Picking Dandelions

Hey Y'all,

Now that daylily time is over (it only lasts about a week or two), I have noticed all the dandelions popping up everywhere.  That's awesome!  Free food! God bless America!

A Few years ago, the owner of a florist turned me on to dandelion kimchi.  I was wary (as usual) and asked where the dandelions came from, and will I truly not die if I eat them? The kimchi tasted AWESOME.

For those of you who don't know, Kimchi is a very spicy pickled condiment that is the staple of Korean food.  My father has drilled this into my mind since I was a wee babe. He insisted Kimchi could cure all sorts of ailments, and spark wars and feuds. Growing up in America, I always gave a good eyeroll and grumbled about my father's blind nationalism for Kimchi.
 
However, come to find in books and articles (http://www.health.com/health/article/0,,20410300,00.html )
that there is a grain of truth in what he's said.  It is one of the top ten most healthy foods of the entire world.
Due to its fermentation, it contains the same bacteria that is in yogurt.  Therefore, it helps in a probiotic way, which means good stomach digestion, less yeast infections, and some studies show it can prevent the growth of cancer.  Well, I guess dad wasn't just being overtly enthusiastic about it.  Maybe there was even more than just a grain of truth.  Maybe I owe him an apology.  Maybe someday...

Dandelion kimchi has a flavor I can't quite put a finger on, but there's definitely a flowery hint in the aftertaste.  Mrs. Oak the florist gave me some basic sage advice:
Do not pick dandelions from the side of roads,
and make sure to pick ones that did NOT flower already. I took mental note.
I have known others to use dandelion greens in salads, and the repeated counsel is to eat them before they allow a flower to bloom, as it will get bitter beyond that point.

Last year, I thought I'd try this venture, myself. I asked my friend Ben if he could take out some dandelions from my yard while I was at work.  I wasn't expecting much, but when I came home, I was surprised to find his hands black, and a bag full of dandelions.  Rockin'! I cleaned them at my parent's house and had them make the kimchi.  It was not the same as the florist's, but still had a similar flavor which I could only affirm was the dandelion.  Mmmmm so goooood with rice.

So this year, I armed myself with the taproot/dandelion/weedpuller device, and set to work in the backyard after a good rainfall. FYI, friends, taking anything out of the soil is a thousand times easier after the rain.

Got some over here (my daughter was the camera woman.  I insist on doing all these things while the kids play in the backyard. That way I can be an adult presence while they play, or indirectly they can help or observe... but they will grow up being around these activities).

and s'more over here

and even over here.  The last time we painted the deck was two years ago,

so I felt it was safe to partake of this proximity, but they were smaller so I gave up quickly.

Many hands lighten the load?  In this picture,

I am removing some small and dried out looking leaves by the taproot.

Here it is a little clearer.

I washed them best I could, and it needed not triple washing, but something like quintuple washing. Fine grains of dirt, and nooks and crannies of clay tied with bits of grass. HOW ON EARTH DID THE FLORIST LADY DO IT?!  I'm not sure, and when I called her to ask, she said in Korean "Oh, y'know if you wash it well, then that's good!"  ...ehhhh  -_-*

So all in all, I've got three grocery bags full of dandelions washed a few times, and cleaned. I will give them a final rinse tomorrow at my parent's house.  They have giant steel tubs made solely for kimchi making.

They even have a refrigerator solely for kimchi making.   Therefore, I will document the process and let you know how my family's super not-so-secret kimchi recipe is adjusted to make DANDELION KIMCHI.

These times spent with my parents learning their recipes are the treasures I hope to receive as an inheritance.

Seacrest out!

Eating Day lilies aaaand How I cook it.

Well, this is a long overdue post. How overdue? Oh I'd say about two years.
I've been meaning to write it, but day lily greens time is so short, it is pretty much over as soon as it starts!

It all began long time ago in a galaxy far away...
when I read that day lilies were edible.  That's really funny, because I was planning to dig the darned things out until I read that article. LAFF! DERP! I'm an edible laaaaandscaper! I don't even know all the edibles!

Let's move on, shall we?

