Urban Oasis project monthly potluck

Urban Oasis project's next monthly potluck and meeting will be on November 14, 2009, at 2:00 pm, at the home of someone who has been gardening organically for 40 years, and teaches organic gardening, Joyce DiBenedetto-Colton. This is a photo of her garden last year. She has new crops now, we can't wait to see it! She will give us a tour of her garden, and we will have a special bonus Taiwanese dumpling making class taught by Yuhfen Lin, who will teach us how to make the dumpling wrapper as well as the filling.

Dumpling-making class starts at 2:00 with Yuhfen Lin and David Brookes.

Garden tour will be given after class at 3:30, featuring info about soil mixes, compost, and worms.

Potluck to follow at 4:30.

You may come for one or all parts of the event.

Our hostess is vegan, and we request all potluck dishes be vegan to respect her vegan home for this event. If you can bring something you grew in your garden, or grown locally, please do! If not, just bring something.You must RSVP to get the address of the private home where we will gather. RSVP to Monthly Potluck Coordinator: antonio.guadamuz@gmail.com.

Also check their site at http://www.urbanoasisproject.org/

Dumpling--Dumpling wraps

A lot of parents struggle to get their kids to eat green vegetable. Chinese parents deal with the same problem too. Most Chinese parents' solution is, put them in the dumplings. I have seen kids being picky on what they would eat, but I haven't see any kids refuse dumpling. Especially when they help making them.

Dumpling making is always a family affair in my family. We always make dumplings on the day off. Everyone has to help. It starts with chopping all the vegetable and waiting for my mom to season the filling. Then everyone has to help on wrapping it. The best part is to enjoy the freshly made dumpling. We normally don't eat much. But we always eat double when we have dumplings.

Here we see so many kids wouldn't touch any vegetable. One professor claim that his son wouldn't touch anything green. But after we invited his family for dumpling making, his son not only asked to have more dumplings later, but also asked to make dumpling. I am not sure it is the dumpling making process make the kid feel more interested in eating it or because our dumpling is tasty. I would like to believe that's the first one. I truly believe that involve kids in the process of making food is the first step to get them to eat right. For the Chinese family it seems to start with dumpling making.

In Taiwan, or I should say at Taipei, you can easily find noodle store for fresh made noodle and dumpling wraps. People from northern China are more family with dough making. Unfortunately both side of my parents are native Taiwanese that dough making is never happen in my family. I didn't learn about how to work with dough until I was in high school taking cooking class. And only until I was frustrated with the frozen dumpling wraps that I try to figure out how to make nice dumpling wrap from scratch.

The problem with the frozen dumpling wraps is that you really need to defrozed it slowly. At the same time, there shouldn't be any moisture accumulate in the package, and that's practically impossible. On top of that, the frozen dumpling break up much easier and is not as easy to wrap. With some basic knowledge of Chinese dough making, it is not so difficult to make it your own.

There are two kind of Chinese dough. One made with cold water, one made with boiling-hot water. Dumpling wrap is the the cold water dough. The basic recipe is 3 parts of flour with 1 part of water, add a pinch of salt. And that's it. Unimaginably simple. Mix everything together, let it rest for 15 min. Then really knead it well for a while. The traditional dumpling wrap should be roll out one by one. The wrap should have thick center and thin outside. That way the fold of the dumpling won't have a big lump of dough. After trying this process for a while, we find that this involved way too much work. Especially I am not good with using the rolling pin. In order to make big quantity of dumpling fast with just the two of us, we decided to get a nice Italian pasta machine. Using the machine roll out beautiful, evenly thin dough. Then we can simply cut out the circle to use as dumpling wrap. And the cutter is just a clean can that was chosen for its size.

I have been interested in making the dumpling dough with whole wheat flour. As it turn out, whole wheat flour doesn't have enough gluten that the finished dumpling break easily during the boiling process. With all the experiment with making pizza, pasta, we have got a variety of flour in our pantry. So one day, I decide to try to use a mix of different flour to see how it would turn out. I mixed in whole wheat flour, durum flour, regular unbleached flour, and bread flour. I used 4+1/2 cup of flour, that means using one cup of everything and an extra half cup of whole wheat. The end result, the dumpling wraps are so tasty that we stick with this recipe from now on.

Dumpling wraps

whole wheat flour 1+1/2 cup
durum wheat flour 1 cup
all purpose flour 1 cup
bread flour 1 cup
salt 1/2 tsp
cold water 1+1/2 cup

1. Mix everything together. Form a ball. Let rest for 15 min.
2. Knead the dough as good as you can. Use some flour if it is too sticky.
3. Roll out think sheets with pasta machine. (7 in my machine setting.) Cut out the circle with a can.

Fresh dough should be used right away. If you want to stack them, dust some flour in between.

