (ofwel: augurken inmaken)

I didn't know that gherkins are hairy. But they are. And they taste terrible. But hey, if life gives you gherkins, make pickles. It took a while to get our augurk-plant going, but during the vacation it sprouted quite a few hearty gherks. We were surprised in the beginning with the plant, because it would start to sprout small fruits but they all began to rot away and nothing materialized. But by June the plant had taken over what seemed like the entire cucumber trellis and was creeping all over the place. It started to produce properly in the last few weeks, and this is the result of 3 weeks untended growth: Vacation gherkins.

We decided to pickle them and see how they turn out. Leonie diced them and we boiled our many left over jars to sanitize them. We bought some herbs (bay leaves, pepper, dill, etc.) and made a brine of vinegar and water and sugar.

After adding the brine to the pickle jars, we boiled the entire jar for about 15 minutes each and let cool. So now we just have to wait six weeks to see if they are any good. Or garbage.

We'll see. But at least we've got pickles. 



To summarize:

-Boil your jars to sanitize them. Ensure that they can be properly sealed to create a vacuum later.
-Create a brine from half vinegar, half water, sugar, and herbs and bring this to a boil.
-Dice, slice, cube your gherkins or leave them whole. Put them in your clean pickling jars.
-Fill the jars with the brine and leave a little head-space. Put the lid on.
-Place the jars fully in a pot with boiling water and let them sit for 15-20 minutes.
-Take 'em out and let them cool.
-Wait 6 weeks.

I found this and was amused.
From: http://koolnews.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/pickles-will-kill-you/

Tuinboontje amuse (fava bean appetizer)

We got tuinboontjes. Really big ones. Even after the serious louse infestation, we still ended up with some perfect beans.

Fava bean with Leonie

So we shelled them... Twice (the taste of the innerbean is the best). The easiest way is to boil them and then you can just squeeze out the inner bean.  

 
And cooked them for about 20 minutes. And after that baked them with garlic (from the garden, duh), onion, basil, pepper and salt. Put it in an blender....
And TADAAAA.. a tuinboontje amuse is born! It tasted good. Like an angel pissing on your tongue. (Old dutch proverb. "Alsof een engeltje op je tong piest.")

The red thing is a capsicum/bell pepper/paprika (depending on which continent you live).




Today's blog is brought to you by Leonie.   : )

Cheese # 2: The result

We ate the cheese I made. In the end it aged for about 4 weeks. This is the result.

It was actually quite good. I won't state that it was the best cheese I've ever tasted, but it wasn't terrible either. In all honesty, it had a bit of a bitter after taste, which is a shame. I've read that this could either be from the microbial rennet or from using buttermilk starter instead of mesophilic starter culture.

But with some crackers it made a nice cheese. It shaves well and was solid and officially cheese-like in texture. So, for a first attempt at a hard cheese I reckon it to be a success.

Next time I want to go for a bigger cheese with better flavor, and maybe try waxing it so that it can age for longer.

Rammenas with mandarins and walnuts

Rammenas is another vegetable that I hadn't tried before. But it’s good. It’s surprising to discover all this stuff out there full of good flavours. Undiscovered territory. People, go and buy forgotten veg! Live it up. There’s some good stuff out there.

Yes, I know. I didn’t grow this. Its from the market. But forgive me. This blog is new (and I’m new to blogging). My subject matter (the garden) isn’t up and running yet because its March. I just got the first seeds going in their  mini greenhouse a couple days ago.

But we got some rammenas from the market. It has a dark outer husk and a bright white inside.  I read  elsewhere that it tastes similar to a radish, but I don’t really think so. Its quite bland, but works as a nice filler. It does get a bit dry after a day or two. This one was in the fridge for a few days before we ate it.

This is just grated rammenas with about 200 ml of plain yogurt. Add some sections of mandarin oranges and walnuts. You’re good to go. Makes a decent starter, or a simple side dish. So far I haven’t tried anything else with this vegetable. I should take my own advice and buy it more often. Just like with the schorseneren (which I’m going to try to grow this year), I was impressed.

We Made Cheese

Cheese is awesome. I know that it doesn’t really have anything to do with gardening, but I still felt like posting this anyway. This is the first time we tried making cheese and it was actually pretty easy. It turned out well and was good on crackers. This definitely turned out more as a snack cheese rather than a sandwich cheese though.

