Kitchen / Garden / Sanctuary - Urban Homesteading to Nourish Body + Spirit
I received a question from Melinda who wrote: “I am interested to know if you know where I can get reliable seeds of wild greens, such as lambs quarter, nettle, shepherd’s purse, toothwort?”
I know that Mountain Rose Herbs carries seeds for Nettles and Shepherd’s Purse, although I’ve never ordered herb seeds from them before.
Can any of you make a recommendation?
Thanks!!
I was inspired today by this post about raw vegetable juices over at Wooly Moss Roots. I’ve never been into juicing because separating the fiber from the juice just doesn’t seem natural, and it’s not the ideal way to consume vegetables according to what I’ve read. But then I’ve also read that as long as juicing is used in addition to your regular consumption of fruits and vegetables, it can actually be a very good way to boost your intake of vitamins and minerals. I can certainly see both sides of the story.
We actually have a juicer already (it came with my Hubby), so today I decided to go for it. I used some kitchen scraps that would’ve otherwise gotten tossed (cilantro and parsley stems, a mandarin orange with very tough membranes, and spent beet chunks from making beet kvass), as well as a carrot and some celery. It turned out pretty well! I was especially thrilled to be juicing the last drops of lacto-fermented, enzyme-rich goodness out of those beets! (I’ll share my beet kvass recipe soon. We love beet kvass in this household!)
Remembering that all those vitamins and minerals would probably need some fat in order to be absorbed properly, I added some grassfed whipping cream in a ratio of about 3 or 4 parts juice to 1 part cream.
OH YEA.
The cream was the key. Better nutrient absorption, better taste!
I even felt a sort of…uplift…after drinking this raw veggie juice. And I loved how it was such a clean, light way to start the day!
What’s your opinion about juicing? If you juice, what are your favorite veggie combos?
Pretty layers of juice!
Light lunch: Dandelion salad & raspberry leaf tea with grassfed cream
Spring’s in the air! (…till Tuesday, at least, when it’s supposed to get down to -8!) It’s been shorts & t-shirt weather here — the robins have been chirping their summertime songs, and I opened all the windows yesterday to let the fresh air in. My body also seems to know that spring’s coming and it’s time to eat light, clean, liver-cleansing foods. I’ve been craving juicy oranges, fresh lemons, and bitter dandelion salads. Bitter is usually my least favorite taste, but I’ve been eating dandelion salads almost daily lately. Dandelions won’t be growing in the yard for another couple months yet, so I buy the greens at our health food store.
I’ve been really enjoying this particular salad:
dandelion greens mixed half and half with lettuce (sometimes I leave out the lettuce altogether)
green onions
avocado
sunflower seeds
fresh lemon juice and flax seed oil generously drizzled over, with salt & pepper to taste
Chop the greens up nice and small and eat the whole thing with a spoon!
Oregano, parsley, & cilantro pesto
Pesto is such a versatile condiment — it’s wonderful over fish or chicken, on crackers, tossed with pasta, spread over eggs or sauteed zucchini, in a roasted vegetable sandwich, used as a pizza sauce, or straight off the spoon. And although basil pesto is the most common type, pesto can be made with any combination of herbs. In fact, I think I like mixed-herb pesto even better than basil-only — it has more layers of flavor! And don’t forget that herbs are mineral rich and packed with nutrition, and can definitely be thought of as a medicinal food.
Make a healthy snack with goat cheese and mixed-herb pesto on a raw zucchini slice "cracker"
Use any combination of fresh herbs that you want; pesto is a great way to use up heaps of herbs at once, such as the cilantro sitting in the back of your fridge and the overabundance of oregano in your garden. It’s also a nice way to preserve those herbs for use later in the year; use ice cube trays to freeze pesto into small portions and thaw as needed over the winter.
One nice combination is oregano, parsley, and cilantro — this is probably my favorite. Use equal parts…or not! Just combine according to the amounts you have. I do suggest, however, that you go easy on the fresh sage if you choose to use it; it lends an overpowering (and not all that tasty) element. Also, mint is nice as an added “splash” but go easy on that too, since it can also overpower.
My basic pesto recipe is as follows, though you’ll probably find you don’t even need a recipe. Just gather a bunch of herbs, add a clove or two of garlic (start with less garlic and add more later if needed), add nuts, cheese, and salt, and then olive oil to form a paste.
1 cup fresh herbs, packed
2 garlic cloves, small-medium size
3 Tbsp olive oil, approx.
3 Tbsp shredded parmesan cheese, approx.
1-2 Tbsp pine nuts or walnuts, approx. (optional)
Salt to taste
Put everything into the food processor and blend until a paste is formed.
Instead of using the food processor, though, I like to make mine the old fashioned way using a knife and cutting board. If you use a nice sharp chopping knife, the task goes faster and is more fun than the food processor (at least for me — I get angry at my food processor when making pesto!). The key is definitely the sharp knife. Chop your herbs, garlic, and nuts as finely as possible, add the parmesan (chop it up too, if you like), and then add olive oil until a loose paste is formed. You can replace a little of the olive oil with water if you want. Add salt to taste. The texture will be more rustic than paste-like, but that’s not a bad thing. 😉
Making pesto without a food processor
Salad Taco drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. Ready to be folded up and eaten!
We’re all familiar with the taco salad. It’s present at almost every single potluck I’ve been to. But this is a salad taco, and if your kids don’t enjoy eating veggies, this might be a novel way to present salads. The salad taco idea came about because I like to forage in my garden, picking lettuce leaves and adding bits of whatever else is growing — onion tops, baby chard, cilantro, dill, oregano — and then folding it all up like a taco to munch on.
Today, though, I decided to give the whole thing a little more formality and class. I cut up some avocado and added tomato, along with some other garden goodies — dill, cilantro, and green onion. Drizzled with some homemade balsamic vinaigrette and then folded up and eaten like a taco, it was fantastic!
Apart from using your fingers as salad tongs (which was my preferred method as a kid), this seems like a more efficient way to consume a salad. And loads more fun than trying to use a fork to spear micron-thin lettuce leaves (not to mention a cherry tomato).
You could even take this idea to the ‘next level’ by doing a salad taco buffet at the dinner table — little bowls with different vegetables and toppings that you spoon onto lettuce leaves, and then drizzle with your choice of dressing.
Vegetable ideas: cucumbers, shredded carrots, radishes, tomatoes, green onions, red bell peppers, avocados, sprouts, fresh herbs.
Topping ideas: sunflower seeds, blue cheese, dried cranberries, chopped pears, toasted pecans, hard boiled egg, crumbled bacon, bits of ham, croutons, feta cheese, kalamata olives, black beans, raw cheddar cheese.
Dressing ideas:
– Balsamic Vinaigrette (Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, thyme, basil, salt, pepper)
– Blue Cheese Vinaigrette (Apple cider vinegar, olive oil, crumbled blue cheese, powdered dry mustard, salt, pepper)
– Greek (olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, garlic, salt, pepper)
– Salsa & Sour Cream for a Mexican-style dressing
Kids or not, this makes salad-eating way more fun! 😉
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