Fresh herb in Chinese cooking -- Omelet

Herbs are easy to grow. My herb bed was always over producing that I tried to give away as much herbs as I can. The problem is most people don't know what to do with fresh herbs.
I have been asked a few times, what herb do Chinese use? Chinese has a long history on using herbal medicine. But that was used by certified Chinese medical doctor. Most people don't know the use of all the Chinese herbs for medicine. For everyday cooking, Chinese use ginger, garlic, Oriental chive(flat leave chive), green onion, basil(similar to Thai basil), cilantro, Chinese celery. (a small version of celery, with stronger flavor) The list is not too long compare to western cuisine.
Here is a easy Chinese dish that my mom used to make when she felt there were not enough stuffs on the table or when we had unexpected guest. The cheapest version is made with green onion. (Which you can get them free when you buy vegetable at the traditional market in Taiwan.)

Chinese Omelet

Eggs 2~4
Green onion a bunch (or other veggie/herb)
salt

All you need to do is mix everything together. Use a little bit oil on the frying pan. Make sure the pan is hot enough before you pour the mixture in. Fry it until golden on both side.

Here the green onion can be replaced with different kind of fresh herb and vegetable. The common one I have at home are green onion, grated carrots, sliced onion, salted dry Dikon radish, basil(normally with sesame oil), oriental chive. Here I have been cooking it also with spinach, beet leaves, regular chive.
When the herb was over producing in the garden, sometimes I put in too much chive that the omelet became very hard to flip. Well, that's the small price to pay.

Cold noodles

Cold noodles is something you can easily get in Taiwan. Every 7-eleven or convenience store sells them. It is a perfect meal for the hot summer day. I was so used to the convenience of getting it that I never try to figure out how to make it.
Until few years ago, one day, I suddenly feel like to have cold noodles. Well, living in the mid-west which means there is no way for me to find them any where near by. Even if I can find them, they might not taste right any way. So I got on the internet and searched for the recipe. It turns out to be very simple to make. As long as you can find the good noodle to go with.
Since I don't really cook with measurements. This recipe would include some measurements, but only for reference. Feel free to adjust it to your own taste.


Cold noodle sauce


Sesame paste 4 tbsp
Peanut butter 4 tbsp(or any nut butter)
Chinese black vinegar 1 tbsp(or lemon/lime juice)
Soy sauce 1 tbsp
Water - some for consistency

**All the quantities are for suggestion, not absolute.**


Mix the sesame paste and nut butter with a little bit of water to make it mix-able. Add enough vinegar and soy sauce to taste. Add a bit more water to make the consistency of egg yoke.
If you like, you can also add a little bit of chili pepper(Chili sauce), garlic, or satey sauce(Chinese BBQ sauce). Which will give the sauce more depth in flavor.

As I was saying, this recipe can be adjusted to any way you like. If I am making for people with nut allergy, I would only use the sesame paste. (I got the black sesame paste from the Chinese store, but you can use the regular one.) For the gluten free diet people, you can get the gluten free soy sauce and replace regular noodle with rice noodles or mung bean noodles.

For the noodle, I prefer home-made noodles. (Chinese noodle recipe is simply 3 cup flour with 1 cup water with a pinch of salt.) If you want the authentic Chinese style, you can find the 'oil noodle'(some sort of yellow noodle) from the Chinese store. I don't like the fact they put food coloring in it. Or you can use spaghetti to substitute. Make sure you don’t over cook it. Use ice-bath or a fan to cool the noodle when you get them out of hot water to stop the cooking process. “Al dente” is the key to tasty cold noodles for Chinese just like pasta for Italians.


This dish is commonly topped with some vegetables. Some people would even put cooked meat or egg on it. Just make sure everything is in thin strips. Vegetable can be cucumber, bell pepper, carrot, zucchini, lettuce, celery...... You can also use cilantro, basil, or Chinese celery on it. For the meat eater, some cook chicken breast broken into strips or sliced cooked egg might work as well. If you want to add some herb, cilantro and green onion would be the Chinese choice. But I don't see anything wrong with it if you add some Thai basil on it.


This sauce is also very good for dipping for the vegetables and rice paper spring rolls. Well the possibility is endless. Maybe you can come up with your own way of using it.

So, we have moved to Miami. I feel very sad about it. Yes, there is a new job, new possibilities and so on and so forth, but we have left the garden behind. Our three apple trees, two blueberry bushes, vegetable patch, herb bed, etc etc will all have to get along without us, and we will have to get along without them. Land is expensive in Miami. We're renting an apartment for now, looking for an opportunity to buy a house with lots of lawn we can turn into a vegetable garden and tropical fruit orchard. I hope we get lucky: finding a place we can afford and also a place that permits us to continue to garden as we have done will require some good fortune. Yuhfen's "from garden to kitchen" concept is so brilliant, yet we've barely gotten it started. I hope we can do some retrospective posts over the next few months, remembering all the good meals we've made using ingredients from our Illinois garden.