We used a liter of whole milk and a liter of buttermilk. After sterilizing the pan, the milk is heated to about 30⁰ C. The rennet gets added at this point. Rennet is the stuff that causes curds and whey to separate. Usually its taken from the stomach lining of a calf. I’ve got microbial rennet in powder form, which seems to work just as well. One half teaspoon mixed in 10 ml of salt water beforehand was enough.

Curds and whey

After the curds are split you can drain the whey out through cheesecloth. We made a small press out of a few cans to get a round shape and make the cheese denser. There are also some herbs and salt added before we put it into the press to add flavor. We pressed it for a couple hours and put it in a salt bath overnight for a stronger taste.

So this is the result. Tasted good. I know I said it isn't really a cheese for bread, but here's a picture with some homemade bread anyway. There’s loads of information online about making different cheeses. This was very simple. There are also methods of washing the curds and aging for weeks or months to get harder cheeses. If I have some time I’m going to try to make some ‘real’ cheese, like gouda or something.

Black Salsify and Parsnip Chips (schorseneren en pastinaak)

This week from the market: Black Salsify. Strange name.

We got a packet of salsify seeds from Leonie’s uncle for Sinterklaas (Dutch Santa Claus day). I’d never heard of them. They’ve been designated as a “historic vegetable” or forgotten veg. These ignored plants of the past are making a comeback in Holland as oer-oude (prehistoric) sentiments of the good-old days and golden years gone by return in Dutch culture. And local, fresh produce is becoming hip. Greens from back in the day are becoming popular, and lately you see some strange new items popping up at the weekend markets. The organic section of the market is also getting a lot of attention. Always interesting to see the notable difference in size and look between the organic and non-organic produce (the organic stuff is always smaller, but looks better).

Something different for a change

I always like going to the market on the weekend. Our favourite vendor gives you a big tray and you can choose exactly what you want and how many. You can also see a bit of a seasonal variation throughout the year. Plus we have the benefit that the market is literally 20 m from our door, which makes it quick and easy to fill the fruit basket on Saturday morning.

Since we’re going to try to grow some this year, we’d thought we’d give them a try this weekend. We picked up these Belgian Black Salsifies (it keeps on being a strange word) at the market and grabbed a few parsnips to go with it. We’re going to get some parsnips going this year in the garden as well.

Like eating a peeled stick

Schorseneren (Scorzonera hispanica) are long, woody roots. They’re quite thin with a dark, bark-like outer husk which can be easily peeled to reveal soft white insides. It reminds me of white asparagus with a thick outer casing.

We didn’t actually have any idea what to do with them, but after looking online found that you can just boil them for 25 minutes and add a nice sauce. We also decided to make some chips from parsnip, salsify and carrots. You can buy packets of vegetable chips at the store, and that stuff is usually pretty good. We used one of the salsifies as a side dish for dinner. The other one we peeled, and sliced thin lengthwise with a cheese slicer (kaas schaaf). The carrots and parsnips we just cut into little circles.

The chips turned out quite well. We fried them in vegetable oil for about 6-7 minutes until they just turned brown, and let them dry on some paper towels. The salsify chips turned really well, and they seemed to absorb the salt we sprinkled over them nicely, giving a strong salty flavour. The parsnip chips were also good, as well as the slightly sweeter flavour from the carrot chips.

As a side dish, the schorseneren works great. I was hugely surprised. They are super soft and tender, and have a mellow flavour, going great with the cream sauce. Again I was reminded of asparagus, but the texture is much less stringy or tough. I’d say that these things are definitely a winner, and I’m surprised that they’re more common.

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in the garden with these things. Though I’m definitely going to have to dig down a bit deeper for these.  At 50 cm long, they’ll need some nice loose soil to be able to properly extend their roots. Especially since we’re growing on heavy clay soil, there’s a high probability or crooked roots. We’ll see what happens. In the mean time, I might buy these a bit more frequently from the market.

Like asparagus but better

Lazy man's budget soup

Nice warm soup. Takes only 10 minutes. Costs almost nothing, especially if most of the ingredients are coming from the garden. The ideal leftover-greens snack.

