Beans: The ultimate crop!

Beans are the ultimate crop.  They come in all sorts of sizes, colors, flavors, and there is a bean for every season.  In Southern California we are able to grow all sorts of beans all year around.  During the summer we can grow common beans, soy beans, lima beans, butter beans, and black eyed peas (yes I know its not exactly a bean but its found next to beans in the grocery store so lets call them beans for simplicity sake.)

Beans are great to plant in gardens as they are able to work with bacteria in the soil to help fix nitrogen in forms better absorbed by plants.  After the bean grows it is important to recycle the nitrogen by putting the dead plant matter back into the soil.  Of course this means that if the bacteria are not abundant in the soil the plants will have a difficult time absorbing nitrogen so they may not do well for a few years until the bacteria to becomes abundant in the soil.  Or one can help by adding an inoculate into the soil in form of dried bacterial powder or amending the preexisting soil with healthy soil from a neighboring organic farm or garden.

My search for beans happened when I began searching for the elusive purple fava beans and I came across some great sites.  Here are some resources I found which has a great selection of beans:

http://shop.nativeseeds.org/pages/seeds
http://www.rareseeds.com/store/vegetables/beans/
http://www.farmdirectseed.com/group.asp?grp=113

http://www.mammothonion.co.uk/shop/7/index.htm

The first link grows all sorts of native beans from the New World.  There are lots of varieties to sort through it's almost over whelming; however, I am sure that you will be able to find a variety that will suit your every need.  The second link is one of my favorite seed catalog in the United States.   They have a great collection of heirloom beans.  The third link offers my elusive purple Guatemalan fava beans.  The last link is a seed shop in the UK that offers a wide variety of European heirloom peas and beans that I have never heard of before.  I would love to try crossing the Red Flowered Broad Beans with the purple favas to get red flowering purple beans.

Anyways, the best part about beans is that there are many perennial beans so a poor farmer can save money on purchasing fresh seeds every year.  Here is a great website I found that talks about perennial crops.  They also make lots of great recommendations for tropical areas.

http://www.perennialsolutions.org/perennial-farming-systems-organic-agriculture-edible-permaculture-eric-toensmeier-large-scale-farmland.html

Finally, I wanted to let you know about a seed company that will send 25 free seed packets to registered charities.  So if you're working with a church, community service group, or a charity to build a garden then check out Seeds of Change.

http://www.seedsofchange.com/home.aspx

I hope this helps.

Earl

Halloween Pumpkin Chili

I have very fond memories of Halloween.

We didn't celebrate many holidays in my household, but mom always let us have Halloween.  Some years she would make my sister and me costumes, while other years we would have to recycle costumes or get creative with what we had.  One thing was for sure, costume or not I couldn't wait to go over to my friends' to go trick-o-treating.

My best friend growing up would always have the best Halloween parties.  We would help her dad decorate the house for it starting October 1st.  What I remember best about the parties was the food.  Every year it was a little different but you can guarantee there would be huge caldron of punch with dry ice, creepy horderves, and a big pot of chili with all the fixings you could ever want.

Let me elaborate on the fixings.  Goblin eyes (sliced stuffed olives), mashed brains (sour cream mixed with feta and slightly died), bones of bad children (fried noodles),  intestines (long shredded cheese), chopped heart bits (diced tomatoes), rotting body parts (green scallions) and  creepy crawlers (gummy worms and bugs).

Maybe it was the fact that I could put candy in my chili that impressed me, but ever since I was old enough to host my own Halloween party I try to recreate my childhood memories by making a big bowl of chili.  This year though Halloween fell on a Thursday (and no party planned) I still decided to make a big bowl of chili with all of my friends in mind.

In the past I've made burning lamb chili, ghastly white chili, vegetarian chili, etc but this year I decided to use a beautiful pumpkin from the National Heirloom Expo I went to last month.  It was a lot of work roasting and processing the pumpkin, and I only ended up using two cups of it.  So in retrospect I could have used a small can of pumpkin, but then I wouldn't have ended up with all my roasted pumpkin seeds!

Here's a super easy recipe to follow, especially since most of it came straight out of a can (standard size can).