Miami is a strange place. We have yet to find a real farmers market. We found an outdoor market, billed as a "farmers" market, which basically replicated the produce section of Whole Foods. Organic strawberries from California, organic asparagus from Argentina, you get the picture. Just imagine moving the produce section of Whole Foods into a parking lot with tents. There were no farmers there. As I said, strange. Almost as strange as moving to the US from another country, as I have experienced before. The supermarkets are mostly terrible. I wonder where the restaurant chefs go to find their fresh produce. We went to a speciality organic produce store and bought nothing. It really was that bad. Either too expensive, or inedible.

It will be a challenge to garden here. There is hard coral underneath a very thin layer of top soil. I witnessed it first hand. The soil was less than a foot deep where I dug! Yet stuff does grow here. It is a tropical paradise in some places. And people do garden here. Yuhfen has found two Miami gardener's blogs already. There is hope, but first we need to find our Miami house and garden.

Cooking with minimum-beef stew

A while back, David and I were discussing what are the kitchen tools we can't live without, and what are the minimum kitchen tools/gadgets we would choose if we have limited budget and space. What we didn't realize, we actually get to live by minimum this past week.

We moved from Champaign to Miami. It is a long way. This time, we have mover do the moving. The only inconvenience is, they are not going to get here when we arrived. So I planned ahead. When we packed, we set aside a set of cooking tools, so we can still do some cooking before the moving truck gets here. It turns out, a very good idea. Due to some complication, the mover was supposed to be here three days ago, they called to say that they are not going to arrive until next Monday. That put our selection into test for the entire week.

We have a small car. Since we have a few things we have to bring alone, enough clothes for the whole week, two little hamsters occupied two big cages, my African violets and live herbs, David's books for preparing for teaching, computers, valuables, and David's bassoon and my flute, and enough bedding stuffs so we can sleep on the floor. We don't really have much space for the cooking stuff. We used the blue recycle bin as our size limit for the tools we were going to bring along. Here is what we end up with. Our big frying pan with lid, one wooden spatula, one silicon spatula, one set measuring cups, one sharp santoku knife, a set of thermal pots, a set of hand blender/mixer/processor, two bowls, two medium plates, two big plates, a balloon whisk, two pair of chopsticks, can opener, and the pasta cutter just because we don't want to lose it. Food/seasoning wise, we brought olive oil, vinegar, salt, sugar, pepper grinder, a big container of rice and a big container of granola. And some last minute dug out potatoes.

As it turns out, it was a good plan to keep the things limited. At the very last minute we had to fit much more things into the car. Our friend, Brett, took my offer to add our grapes into the apple wine he was making. He gave us a five gallon bucket of the fermenting wine which is too good to leave behind. And at the end, the only room available in the car for it is the front passenger's leg space. It was fine for me to sit with the five gallon bucket there. It was hard for David.

So how did we do this past week? Other than the time we were outside, we manage to cook every meal in this kitchen. No take out pizza. At the first, we cook mostly the things we brought with us. We went to the first grocery store and came back almost empty handed. Only got onion there because we planed to make risotto. The rest of produces are so bad that I don't even want to touch it. I guess, moving from the fresh pick veggies from the garden to the not-so-fresh-at-all produce aisle is a big shock to get adjust to. The very next day, I asked every person I met where you can get fresh produce, and when and where is the farmer's market. As the result of one week's search, the so call organic shop means sell things across the country twice the price we used to pay at the farmer's market. The farmer's market in Miami is a big disappointment as well. The produces are still in their shipping box with the label on, just like the one you see at the organic aisle in the store. I research the possibility of CSA, unfortunately the program are not going to start until November. I can understand that the veggies are not doing well here in the summer heat of southern Florida. But I can't believe there is no where to find local produce avocado, longan, eggs, or milk. This is not midwest winter. I can't believe there is nothing this land can offer at this season.

On top of disappointment about fresh produces here, we also had trouble finding our tools. The very first day, David got himself a bottle of wine from the store. When he wanted to get some wine to drink, the core screw was nowhere to find. We don't have much things with us, it was not hard to search everything around. We both remember vividly that core screw and can opener were put aside for taking with us, but where would they be? I had to go to the neighbor to ask for borrowing the core screw, using this chance to meet the neighbor at the first day was a bit strange. Not until yesterday it come to my mind that I pack some small things into the hand blender's box that the core screw was included.

The other thing we realized in the week of living with minimum is that you can never think of everything. Like we have the ingredient to make the tiramisu. We thought we have enough stuffs and tools to make it. But then we forgot that we don't have any container that we can put the whole thing in, nor the mixing bowl to use to beat the eggs in. That haven't include the espresso, since there is always the option to go to the coffee shop to get some.