I was told by a nice lady, "If you have a plot of day lillies, you will never go hungry".  Considered as a delicacy by wild food gatherers and knowledgeable chefs, the day lily has a long history in Chinese medicine and cuisine. While it's true that the flowers, tubers, and leaves are edible, I've found the leaves can only be eaten when they are very young and tender.


 The first year,I tried some with speculation, and it wasn't too bad. Actually it was pretty darn good, but there was just one problem. IT WAS TOUGH. Like eating a flat leaf with the texture of twine.  I still kept chewing and insisted it was delicious, as the rest of my family gave me the stink-eye, and I finally said... yeah it's tough. Don't eat it.


The second year, I was determined to give it another try because it DID taste good.
This time, I harvested it when it was younger, and SUCCESS. The kids loved it and were begging for a second round.  By the time we got around trying a third time it was too tough. Crazy, I tell you.




Much older and wiser,  here we are at year 3.

here's a bowl of freshly cut Day lily greens. At most they are 2".

Like I said, a very limited performance contract.

here I have a pan with butter, and minced garlic --- because everything tastes awesome with these!!

HISSSS POP CRACKLE.  Ohhh yeah the sounds and smells of stir-fry

After a few minutes of cooking, you can see they are like Spinach or broccoli. Turns an awesome shiny and VIBRANT green after cooking!

You will also notice that kind of like spinach or other greens, they've reduced to half the size. 

Here it is. In all it's glory.

Now, there are a few people out there who are allergic to day lily greens, so please try a few pieces and see how you handle it before eating them all.  It was a learning process, but now my kids and I look forward to the time of the year where we can eat the day lilies. :)

Starting next week:  Dandelion Kimchi   :)  

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH YEAH BAY-BAY!

Summer in March... craziness

What Magicks is this!?

Recently Chicagoland has been in the high 70's to 80s.

That is just madness. We went straight from winter to Summer!

This has me thinking a few things...

1- July might be 160 degrees, and the power will be out everywhere. We're paying for those two mild summers in a row... 

2- Welp, there go the brassicas!!

3- I should focus on more heat tolerant plants.

Here's the status of some of the things around the ol homestead:

Spinach! Sprouting from the fall planting! YESYESYESSSSSSSS

Although who am I kidding? With this hot weather, it's probably going to fast forward to bolt.

With that in mind, I have Indian Malabar spinach in a seedling tray.  The Indian climbing spinach loves the heat, and will be great to take over for the rest of the season.

French Tarragon.  I don't know what to use this for,

but I am glad to see the mild winter had it coming back on its own!

Our lovely Sage! I took a gamble and left it outside by the front door.  I read online they are zone6, but hoped the proximity of the home would shelter it somewhat  and HUZZAAAAAH it worked!  In fact the brown leaves on the plant were the only ones affected by frost!  

The blanket of leaves might have helped, too.

Unfortunately, this successful experiment means it's certain
I will try to overwinter a fig outdoors next winter.

I have been dreaming of doing such, but we were zone 5A.  Recent news said we are now 5B. MU HU HUHA HAA  ::Evil cackle::  It's all coming to plan nicely.

Rainbow Heirloom Tomato seedlings, and Korean Giant asian pear in the background.

Oh, Hello, Ladies....

The ladies would like you to know they have overwintered just fine, too.  Two eggs each day, give or take one every so often due to lack of daylight.  We had a few predators stop by, but nothing the locks didn't keep out. The bottom of the coop is also double layered wire, and the previous owner made it raccoon proof.  The #1 thing backyard chickeners encounter is neighborhood friendly predators.  We had foxes, and Raccoons come by, and we are surrounded by homes!

  They are a rough and tough bunch of Austen era ladies, though.  Maybe more of a Mother Jones.

Just look at those disapproving glares.

 Love you too, Watermelon and Bully! Gorgeous!!

All of the front yard boxes have their uh... spiky things coming up.  In front of us, we have Garlic which was planted last fall.

The flat Italian parsley overwintered pretty darn well.  You would never have known winter came!  The English chives are coming up around it as well, and it'll be soon enough before we have purple flowers everywhere that look like the "Horton hears a who" flower.

yes, that one...

