Mystery Vegetable: Savoy Cabbage

First off, thanks to you all for checking back! I have been really busy starting a new phase at work and doing a little traveling (check again soon for relevant posts about that! :) but will try to post more often now if I can!

Now winter is starting to (very slowly) peek its toes out from underneath the warm covers of mid-fall, the assortment of vegetables that I am getting in my weekly CSA box is definitely adjusting to suit the season. This week I got a very typical German vegetable that I know we have in the States, but I at least never would have purchased! What would you do with a...

Savoy Cabbage

savoy cabbage

The Brassica oleracea var. sabauda L. or Savoy Cabbage Group is a fall and winter vegetable that is quite popular over here in Germany especially around the Christmas season - "wirsing" is mostly cooked with scallions and garlic and is either served with sausages or as a side to duck, deer, or any wild game for the holidays (along with potatoes, of course!). It is a variety of the same species as kale, or "grünkohl" in German, but unlike kale, does form a head. The texture is the same, and I think they also taste the same. 

These heavy heads of green are not only a nice side dish for the winter season but are also very good for you for several reasons! Leafy greens are thought to help prevent cancer, probably due to their high fiber content, which also helps you stay full for longer and aids in digestion. Savoy cabbage as well as kale are also high in Vitamin C (wow!) and Vitamin K.

Another increasingly popular way to prepare kale and thus savoy cabbage is to make chips! I have done this once, but I used too much oil so the chips gotta kinda soppy quickly. The preparation is pretty simple, though, and something different to try. Have fun with this recipe from Food Network and invent your own ways to eat savoy cabbage!

Kale Chips

Ingredients
- 1 head kale, washed and thoroughly dried (important! otherwise the chips will not be crispy!)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- Sea salt, for sprinkling

Directions
Preheat the oven to 275°F.
Remove the ribs from the kale and cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces. Lay on a baking sheet and toss with the olive oil and salt. Bake until crisp, turning the leaves halfway through, about 20 minutes.

What to do with your leftover or unripe fall harvest...

my CSA green tomatoes

Fall is definitely in full swing, and I love it! There are so many great things about fall...enjoying the crisp air, bundling up with cozy sweaters and warm drinks, harvesting the fruits of your labor on hot summer days in your garden...and of course enjoying the fall recipes that celebrate your ripe and (hopefully) plentiful harvest!

Sometimes, however, it gets cold pretty quickly and your vegetables don't have time or the warmth to ripen before frost sets in, but don't despair! There are still some beloved recipes that safely use unripened vegetables that are delicious and one-of-a-kind, specific to the fall season, such as this one below! You don't have to let your vegetables go to waste!

Since my balcony harvest was very minimal due to the scaffolding that I've mentioned before, I had asked my CSA if they would at all be able to get me a few pounds of green tomatoes to make this recipe that I miss every fall,making sure to explain that they are just unripe red tomatoes. They asked their farmers and my wish was granted, so a recent delivery included some green tomatoes that I used for this pie (otherwise unable to find and purchase here anywhere...)! This is a simple and delicious recipe (one of my fall favs!) very similar to my mom's version...for those who are skeptical, it really doesn't taste like tomatoes, it has it's own mild flavor. If you're from the southern States, you probably have had fried green tomatoes before and this is nothing new to you!

green tomato pie

Green Tomato Pie

Pastry for 9-inch pie (top and bottom)
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
5 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
4 c. thinly sliced green tomatoes
1 tbsp. white vinegar or lemon juice

(1 tsp. grated lemon peel)
1 tbsp. butter

Mix sugars, flour and spices. Arrange a layer of tomato slices on the bottom of pie shell. Sprinkle with 3 or 4 tablespoons of the sugar mixture. 

Continue alternating layers until the pie shell is full. Sprinkle any remaining sugar mixture on top and dot with butter. Sprinkle lemon rind and vinegar on top. Put top crust on, cut slits in the top crust for ventilation, and bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes or until brown (the ingredients start to bubble out of the slits). Optional: add a crust protector or put foil over the outer edge of the crust for the last 15-20 minutes of baking to prevent the crust from burning.

yum, yum, yuuuuuummmm!

Enjoy!

Seeds started, no April Fool's joke!

seeds started in my mini greenhouse

I hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend! I did - finally got some seeds started a few days ago, and here are the results!