But we did cook with what we have.
I made a beef stew that David claim is the best he had. Well, I used the Chinese stew concept to cook with western flavor since I don't have any of the Chinese seasoning, soy sauce and Chinese vinegar. It turned out quite well. We went to watch "Julie & Julia", in the movie, we realized that I accidentally made a variation of Julia's beef stew.

Beef Stew

Beef, cut in cubes (I think the one I used is chuck eye)
Onion cut into big pieces
Potato, Carrots any kind of root vegetable, cut in chucks
Fresh herbs (I used lemon thyme and oregano, because that's what I have in the pot.)
Red wine
Oil for frying
Salt and ground pepper to taste

Started by browning the beef in a pot with high heat. Only put enough beef to cover the bottom of the pot. You might need to do this a few times. When every side is browned, set aside.
After done with the beef, cook the onion with the leftover oil from browning the beef. Use median heat. Put in a little bit salt to season the onion. When the onion is soft, put in the rest of vegetable. Brown the vegetable a little bit. Add oil if needed. Add enough salt to season the vegetable.
Pure about a cup and half of wine into the pot. Yes, you get to drink the rest of it. Add the beef back to the pot.
Add enough water to cover everything. Add more salt to season. Add herbs. Crank up the heat to get it boil.

After it boil for 10 min, I put the pot into the thermal cooker. Which is a big thermos that can fit a pot, and keeps the pot hot for a long time. Then we wait for 2~3 hours before we have the tasty beef.

If you don't have the thermal cooker, you can still cook at slow heat on the stove or use the slow cooker, cook it for 2~3 hours.

The truth is we never wait for the 2 hours. I didn't start it until it was too late, that we start eating when the beef is cooked through. But it doesn't matter, with the potato from our garden, the nice wine we got that day, the stew turn out beautifully. A little bit chewy, no body minds.

Risotto

This is strictly not much of a "from garden to kitchen" dish...However, if I look retrospectively over all the risottos we've made (and happy times spent with friends), the vegetables from the garden have this remarkable knack of making their way into the dish.

First of all, what is risotto, you might ask? Speaking as a non-native maker of risotto, risotto is this Italian dish which involves frying rice, adding wine and stock, and generally either some leftovers from a previous meal or some fresh vegetable and/or meat added. It's sort of Italian paella (or is paella a sort of Spanish risotto?) They do, however, differ in certain structural principles. So don't take the analogy too far, okay?

Now, I've made risotto all my life, but it was not until Stefania taught me how to do it properly, that I finally felt happy with my risotto to the point now that I am quite proud of it.

My fondest memory of making risotto was the first time I did it with Stefania and that is where the garden comes in. Because she's vegetarian, Yuhfen and I decided to make a vegetable stock that was the greatest stock I think we ever made. We literally ransacked the garden for leeks, herbs, Swiss chard, potatoes, carrots, and lots of other things I can't even recall now. (Yuhfen: Some cabbage family leaves. Like the leaves of broccoli.) We stuffed them all into a stock pot and boiled it. That was truly an amazing stock which in turn made an amazing risotto.

So back to the story. As you should be realizing, before you start risotto, you need a supply of stock on the boil. I emphasize that because the stock needs to be boiling/simmering as it is added to the risotto. Apart from the vegetable stock from the garden, I often make chicken stock by going to the grocery store, buying a whole roasted chicken, eating it over a couple of days, and then boiling up the bones for an hour or two. You can also make stock out of pork ribs or whatever. (Yuhfen: this is what you can do with the leftover Thanksgiving turkey bones.)

So you have your stock on the boil. You should chop up an onion, get a large (12 inch) frying pan with lid, put some oil in and start frying the onions. When they're cooked a bit, you should add about two cups of rice and fry that too with the onions. Be generous with the oil so that all the rice is coated. At this point I have to make two digressions:

Digression 1: Why fry the rice? The purpose of frying the rice is to produce a final risotto in which the rice is "al dente" rather than a nasty mush. This is very important to Italians. What happens is that the oil is forced into the rice grain, and when water (stock) is added later, it repels the water or at least makes it more difficult for the water to penetrate to the center of the grain. The result is that the finished risotto is al dente or even slightly crunchy.

Digression 2: What sort of rice should you use? The short answer is "any". But the type of rice you use will determine what sort of risotto you get. This is where Yuhfen and I differ fairly radically. Yuhfen likes her risotto "creamy" which is achieved by using unwashed short grain rice. If you like your risotto "not creamy" as I do, it is best to use par-boiled rice. I've seen it in some grocery stores, but not all. You're more likely to find it at an "international" store.