Ingredients:

4tbs canola oil
2lb  course ground grass fed organic beef
2     medium sweet onion, diced
4     cloves of garlic, minced
2     cans of pinto beans, drained
2     cans of kidney beans, drained (I like to use one can of regular and one can of white kidney beans)
4     cans of diced tomatoes with juice
1     small can of fire roasted and diced green chiles with juice
2tsp chipotle paste
2c   mashed pumpkin puree

2     bay leaves
4tbsp chili powder
2tsp   rubbed sage
1tbsp pumpkin spice
Salt and pepper

First brown the onion and then add the beef and garlic.  Wait till the meat starts to brown before you add a half tablespoon of salt and a teaspoon of black pepper to it.  When the meat is 80-90% cooked add in your chili powder and pumpkin spice to the meat. 

At this point you should add in the can of diced chilies and chipotle paste followed by the beans and cans of tomatoes.  Give everything a good stir and bring it up to a boil.  Turn down the heat down to a low simmer, add the bay leaves and allow the chili to cook (lid off) for approximately 1-2hrs.  This reduced the liquid in my chili by 10-20%.  If you like a souper chili then I would recommend cooking with the lid on, but I personally enjoy a thick hearty chili.

At this point taste the chili and start adding in your pumpkin.  I added a cup first then slowly added more and more pumpkin till the flavor was where I wanted it to be.   I wanted it to taste like a chili with a after taste of pumpkin.  Then add the rubbed sage, stir and allow the mixture to cook for another 30 minutes or so to allow everything to bind together.

Serve hot garnished with just a touch of nutmeg and of course all our favorite fixings!


Friends... if you're out there reading this, chili at my place tonight! 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Building a Community Garden in Foreign Countries

I was approached by a lady at Roger's Community Garden (formally Neighborhood Community Garden) @ UCSD who wanted to know about building a community garden in Honduras where her church volunteers every year.

Specifically she wanted to know what plants she could plant there.  This was a difficult question to answer because for starters I have no idea what people eat in Honduras and also because there is so much education that goes into teaching people how to grow their own food.

I thought I would share some of the emails we have exchanged with each other in hopes that anyone who reads this will get an idea as to what goes into starting a community garden.

Dear Earl,

It was nice to meet you at the Community Garden at the UCSD. You have a great team of enthusiastic people, one of your team members gave us an informative tour, thank you so much! As I shared with you our church has a partnership with a church in Honduras, in the city San pedro Sula. The church in Honduras is located near the border of a river where people live in makeshift homes. There live about 2000 people along this river, the community is called Rio Blanco. We have the plan to build a Community Garden near  the church. The idea is that people can grow their own vegetables, perhaps sell them at the local "Pulperia's", little shops spread out in the river village. Since you seem to have experience with setting up a Community Garden, do you have tips for us? Warnings? Advice what works and what does not work? What kind of fruit/veggies would benefit young (pregnant) moms and kids the most? Would love to "pick your brain". Let me know what your thoughts are. 

Thank you again for receiving us in such a welcoming way yesterday. We loved the fruit of the garden :-)

MG

Missions Director

 

 

Hi MG,

Thank you very much for your kind words. 

There are many things that consider when building a community garden.  First selecting a great location is key.  Optimally most domesticated crops prefer at least 6hrs of sunlight and most summer crops prefer 8-10hrs.  You can get away with half the amount of sunlight, but you risk lower yields and higher chance of disease.  Though there are vegetables that prefer part shade during the hottest part of the summer, such as lettuce, swiss chard, kale, broccoli, and other leafy green vegetables which are rich in minerals and vitamins.  Along with ample sunlight you would want a space with good air flow which will help prevent fungus from growing on the plants.  I do not know of too many crops that will tolerate high stagnant humid conditions.  (Though there is a wide variety of squash and cucumbers that can grow in high humidity conditions.)

However, even with a great location, plenty of water or natural rainfall, and rich soil it is not enough to maintain a successful garden.  From my experience education becomes a big part of it.  At our garden we strive to first educated and explain to students the importance of eating healthy through eating a wide variety of organic vegetables and fruits.  Thankfully many of the students come with some knowledge of eating well. 