• #1 and #2- cherry tomatoes
• #3 and #4 - tomatoes, bottom one is actually a variety made for pots
• #5 and #6 - zucchini
• #7 and #8 - "white lightning" habanero chili peppers
• #9 and #10 - purple jalapenos
• #11 and #12 - jalapenos

So excited! I had ordered a few kinds of chili pepper seeds last summer from Amazon, but since they came late I decided to hold onto them until this year. Am looking forward to seeing how they do - I have had a fair amount of luck with chili peppers on my balcony in the past few years, so I am excited to try a few different kinds of fresh chilis - the taste of the actually pepper is amazing!

I decided to forgo and cucumbers or squash this season for two reasons:

1. I haven't had any of my squash plants bloom, ever!
2. I think I need bigger pots for squash and cucumber, but I'm not sure that I want to sacrifice the space for a plant that may not produce again!
3. It's too windy on my balcony for vertical gardening, so there is little space for the vines even IF they had bigger pots

zucchini flowers (front in a box)
sold at Campo de Fiori outdoor market, Rome

Nonetheless, I am going to try zucchini again - not giving up on that quite yet! I did get a few to come last year, but were very small (like 3-4 inches long), but I got lots of flowers.

My thought is that if I can tell that the vegetables aren't going to get bigger, I can just eat the flowers! On my trip to Rome with my mom last May, we got to try fried zucchini blooms, a local specialty. I've heard of them served filled with cream cheese, but what we tried were just lightly dusted with flour and deep (or pan?) fried. We even saw where you could buy them with the mini zucchini still attached - at the Campo de Fiori outdoor market in Rome. They look to be about the size that I have produced on my balcony.

A special treat! Here's a recipe from About.com to try, or a stuffed version from food & style. Can't wait!

Out to eat vegan style!

On the subject of growing vegetables, one cannot overlook the main reason for growing vegetables - eating them!

I've given myself a new challenge for the month of April, to go all veggie and no animal product - I'm going vegan for the month! Yeah vegetables! I'd seen a documentary and got the idea - I guess it's just something new to try out, and a test for myself to see how I do cooking and eating new recipes. Plus it's a guaranteed way to use the vegetables in my CSA box delivered weekly!

In anticipation for what awaits me, I went out to eat at a vegan place here in town the other night in the older and more alternative area of town. Here it is!

LEAF
It was great! After getting my pick of tables and being greeted by friendly staff, I perused the menu and arrived at my choice:

Seitan wrapped in a deep-fried pandan leaf with wasabi and lime puree served
with melon and seaweed salsa on a bed of red curry sauce

Whew, now that's a mouthful to say! And was a mouthful of tastes, wow! It had a combination of great flavors, and was very tasty (although I would have wished a slightly larger portion for the price). The palm leaves were of course just served for show, not to eat. And the pureed vegetables tasted like spicy pureed cauliflower in a way - and were great with the red curry sauce. Yum!

cozy atmosphere, homey decorations

Hurray for veggies! I wasn't aware until last night that seitan is NOT a tofu product like I thought, but is made entirely of wheat, wheat gluten to be specific (so not ok for you with gluten allergies, of course!). It is a common meat substitute, and I think it has a similar texture to firm tofu. And gives you the chew like a piece of meat would.

If this is any indicator of my upcoming month, I think I'm not gonna mind going vegan at all!

First Planting of the Season + Lemonade on the Balcony...

check out those blue and white stripes!

I couldn't resist - I can't wait any longer ..... for SPRING! :)


Today was actually a sunny day and although it's 46°F, it's not terribly windy and actually fairly pleasant for being outside - which means I got started on preparing my balcony for the new season by giving it a spring cleaning!

1. Make lemonade (see above) for this thirsty gardener: juice lemon, add lemon & juice plus 2 Tbs sugar to a shaker. Add some ice cubes, fill to 3/4 full with cold water, and shake!
2. Cut off dead parts of any plants that survived the winter (aka some herbs)
3. Remove dead plants from pots (left them out over winter for the birds and the like to forage in)
4. Remove leaves and such from balcony, still need to wash the floor so my cat can go out there and not bring the dirt inside!
5. Removed some old soil from the pots.
6. Transferred last year's bean soil (see last post) to other pots.
7. Re-potted some flowers I bought: they are both Primula Vulgaris, a type of primrose. The blue one really caught my eye - it's called "zebra blue". Love it paired up with the orange!



my happy lemon balm :)

8. Gave my lemon balm a new home - doesn't it look happy?

More cleaning up to come, and tons of planting of course! Keep checking back! 