Okay, back to the big frying pan. Your rice is in there with the onions frying at medium-high temperature in the oil. Keep it going for a few minutes. Stir and mix constantly. I use a wooden spatula because it can take the heat and not scratch the pan. Listen for the first sounds of popping rice grains. You need to fry the rice well, okay? When you start to hear the rice popping immediately quench with a cup of excellent white wine (a good plan is to drink the rest of the bottle with dinner) and about a cup of the boiling stock. (Yuhfen: A good way to judge if the rice is ready is the rice should turn translucent. Last time I made it, I found that if I really fry the rice well at this stage, the end result come out much better. You can use red wine to pair with particular ingredients. One time we cook ham with red wine, the end result is a beautiful purple-ish risotto.) (Don't forget to lower the heat to low after you add the wine. From now on, keep the heat at the level to keep the whole thing lightly simmering.)

Now you keep adding stock as it gets absorbed, one ladle scoop at a time, stirring occasionally and if you like, you can cover the pan with the lid for short periods. The trick is that the risotto should never stop boiling. (Yuhfen: I like the Alton Brown method. Which is add enough to cover the rice each time. This way you don't need to keep adding and stirring.)

At the appropriate point (so that they don't get overcooked) you need to add the extra ingredients. This also requires a bit of digression. In paella one often adds a whole bunch of stuff, various sea foods or whatever. Stefania taught me to keep it simple (and I'm sold on this now). So, add only one or two ingredients. Here are a few examples: 1. Radicchio, or 2. mushrooms, or 3. mushrooms and ham, or 4. mushrooms and chicken (pre-cooked), or 5. mushrooms and sausage (pre-cooked), or 6. asparagus, or 7. asparagus and ham, or 8. artichoke hearts. Hopefully you get the picture. Pick a favorite ingredient (preferably from the garden), or try a combination of two things you think will work well together. (Yuhfen: Some idea about when to add the extra ingredients. Put the thing in at the time that it would be perfectly cooked when the rice is done. For example, fresh mushroom take no time to cook. Put them in when the rice is almost done. For vegetable, I would add them while the rice still under cooked. Ham or bacon, put them in with the onion so the flavor will be absorbed by the rice.)

As you near the finish, add some combination of your favorite herbs. As always with herbs, experiment combining herbs with ingredients and combining herbs with each other. Make yourself a surprise! Herbs are very forgiving, but oregano is a perennial favorite. (Yuhfen: A fool proof combination is oregano + thyme.) Remember to taste, season with salt and pepper all the way through the process from the beginning and keep tasting.

When your rice is al dente, turn off the stove, add a tablespoon of butter, stir in, and grate some parmesan cheese on top. Stir that in too. Enjoy!

Apologies if that was long winded, but risotto is very special and deserves that sort of attention. Have fun making it!

Stir fry rice noodle

A lot of people ask me what's the difference between Chinese food and Taiwanese food. That like asking what's the difference between fast food and Wendy's. Most American don't realize that there are a lot of different variety of Chinese food. Unfortunately, most Chinese restaurants in US serve pretty much similar stuffs, that there is no way for them to understand that northern China, southern China, or even Taiwan all has it own unique cousin.
In Taiwan, we have all kind of Chinese food. Especial in Taipei, you can find a Szechwan restaurant right next to a Shanghai restaurant. And people in Taiwan know what to expect when they go to one versus the other. Since people in Taiwan are mostly emigrants came from some part of China some time in the past, Chinese food in Taiwan, contain almost all the possible Chinese food. Every time people ask me what is Taiwanese food, I have trouble to come up with one dish that's not a specialty of some other part of China. Until I think of rice noodle.
Although rice is a staple of Chinese cousin, most of noodle in Chinese food are still made of wheat flour. And rice noodle seems to be used mostly in Taiwan. One time I was talking about rice noodle with a friend who is from HongKong. And I found the rice noodle he was talking about is totally different from what I have in mind.
Cooking the rice noodle is actually rather simple if you know how to stir fry. Since this is a dish can be verified easily, I am going to write the recipe without the firm ingredients and portion.

Stir fry rice noodle

Vegetable: cabbage, onion, carrot, pea, bean, broccoli...anything you think would taste good in stir fry
Mushroom
Meat: any sort of meat good for stir fry, generally small pieces for quick cooking
Rice noodle: You can get them in the Chinese stores. There are two kind of rice noodle. One thin and one thick. For stir fry we normally use the thin one. If you use the thick one, it need to be pre-boiled. I only get the one from Taiwan. Don't ask me why.
Seasoning: salt, ground white pepper, soy sauce, cooking wine, vinegar....you don't need all of them, as long as it taste good, it would be fine.
Flavor: garlic, ginger, cilantro, basil....It depends on what you are cooking and what kind of flavor you try to achieve.