Then we have to teach them how to grow the vegetables which can be easier.  We show them how to make compost and apply it every season.  We show them how to plant the seeds and when the best time to do so are.  Once the seeds start coming up then we must constantly be maintaining them and treating for disease/pests before the disease/pest population get a chance to explode.  Weed, weed, weed!  Finally we have to show them when the proper time to harvest is.  Many students usually don't know when to harvest their food so the vegetables usually end up passing its prime.  Finally we have to teach the students how to save their own seeds.

*Seed saving is a crucial part of gardening.  Not only will it help save costs, but by saving seeds from the location they were sprouted and grown you end up selecting for plants that will do better in the given location.  I have found that after about 4-5 generations of selecting seeds, if I were to purchase the same seeds from the same seed company my home grown seeds sprout faster, grow better, and sometimes even taste better.

Finally, the hardest part for us is to teach the students how to cook their vegetables.  When we are forces to grow seasonally and grow foreign vegetables and odd varieties that are better suited for our area many times students come back and say that the vegetable didn't taste good and stop harvesting them.  So we really encourage each gardener to share recipes and techniques.  (Have you ever had blackened black kale?  You cook it in a hot skillet very quickly with a little bit of oil.  It changes lives and gardening habits!)  But it's not easy to adopt new eating habits.

For example, when I first started growing my own food I had great success with swiss chard.  Swiss chard is an attractive plant in the garden and grows very well.  My first chard grew for two years before it started to bolt (flower) and became inedible.  Of course I planted a whole row of them so when my corn, tomatoes (two crops that should not be planted next to each other), beans, peas, etc were not doing too well I had TONS of chard.  Every meal had chard in it.  Every potluck dish had chard in it.  I was giving chard away left and right and learning to cook it every which way.  Years later I found out no one enjoyed eating it.  I was the only one eating because I knew it was healthy for me.  Now I rarely eat chard and definitely stopped growing it....  Unfortunately, I am not the only gardener to share this experience.

The moral of the story is that I may be able to provide you with a list of vegetables that are healthy and good for me to eat, but Hondurans may not eat it.

On the plus side, it looks like there are TONS of fruits that will grow well in the Honduras.  Pineapples, oranges, coconuts, mangoes, bananas, papayas, passionfruit, guavas, etc.  I found that within community gardens it is nice to have communal orchards from where all members can partake in.  People who have no experience gardening and doesn't know what a potato plant looks like can usually recognize fruits on a tree.  It is also nice to have someone who will remain close to the garden for a long time to help maintain the tree.

When our garden first began there was a lot of opposition to planting an orchard.  Why?  Unfortunately, the majority of the founding members did not understand the point of planting trees that would not yield for them.  Fortunately, the few trees they allowed to be planted are now yielding and current members see the benefits of planting trees for future members.  The best time to plant a fruit tree is at least five years ago so get it going early.

Fruit trees planted in the outer perimeter of the garden can also provide several other benefits to the garden.  The roots can help stabilize the soil, lock in moisture, provide shade during hot days, protect crops from heavy winds, produce decoy fruit for the birds and other animals that may prey on precious fruiting crops (such as tomatoes).

It is important to also plant flowers and herbs in the garden.  Some flowers such as chrysanthemums, nasturtiums, pansies, etc are edible and make good companion plants as they attract beneficial insects/pollinators or act as decoys for pests.  Mint grows well almost everywhere and acts to deter some pests.

As for vegetables... it is important to eat a wide variety of produce.  As I have mentioned earlier, dark green leafy produce are easy to grow and full of minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants.  Collards will probably do well in Honduras as it is mainly grown in the South where the temperature and growing conditions are more likely to be similar to Rio Blanco.  However, if the people do not understand the vegetable they will not eat it.  It is important to select varieties of vegetables that are grown locally and understood by the people.

A friend gardener once told me that the best place to understand the people is to go to the local market and see what they are eating.  Look for old ladies growing specialty produce and try to get seeds from them.  Plant the dried beans, corn, pepper, and seeds from produce grown locally that you enjoy. 

If your goal is to take seeds back to the community garden then look for seeds that were developed in areas with growing conditions similar to Honduras.  There are lots of Asian varieties of greens, cucumbers, herbs, tomatoes, etc that were developed in hot humid conditions.  Also do not be afraid to try hybrid varieties.  Though it is difficult to save true seeds from hybrid varieties it is worth growing them as they will perform better.   If you contact Baker Creek Seeds (www.rareseeds.com) the sell seed collections selected for the humid South.  They (along with many seed companies) will donate seeds to non profits and community gardens.  Every year that seeds sit, the germination rates drop so the companies are willing to give them out for free.