All in all, I am very wary of what the rest of this month and the next will look like. I can't depend on the normal planting chart, and it'd be a complete shame to play it safe and wait...

then again, if you know me, 

Possibly kill all my seedlings with an errant frost?!

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Starting Seedlings for 2012

It had been months of staring at seed catalogues prior to this. Amongst the groups I'm a part of, there was this hilarious picture that describes my fanatical drooling over the photos in vegetable seed catalogues:

Here's a list of some of the seeds I have chosen to grow in 2012


Shiso Perilla (Korean sesame leaf)
Chinese Garlic Chive
Rainbow Mini bell peppers
Rainbow Full size bell peppers

acorn/Butternut squash (Got mixed up and I can't tell em apart)
turban squash

Long of naples squash (a gamble w.germination bult rare in the USA)

Orange hubbard squash

scarlet runner beans-prizewinner (photo to right)

Scarlet runner beans - DWARF Hestia

lavender

cilantro

Parsley

rainbow swiss chard

rainbow carrot

Thai basil

Italian Basil - regular

Italian spicy Globe basil

purple broccoli

Black Palm kale

tomatoes-plum

tomatoes-matina

marigold flower

Balsam flower

viola/Johnny jump up flower

Cosmos flower

I'm getting some Jalapeno and Zucchini from my friend Pam

and some currant bushes and borage from my friend Ed.

It looks like too much... and it probably is. I got the kids involved, and showed the technique of using a pen to make the hole, and leaving the holes until you're done with that seed type. This way, you know which cells already have seeds in them.

The girls are always super excited...

I let the little guy do the tomatoes in the jiffy pellets. Tomatoes are probably the easiest and most forgiving seed known to mankind. Break a sucker off the plant, throw it on the ground, and it grows! The seeds fall to the ground and you're practically overrun with tomatoes. It's a relative of the nightshade, which is a weed... if that's any indicator.

                                      Cliffs: Tomatoes are so easy a 3 yr old can kick butt at it.

I took the cell flats to my office where it's consistently warmer and sunnier, but left the tomato flat at home so the kids can see the sprouts when they come up. :)

That No-Knead Bread recipe : If I can do it, anybody can.

So there's this recipe floating around the Internet...

It's for this crusty rustic bread that can be made at home simply, and with little effort.
My friend Tony sent me the recipe last year, since I was tossing around the idea of making my own bread instead of buying it from the store.  I read it, saw all the waiting involved, and went "pffft" and threw it into the recipe box.

Fast forward to a few days ago, when my friend J posted pictures of 

"Le no knead bread"

and I was like "Woah J, you did that!?  that's soooooooooo awesome!!"
and it looked so good. Sooooo freakin' good that, well, I got bread envy. I got it baaaad.   It had that chewwy panera bread look. The nooks... the crannies... I rebuked myself for my own laziness, and shook my fist in the air. AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, I WILL TRY THIS RECIPE!

So, I decided I have amassed enough culinary experience that I could surely tackle this no knead bread recipe... right?

He used the NY times recipe found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html

Okay Step 1. Mix all that stuff and let it sit for 12 hours, but 18 is better.

12 hour mark. Mrhhmmmm.... it's not exactly rising. Hopefully nothing's wrong with the yeast?

 

18 hour mark, welp this is as good as it's gonna get. :(

Fold over a few times on a floured surface, and loosely cover with plastic wrap for 15 minutes.

15 minutes later:  Gah it's stuck to the plastic wrap!  FUUUUUUUUUUU!!
I fail at life!  ::scrapes it off the plastic wrap::   sigh....

Put on a floured and corn mealed towel (non terry cloth towel) okay...

Let sit for 2 hours.

3-4 hours later. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!

I had to go to the library and I couldn't get home any sooner, and fuuuuuuu -- !!
Looks okay with the poke test.
Doesn't spring back... hrmm but it looks the same size as 3 hours ago :(

Look at how it's glued to the towel!!!!!! Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
 ::scrapes it off, again::
into a pot/castiron/enamel/pyrex that was in the oven as it preheated.
:( I don't own anything like that, so this casserole dish will have to do (OMG there's so much fail in this).