So the basic way of cooking rice noodle is to do a quick stir fry of veggies and meat. It is good to have some liquid with the stir fry since the noodle would absorb the liquid. If the stir fry is dry, add a bit of water before adding the noodle. Pre-soak the noodle in cold water for about 10 minutes. Add the noodle(without water) to the stir fry. Cook until the noodle is done. (try a piece to see how it taste.) If it needs some more seasoning, add some more salt or soy sauce (vinegar, wine optional.) You might need to add more water from time to time, so the noodle can cook through. Avoid put in too much water at once, unless you are making the noddle soup.

For example: to make vegetarian mushroom/cabbage rice noodle, I would cut the mushroom in slices and chop the cabbage in small pieces. I would also add a little bit of sliced carrot to make the color more pleasing. Also some onion for flavor. Start by heating the oil and quick stir fry the onion and carrot, because they take longer time to cook. When they are half cooked, add the cabbage and add the salt to season at this point. Add the mushroom the last since it doesn't take much time to cook at all. Season with soy sauce and a little bit of cooking wine. You need to over seasoned at this stage otherwise the noodle will be flavorless. If it is still dry, add about half cup of water. As soon as everything is close to done (or still a little bit under cooked) add the soaked rice noodle. Keep stirring to mix everything well. Try a small piece of noodle to see if the noodle is done and if it needs more seasoning.

For stir fry meat, cut meat into thin slices. Pre-marinate the meat. (Chicken with wine and salt, beef or pork with soy sauce, vinegar and wine) To keep the meat tender, you can add a egg white and some corn starch. Heat some oil in a pan with high heat.( you would need quite a bit of oil here) Part cook the meat, take them out of the pan as soon as the serface is cookes. Then cook the vegetable stir fry. Add the meat back in when the vegetable are about done. This way, the meat doesn't get over cooked.

How do you know how to garden?

A lot of people ask me questions start with "how do you know how..." Especially after we started our vegetable garden, more and more people start to ask me how and where I learn to garden and grow stuffs. The truth is, this is the first house I ever live in with a garden that I can do anything with. I grow up in aparement building. The only thing I ever grew in my life are those house plants I could plant in the flower pots. I didn't start gardening until three years ago when we got the house. I never started serious about growing things until we own our house.
So how did I learn?
Well, when we first get here in Champaign, we found the community garden near Orchar Down. We started by going there to see what kind of vegetables people grow. When we went visit, we not only check on what they planted, we also pay attaintion on when they plant it, how they take care of the plants, whether the plants are doing well.
Then we start growing our own vegetable. A lot of them. We tried to grow everything we are interested in eating. Sometimes even things we never have before, like Swiss Chard. When you plant several things at once, even some of them fail, you don't feel so bad. You still get some other things to eat.
One of our first visit to Pontious farm, the U-pick blueberry farm, I found that they got one of the Asian herb, shi-so. I asked the owner of the farm where she got the seeds from, she introduced me to Johnny's seed catalog. This is the most useful catalog I have ever seen. Inside the catalog, you can find all the information you would ever need for germinating the seed, picking a good spot to plant, what kind of problem to expect, to when and how to pick the vegetable. Now when I have a question about some specific plant, normally I would check the catalog first, before I try the internet.
Another important thing about planting is to pay attention to how the plants are doing. You can see if the leaves are drying out, if there are some bugs on the vegetables, or the same kind of plants do better at one side of the garden than the other side. By paying attention, you can learn a lot about what the plants need, what they prefer. Sometimes trail and err is the best way to learn. Especially the possible lose is only a few seeds. So if you are not sure what's the best spot for a particular plant, put one each at different location, soon you will figure out what they like and dislike.
If you don't have much time to take care of the plants, can you garden? Of course you still can. There are a lot of plants that only require minimum cares. I recommend people start by growing herb. Most herbs are weeds at some point in the past. That means they would do quite well without much tending. Just make sure when you first plant it, give it regular water everyday for about two weeks. After the plants get established, they don't need watering unless it is extreme drought. Just make sure you put them in a sunny spot. Most herbs are sun lovers. Plants in the pot generally need more watering than the plants in the ground. So if you can put them in the ground, do so. That would make life easier.
Have I get you interested? If you are up for trying, here is a list of things that are easy to grow.