If there is ample space it is also a good idea to incorporate animals into the community garden, such as chickens or rabbits.  Both animals provide great compost and can be maintained at a low cost.  If you are interested in learning more about incorporating animals... that's going to be a separate email.

Other random notes:  Peas and beans do not like super rich soil and will not grow well around garlic and onions.  I found it necessary to have a group of folks to over see the activities within the garden.   For the longest time we have had issues of people renting plots, under utilizing it, and not maintaining it.  By citing these people, encouraging them to grow more food, or asking them to leave we have created a much more productive environment. 

In our garden a mixture of personal plots and communal plots have worked out extremely well.  We grow certain crops to share with every member of the garden so that he/she may maximize what they can grow in his/her personal plot.  However, this all comes down to how the garden is set up. 

I realize this is quite the lengthy email.  If you would like me to elaborate on any of these points or if you feel like I did not address all the topics (such as how composting works which is crucial to maintaining a healthy garden) please let me know.

Thank you,

Earl

Vegan Avocado Cookies

I've been working on a recipe for a while and I was pretty happy with the way it turned out tonight.

Instead of making cookies I but these bready morsels into a mini cupcake tin and made mini muffins.

I think I will try adding a bit of cumin and instead of chocolate chips will make a chocolate frosting for them.

Surprisingly, chocolate and avocados go well together and I think cumin will help tie in the chocolate with the lime and avocado.

Italian @ the food coop

the nettle pesto and the raw red kale and apple salad w/ mock hazelnuts

Food coop update

So yesterday i made Coconut cilantro brown basmati rice and yellow cauliflower potato curry. I had forgotten how hard it is to actually cook at the food coop. With only one weak hot plate made for home use I barely got the curry to heat up. After an hour I had to leave before the thing even was done. Apparently it was pretty good but who's to say.

Today I decided to be better prepared and made the quinoa at home and took it in. I had already soaked the black beans yesterday. It took me 30minutes to heat up the hot plate enough to sauté/

This Week at the Food Co-op

With the start of a new year, a new quarter I have decided that I wanted to start out the year with a BANG at the Food Co-op. So this is the menu I have planned out for this week. I'm trying to come up with flavors that I can put out with what will be existing on the hot food bar.

Monday: Indian
Coconut Cashew Brown Basmati Rice
Cauliflower Coconut Curry
Tomato Potato Curry

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday
Black Beans
Vegetable Quinoa
Mexican Style Potatoes

Wednesday: Hare Krishna
(Taking the day off)

Thursday: Italian
Nettle Pesto Pasta
Warm Black Kale Salad
Rosemary Truffle Potatoes

Friday: Southern
Black Eye Peas
Grits
Stewed Greens w/ Potatoes

Now don't get too used to this. I'm only planning on cooking once a week, but I wanted to start the quarter by giving the patrons of the Food Co-op a taste of what's to come.

Hi Thai

After three years I finally found something I like at Hi. Thai on campus. Of course who could have guessed that shying away from the unidentifiable chicken, the green sheen mystery meat, msg loaded pho or greasy fried rice was all that would take. I highly recommend getting the vegetable and tofu yellow curry over rice.

It is a delicious dish full of carrots, broccoli, cabbage, potatoes and tofu in a fragrant yellow lemongrass curry topped over white rice.

New years resolution

So as part of my new years resolution I've decided to cut down on my intake of meat, and eat out less. Of course as I've said I've decided to cut down on my intake of meat. So I'm allowing myself a little bit of bacon once in a while or as a seasoning, Mexican food or fast food once a week, and going out and eating once a month.

The reasons being that 1) I've signed up for a CSA box that brings me a large box of produce every two weeks so I have to step up my vegetable consumption. 2) Vegetables contain lots of minerals and fiber and are healthy to eat. 3) Price of meat has gone up. 4) Although there is nothing wrong with eating meat if everyone consumed less meat then we can utilize more land to grow food to feed more people instead of livestock. 5) I spend a lot on going out and eating when I could be cooking at home.