Soup is one of the easiest things ever to make.  You can buy canned soup pretty cheap, but it usually doesn't taste very good. Plus if you have some odds and ends of vegetable lying around, just throw them into some stock and heat it up. No worries. You can get more creative of course, but for a quick Sunday lunch, you might as well take it easy.

This is just some chopped leeks, onion, celeriac in soup stock with some vermicelli. And of course, everything is better with sour cream and cheese.

Besides this, one of my favorites is celeriac soup. Thick and creamy, add lots of salt and some chili powder for a kick. Nice.


Cheers.

Banana bread

Banana bread is good.

I confess to not growing the bananas myself. But it's a bit cold in Holland.

Just mash up some overripe bananas, throw in some honey, baking powder, flour, water, oil, nuts, etc. Mix it up 'til its a thick liquid and throw it in the oven for around 30 minutes (or longer, depending on your oven). Good to go.

Baked goods

We made some courgette bread a couple of weeks ago. And good old rhubarb pie. Nice.

grated courgette
grated carrot
flour
water
yeast
salt
eggs, if you want
whatever floats your boat


Knead, rise, bake, eat.



 And finish off with some delicious rhubarb pie. Lovely.

Return of the fungi

We grew our own shiitake mushrooms from a home-kit I bought at the organic grocery store. Pretty awesome.

I don’t even like mushrooms that much, but these ones tasted quite nice. My girlfriend really liked them and said they were some of the best she’d had. Super easy, tastes great, and they don’t come fresher than this!

Growing it in your kitchen is about as local as you can get.

Cheers.

Vegephobia

I used to hate vegetables. The taste, the texture, the way they looked, No Thanks. Not just as a kid, but even into my teens and early twenties. I was proud of the fact that I would only eat large quantities of meat every night. At 16 I lived mostly from Wendy's Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers. When my mother cooked spaghetti with meat sauce, I used to remove all the onions from the sauce because I didn't like them. It's pretty sad actually. Salads were a total no-go. Much too green. Part of the problem was my own reluctance to try new things. In the end you convince yourself it won't taste good without even giving it a try. Years of fast-food and meat-and-potato nights followed. When I was a student I persuaded myself to try broccoli just because I realized that my own nutritional requirements weren't being met. So I finally had a vegetable, but that was where it stayed. 4 years of broccoli and meat. Good times.

Not that I couldn't cook. I consider myself a fairly decent cook and I'm not afraid to throw some flavours together. When you're living off of very few ingredients, you need to learn to cook, or you're going to be bored at every dinner. I could make some pretty mean meat-dishes in my day. But I still avoided the entire vegetable section at the grocery store.

Two things helped me change my mind about veggies. My vegetarian girlfriend and growing the food myself.  Also, backpacking through Australia for a year and thus being poor and hungry helped. I learned to eat pretty much anything in that year. I still really enjoy eating meat, but I’ve found a new trove of culinary delights by exploring what vegetarian food has to offer. And in terms of convenience its easier to go veg. We usually eat vegetarian dishes when we’re cooking together and I eat meat when she’s not around.

And I was amazed at all the good stuff out there. I slowly learned to enjoy most of the green growing things we can eat. They say you need to eat something 7 times before you start to like it. I think I can agree with that, more or less. I don't like everything right away, but it can grow on you, and with the right recipe can be totally awesome. Eggplant, I remember my utter disgust a few years ago, but now its one of my favorites. So much potential in one purple plant. And a good salad is definitely a standard during the summer.

2 yeas ago we decided to rent a small plot at the community-garden center in Arnhem, NL where we live. We had no experience, no prior interest in gardening, and no real idea what we were doing. But its definitely a lot of fun. We've been trail-and-error gardening for the last couple years and its turned out pretty well. Even with the minimal effort we put into it the first year, we had a decent harvest. Last year also went well, except the weather throughout the season was all over the place, and some garden pests also took their toll. But we tried some new things and worked on improving soil quality. This year we're hoping for another good season. Going for some new varieties and getting a bit more adventurous with what goes in the ground. This blog contains some stories about what’s growing and what kind of meals we're making it into.

Arnhem

Cheers.
de Tuinier