Herbs from seed: basil, cilantro(seeds are called coriander), dill, fennel,(both dill and fennel produce lots of seeds. Once they are growing in the garden, you can't get rid of them.), sweet marjoram
Herbs from cutting or transplant: thyme, oregano, wild marjoram, chive

Root vegetables: beets, radishes, potato(if you get some potato germinate before you can finish it, dig a big whole in the garden and plant them)
Leave vegetable: lettuce, Swiss chard, oriental amaranth
Other vegetable: tomato, pole beans, pea

Quiche

Quiche is one of the most adaptable dishes. I like it because, not only is it tasty, but you can put a large variety of ingredients from the garden into the quiche. Now, there are probably a thousand different ways to make quiche, but here is how I approach it:

1. The crust. Traditionally, this should involve lots of butter and/or lard. However, I've experimented over the years and have come up with the following recipe for the crust: a) place 1 cup of flour (take your pick, but don't use only whole wheat, otherwise it won't bind) in a bowl, b) add 1/2 tsp salt, c) slowly add olive oil and mix until you have something that looks like breadcrumbs. Take your time to break up lumps, and don't add too much oil. Better a little less than too much. d) Add water until the whole thing binds together into a wet dough (wetter than bread dough).
Once you have a dough, roll it with a rolling pin and line your pie dish appropriately. Some people pre-bake the crust, I don't, but I think it can be a useful idea on occasion.

2. The custard. Many recipes call for heavy cream. I dislike this idea intensely. I use milk and any liquid drained from the par-cooked vegetables (see below). Again, after much experimentation I've settled on the following easy formula. For one quiche, break three eggs into a measuring cup and note the volume. Add an EQUAL volume of liquid (milk + drained liquid from step 3) to the eggs and whisk it all together. I also add salt in to the mixture at this point, but you'll have to judge how much. For example, if you add olives into the filling, you'll use less salt than if you don't add olives into the filling. Since you can add just about anything into the filling, there is no formula for the salt.

3. The filling. Well, here is where you go to the garden and pick something. You can make a filling out of any of the following things: Broccoli, Swiss chard, bacon, ham, mushrooms, olives, beet leaves, spinach, sweet potato leaves, zucchini flowers, sun-dried tomatoes, onion, chives, just to name a few. Now, I do have an opinion about herbs. Hopefully you have a thriving herb garden... In my opinion, there are three, maybe four herbs that go exceedingly well with egg. They are: Tarragon, thyme, oregano, and maybe sweet marjoram. You might also try and experiment with different combinations of these four herbs. What I generally do at this point is a sort of a stir-fry/steam to par-cook the filling before adding it to the pie dish. I start with the pan really hot, caramelize the onions a touch (a technique I learned from Yuhfen), then add the leafy veg/mushrooms or whatever and finish with herbs after steaming for a minute or two. I drain any excess liquid (very important step) and add it to the egg mixture (step 2).

4. The cheese. Yes, I do need to get my dose of cholestrol and this is where I get it. There are many variants I like. Variant 1: Grate yourself some cheddar, gouda, gruyere, or whatever your favorite cheese is and sprinkle on top. Variant 2: Grate parmesan cheese on top (please, if you do one thing, get yourself a block of real parmesan and a micrograter). Variant 3: Use feta. Mmm so good, I feel hungry just writing this...

5. Bake at 180C (that's 350F for those stuck in the world of imperial units) for about 45 min. to 1 hour. (I set the timer for 45 and check for browning on top.)

It's raining!!

It's July 4th. Probably the worst day to rain for most Americans. Well, the rain goes on all day here. Ruin most people's plan on having a big BBQ party.

For us, it was good. The garden gets the very needed rain. And we have the party planned for tomorrow, July 5th. The weather will be perfect tomorrow. The only problem we need to worry is that the ground will be soaking wet. Well, a little mud on the shoes is unavoidable.

For the party, we are going to try to serve as much from the garden as possible. David is going to dig out more potato tomorrow morning. Those will go straight to the grill. I have already made some pickled radish and carrot, Taiwan style. The tomato are not quite ready yet. We have lots of them, but all of them are still green. Including the green variety that I don't know how to tell that they are ready. Well, grilled green tomato will be the solution for that. I will also make some rice paper spring roll with the last little bit of lettuce we have left. We will also cut off the first cabbage tomorrow and make some cabbage roll with it. We also going to make two quiche with Swiss chard.

Swiss chard is one of the best summer vegetable. You only need to plant it once per year. It last all summer without bolting. It grows fast. Just a few plants are enough to give us enough green whenever we want, plus extra to give away. They also look very pretty, at least the variety I planted, Bright Light, has a beautiful array of colors. The only problem is, most people don't know what to do with them. In order to give them away, I need to provide a list of possible way to cook them. Normally I would suggest to use the green part as any way you would cook spinach, and cook the stem like celery. Here is one of our favorite, make a quiche out of it.
David will post the recipe in the next post.

Another summer favorite we have this year is oriental amaranth. I grow up with this leafy vegetable. It is very tender if you boil it. It has very mild flavor, which make it good to cook with light flavor stuff like fish. From the oriental seed company, EverGreenSeeds, I was able to get three different varieties of them, red, white(pale green), and red strip. It only germinates in warm weather. As long as it comes out, it will be ready for harvest in 30 days. And they are also good for the entire summer. I planted all three of them together. The colors are so beautiful.