With the tough economy I should be saving more of my income rather than eating out; however, I reserve the right to go out and treat myself to a nice dinner at least once a month. Quality rather than quantity.

So New Years Day friends and I ended up eating out all day because we were too hung over to cook. For breakfast I went to Local Habit in Hillcrest and ended up ordering Mac n Gouda, Home potatoes, and a Quiche for breakfast. (I was aiming to get a high protein breakfast in me without ordering any meat.) Then for dinner we ordered egg drop soup, a vegetable stir fry and vegetable fried rice from a Chinese take out place. Totally anti climatic and I wasn't sure if it was health either due to all the grease.

Tonight's dinner was a lot better. Ms. Texas and Ken D wanted to do a southern dinner so we had Paula Dean's black eyed peas with veggie bacon (soo good), mashed potatoes, cheesy grits, stewed collard/ kale/ beet greens, and corn syrup free pecan pie (not pictured but eaten). It was very filling and delicious. The key to delicious greens is not over cooking it and adding vinegar. Try adding a bit of red wine vinegar instead of distilled white vinegar, it adds a lot more flavor.

Mexican Pizza

Okay I do love pizza.

I used left overs from the fabulous taco Tuesday (Saturday) dinner to make a pizza last night.

I didn't use any cheese instead brushed the dough with a bit of olive oil and topped it with some mexican chicken cooked with peppers, onions, tomatoes, and lawry's taco seasoning; black beans; and whole canned chipotle peppers. I baked it for a while to dry out the beans and chicken a bit. When it came out of the oven I topped it with a bit of fresh cilantro. It was fantastic and very interesting. I wish I had sour cream to drizzle on it but on well :)

Taco Tuesday

Friends in town. Special taco tuesday Saturday night :)

Got beer?

For months now Roberto, Ken D, and I have been talking about brewing beer. By chance I was able to score seven 5 gallon glass carboys off Craigslist for a great price and this became our catalyst for brewing beer (and me doing something about the mead that's been brewing for the last two years.)

I knew I wanted to brew my imperial chocolate stout again, of course Ken D wanted to make a hoppy IPA, and Roberto wanted to try making a fruity beer. So on Saturday we all went down to American Home Brewing Supply to get our goods.

It was a lot of fun scooping and grinding our grains, picking out of hops, and choosing the right yeast for our desired beers. Then we got hit with the bill! $377.00! Okay it was a lot. But we're brewing 8 gallons each and we had to also get supplies other than ingredients.

We made a whole day out of brewing beers. Roberto brought his slow cooker with a pork shoulder which we slowly cooked all day for carnitas while we were boiling our beers and drinking beers.

By the end of the day we had gone through 40lb+ of malt extract, 25 gallons of filtered water, several 32oz beers, In-n-out, and amazing carnitas. Here's two pics I managed to take. First we shredded the pork and I am frying it in a cast iron pot with some duck fat to crisp it. The second pic was the beer 24hrs later in the fermenter.

Pizza Night

Inspired by Anthony Bourdain's lay over in Rome, some friends and I decided to make pizza.

I wish I could say we made it all from scratch but making a perfect pizza dough is a lot harder than it sounds. Plus no matter how I decide to make it it will never meet up to my expectations of the light thin fluffy pizza crust found in Italy. So I just stick to Whole Food's pizza dough. The key is to allow it ample time to rise (1 hour on oiled baking sheets on top of the stove while the oven is preheating to 425F) and not to over knee the dough.

So while we waited for the dough to rise we were boozing up on a great dry Castle Rock Chardonnay and a lemon soda mixed with German larger and picking out our toppings.

The key to a good pizza is the simplicity. I don't like to make pizzas that are super cheesy and covered in sauce. The Italians don't add more than three different flavors to the pizza, and we decided to stick to the Italian method.

For the first pizza we brushed the crush with some home grown and made sun dried tomato italian basil pesto with a little extra olive oil and topped it with a bits of marinated artichoke hearts, feta, more chopped sun dried tomatoes in oil, and shredded roasted chicken. Yes I realize that was four toppings but the sun dried tomato was just an extension of the base sauce so it doesn't count.