Barely Alive

As a follow-up to the last post, of indoor plants that are doing well right now in my apartment, unfortunately the edible ones are not doing that great at al!

My chili pepper, is on its way out (pictured here left) - I had started it indoors last spring, taken it out on the balcony to flower and fruit last summer (picture below from the same plant outside on the balcony), and brought it in late this fall, at which point the fruits ripened and were delicious.

My favorite way to enjoy a chili that I grew myself is to make a spicy butter Parmesan cheese sauce for pasta -basically just melt some butter in a pan, then add the chopped chili, allowing it to sizzle in the pan for a minute (longer and the yummy flavor is not preserved), then adding some grated Parmesan cheese to it right before pouring over your pasta - you could even add some garlic (either freshly-pressed, slightly fried in the butter, or a little garlic powder) if you want!


Unfortunately at some point I think the heat from the heater underneath the window sill was too much - it seems to have some sort of spider mite and can't seem to get get over its droopy and browning leaves. Not sure how to rescue it! Even if I can't, I will soon be able to start the next generation indoors!

I also have another potted experiment which was...well, at least an experiment for now! I had gotten some mini eggplant seeds last spring, and wanted to keep an eggplant on my window sill as well.

The grown plant is supposedly suited just for a balcony or window sill, so I thought it would do better than it did - but here is how it looks today:

Haha, I know, VERY sad. Not only did it go through a major aphid epidemic a few months ago (which I was able to pretty much get rid of by wiping the entire plant with soapy water), but it now seem to not like living on the dry heater.

I was about to give up on it, but after watering it a few times anyway (they say here in Germany "hope is the last thing to die"), and then letting the soil get really dry, it re-sprouted some leaves (arrow is pointing at one) - gotta love those cute furry thick leaves! I guess it isn't ready to go just yet!

Getting it to fruit has proven to be a whole other issue....it actually produced two small eggplants (about golf ball size) earlier this summer, but despite multiple hand-pollination when there are flowers, I haven't been able to get it to do anything much since then.

Guess it's sort of a project for now!


And so it can also enjoy its glory days on this post, here is a pic of what this plant looked like in July on my window sill (pic right):

Here's to new starts coming up soon for the season....and hanging on to hope for the what you still have!

Here are some tips to start off with for growing this "finicky crop", which I will also take into consideration:
http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/how-to-grow-eggplant.aspx

Rosemary Parsley Pesto

As you can see, Winter is back and my outdoor balcony herbs are not looking great! Winter was already here for a while before Christmas, and then subsided for about week, during which we got above freezing temperatures and my parsley tried to grow back, only to get covered in snow once again!

Since it and my rosemary were still looking pretty good around Christmas, I decided to harvest them and make something so they didn't freeze, die, and in essence, go to waste....but how could I store them? 

Wasn't really interested in drying them, since I like the fresh taste so much better, so after googling for a while, I came upon this recipe at food.com, which uses both the rosemary and the parsley - and it is so yummy!

Rosemary Pesto

Ingredients:

1/3 cup fresh rosemary
1 1/2 cups fresh parsley, rough chopped
2 garlic cloves
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, freshly grated
1/2 cup walnuts (or favorite nut variety)
1/2 cup olive oil
salt and pepper

Directions:

1) Thoroughly wash fresh herbs and pat dry. Strip rosemary from stalk and chop.
2) Combine rosemary, parsley, garlic, cheese, nuts and oil into food processor and blend well.
3) Season to taste. Yield: 1.5 cups.

Read more at: http://www.food.com/recipe/rosemary-pesto-307438?oc=linkback

I used walnuts like they suggested, and the mild nutty flavor was wonderful! I also used kitchen sheers to cut the herbs, and used a hand blender to mix the ingredients since I don't have a food processor, which still worked pretty well. Don't forget to store in the refrigerator. You can see my result next to the recipe above!

Not bad for my first pesto! Great on meat or fish due to the stronger flavor (of the rosemary) compared to a normal basil pesto.

And now my herbs have also been put to good and found a way to survive (at least part of the) winter!

I'd recommend making pesto using a number of different herbs...what's your favorite way to preserve your home-grown herbs?