To cook the amaranth, the easy way would be simply stir fry with some garlic and oil. Or you can make a Chinese style vegetable soup (David says it is more like broth.) with tofu or fish. Chinese don't really use it raw. But I find it quite tasty by itself. So you can use it to substitute lettuce in summer. I just seeded some more amaranth in the failing soybean bed.(Due to baby rabbits in the vegetable patch.) This time I arranged them in a square pattern. We will see how it turns out.

Strawberry, Avocado, Spinach salad

This dish is already off the season. We were way too busy last month to make the post. And when the strawberries were ready in our yard, we were actually away on a trip. So we didn't enjoy most of them either.
But this is a very tasty salad. We got some early strawberries from the farmer's market, and the spinach from our garden. They are so good together that David keeps asking for more. And it is really easy to make.

Strawberry, Avocado, Spinach Salad

A bunch of garden fresh spinach
A handful of sweet strawberries
One avocado

1 tbsp Champagne vinegar
3 tbsp Olive oil
1/2 tsp Salt
Fresh ground pepper to taste

1. Cut everything in bit size. Mix them in a big bowl. Only cut the avocado right before you mix in the vinaigrette.
2. Mix together the vinaigrette. Here the salt is essential. The vinaigrette should taste over salty. The saltiness will bring out the sweetness of strawberries.

Greeting!!

Hello, everyone.
Welcome to "From Garden to Kitchen"!

I set up this blog to share our experience on gardening and cooking.

I am so used to have some friend call/e-mail/message any time of the day to ask me for the recipe for a particular food/ingredient/occasion. I figure, it might be easier if I keep them all in one place. So David and I can post what we have been cooking lately, and what people have been asking about.

For gardening, I just want to keep all the friends and family updated on what is growing and what is ready to eat in our garden. And maybe also share a few tips we discovered from trial and error.

Right now, in late June, everything in the garden is doing well. The production in the garden is so good that we can't keep up with the production from the vegetable patch. We only cook from the garden now, and we have way to much of stuff so there is no way we can ever finish it all.

This blog is for anyone, who we know or don't know. Feel free to send in a request or question by replying to any post. (I don't know if there is any way for people to leave a message on the blog. If you know how to do it, please let me know.) I can't promise that I will be able to reply in any timely fashion. But we will try our best.

So there you go. Enjoy the blog.

Beet and potato salad

The beets and radish are ready in our garden. We have been eating them since we got back from our trip over a week ago.
Monday night, we decide to invite Stefania and Eric over for dinner right before dinner time. So I have to come up with something to cook from the garden in a short time.
I convinced David to dig out the potato plants which are showing signs of drying. Those are the red potatoes. They are one of the easiest to grow. Our first one was the one potato that started germinating in the cupboard, and we decided to put it into the ground and forgot about it. Then one day, I noticed there were some potatoes showing under the soil. That was our first harvest.This year, we planted all the potatoes that were growing in the cupboard, plus a few different color ones I got from the store. Now we have two rows of potatoes growing at the end of the garden. I am pretty sure, David would say that's way too many of them. But any how, fresh potato tastes good. I think there would be people interested in getting them from us.
So what did I cook for Stefania and Eric? I made a beet/potato salad, boiled some snow pea, stir fry beet leaves with onion and mushroom, and oriental chive omelet. Eric asked what was not from the garden. Well, we don't have chicken (although we want to have them very much), so we have to get the eggs. And we don't have mushroom. (Although I have been thinking to figure out some way to get a shitake mushroom tray/box, whatever it is called.)

So here is the quick recipe for the beet/potato salad

Beet and potato salad

3 fresh beet roots skin on with the leaves cut off with 1 inch stem left
3 medium size red skin potato skin on, cut into half inch cubes
fresh dill
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp vinegar (any light flavor one would be fine)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Boil beet roots whole until tender. Boil potato. The potato are in smaller pieces, so put the potato in when the beets are half cooked. That way they would be done at the same time.
(I use my thermal pot here. Get the water to boil, put the beet roots in. Until it boil again. Put the pot into thermos. Wait 10 min. Take the whole thing out, boil it again with the potato. Finish it in the thermos for another 5~10 min.)
2. Skin the beet roots and cut them into the same size as potato. Mix them in a big bowl.
3. Add oil, vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. Mix in the chopped dill. Tastes good both warm and cold.
(The amount of oil and vinegar are guessing. I never measure them. You want enough oil to coat all the potato pieces. But only a little vinegar to bring up the flavor. You don't want to over-power the subtle flavors with vinegar - you should be able to taste the sweetness of the beet root. I used champagne vinegar. You can use any white vinegar, cider vinegar, or a touch of lemon juice would be good. The rule is to use about half vinegar than what you would normally put in the vinaigrette.)