The second pizza we decided to do something a little more classic. We started with a thin layer of homemade tomato sauce then topped it with thin slices of mozzarella (the big white ball of cheese in liquid is the only type of mozzarella that should be used), olives marinated mushrooms and anchovies... yummm. Again that was four toppings but we used a cow's milk mozzarella instead of buffalo and it was very mild in flavor.

The two pizzas were excellent. The pesto on the first pizza was so flavorful and really added a great flavor to the pizza. While the bits of marinated artichoke hearts added the right amount of acidity to make your mouth water. The chicken was also roasted to perfection and remained moist while the pizza was baking.

The second pizza was even better and so different. You could taste each topping. The pungent, nutty black olives, savory mushrooms, and the salty anchovies. Each flavor was very different but the creamy melted cheese and the slightly sweet and acidic tomato sauce harmonized all the sharp flavors.

Of course this wasn't a total carb party. We did have our greens. Ken D picked some fresh arugula (also seeds brought back from Italy) and dressed it with an amazing fig mustard vinegarette along with the left over feta. It was pretty amazing. I'm going to try and recreate the recipe for you.

Fig Mustard Vinegarette

1/4 cup Sherry Vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 egg yolk smashed
1/2 minced small sweet onion (about 3 tbsp or 1 shallot minced)
3 tbsp fig preserve

Shake all ingredients in a blender or jar. Add up to equal part light flavored olive oil and shake again.

Toss with salad and don't forget to add a pinch of kosher salt and pepper to the salad.

Kale salad

I made a kale salad last minute for a thanksgiving potluck and it was a surprising hit! By popular request here's the recipe.

6 cup chopped black kale
1/2 large yellow onion sliced thin
3/4 cup diced Fiji apple
1/2 cup chopped red walnut
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan
3 tbspn sherry vinegar
3 tbspn Dijon mustard
4 tbspn olive oil
Dash of kosher salt to taste
Black pepper

Toss all four top ingredients together.

Mix the vinegar and mustard and microwave and pour over kale to slightly wilt.

Add olive oil.

Add grated parmasean a few table spoons at a time tossing gently with a spoon.

Salt and pepper to flavor.

No need to refrigerate and can make up to one hour in advance.

Tuesday at the Food Coop

Today was farmer's choice. So basically I make something that's fresh in season, and I scored big going to my parent's house this weekend. They loaded me up with some of the first persimmons of the season. Using that as my key ingredient I wanted to create something for the food coop. I came up with a warm persimmon and kale salad with mock hazelnut (toasted garbanzo beans) tossed in a bit of sherry vinegar, prepared mustard, hazelnut oil, red serranos (which I grew and came out sweet rather than hot), and julienned red onion.

It came out really pretty... I would have added feta to it but I like to keep my dishes vegan at the Co-op.

As always, if you'd like the recipe let me know.

Pumpkin ale tasting

Pizza

Marinated artichokes, Spicy peppers, white anchovies, lemon zest, olive oil, sea salt on whole wheat crust

Pumpkin goat cheese stuffed hot pepper

A friend at work gave me these hot peppers from his CSA box. I'm not sure what type they are but they looked big enough to be stuffed so I took a cup of pumpkin mixed it with a splash of milk, half log of goat cheese, and a teaspoon of sage and stuffed the deseeded peppers and baked for 30 minutes at 400F. The pumpkin got overshadowed by the goat cheese but it was very nice.

Breakfast

So a Rosemary blood orange marmalade isn't one of those things I'd buy if i saw it but I sure did make it! I was going for regular blood orange marmalade but it tasted bitter from all the pith so I had added Rosemary to try and soothe the flavors. I figured I'd make a sauce with it to serve with pork chops or add it to my cranberry sauce this thanksgiving.

But the weather's gotten a little chilly in San Diego and I was craving something a little different from the fruity summer spreads I've been eating. I went through my box of random jams and preserves I'd made and collected this year and pulled out this particular jar.

It was a good choice. The Rosemary added a piney flavor and with the chilly air I could feel fall melting through me.

Blog app

Blog app is going to save my blog. Between work, cooking, and cleaning it's hard to keep up with blogging but I have been taking pics the whole time so I'm going to try to add pics at least as I cook and if you see something good you like let me know I'll write about it