:Sigh:  Bread, I am disappoint.

I don't have any bakeware with a lid, so this inverted cake pan on a casserole dish will have to do :\

And threw it in le oven. Welp here goes.. who knows what'll come out.

Suspenseful periods

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After 30 minutes you take off the lid. WTF~!?

It looks like... like there's a chance! That yeast WAS alive. Whaddaya know?!

Another 30 minutes and take it out!

45 minutes later, because I'm le horrible and forgot all about it as I was surfing the 'net, I

 Ran downstairs to the smell of slight burning, and it wasn't too bad.

Verdict:

Even with failing at every step possible, the kids and I ate it all.  

Here I am breaking off a piece to see how it looks inside... and give it a test sniff.

Oh wow.. look at all those nooks and crannies. It's a miracle! a no knead bread miracle!

Close up of air pockets perfect for eating with home made jams, and buuuuuuuuuuuuutter.

The skin was a little too hard because I burned it, but we ate it all. Surely since you witnessed all this fail, and it turned out OK. That means you too should be able to replicate with much success!!!

Katchemak: Albanian Breakfast

Bulgarian feta is on sale at the local grocer...that can only mean one of two things...

Either they have too much and it's getting old, or

IT'S TIME TO MAKE KATCHEMAK, KIDS!!!

 Many years ago, I lived in a three flat with an Albanian family who lived on the other two floors.
The result was me being invited to have all sorts of their food. LOLOLOL
Now, I'm not exactly sure how to spell it.  I couldn't find the recipe online for the life of me every time I googled it. So with guidance from Nani who told me the steps, and my own testing of it for five years... here's the way it works.

ADVICE 1:  If you don't have a half hour to 45 minutes to stand in front of your stove, do not make this. As Nani told me, "You can't step away from the stove when you make katchemak, or it will burn." and seriously, there's no shortcuts in making this recipe. I've tried. Oh how the good Lord knows I've tried...  and it NEVER turns out tasting good.

ADVICE 2:  It must be Bulgarian feta which is made of  - sheep's milk? I just know it's not from a cow.
Nani said this as though my survival depended on it, but when discussing this recipe with Greeks I know, I start getting history lessons and all sorts of stuff against feta elitists, so I don't know. It comes in a tub with brine.   

This is the one Nani used, but I just get the Bulgarian feta at the deli counter when it's on sale for 2.99/lb and ask for a container of the brine (they will give you the brine water for free).  Any unused feta can go in the brine water, and into your fridge. It will last much longer.

Recipe:

2 1/2 cups "self rising white cornmeal"
or:

2 cups White cornmeal

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup flour  (for gluten free/Celiac's friendly omit the flour)

Coarse salt.  Hrmmmmm I'd say a teaspoon.  We can add more later, but it does taste better to be a little on the slightly salty side (1/2 teaspoon if using table salt)

1/2 cup olive oil
1.5 qts water

Serves at least 4 adults... trial and error to see how much you guys can actually eat. It's very filling.  Nani told me: "If you eat this for breakfast, they say you wont be hungry all day in the fields."

1) Put all those ingredients into a HIGH SIDED stainless steel pot. IT MUST HAVE HIGH SIDES. Here I am using a soup pot. In another pot put the 1.5 qts water and turn on the heat. It should be at a furious boil by the time we're done stirring the cornmeal.  Do this at the same time, because...remember we cannot walk away.

2) Turn on heat to medium high for the dry ingredients and stir... stir... stir.. keep stirring. You might see some smoke appearing...keep stirring. At the smoking point, you will see the cornmeal mixture turn a different color. "This is why we use white cornmeal as opposed to the yellow. so you can see the color change better." says Nani.

3) When the whole mixture is pretty much a tanned/roasted color, take it off the heat (preferably under a range vent you turn on).  Now comes the crazily dangerous part. Oh I forgot to tell you there was some crazy danger involved?!   Pour some of the boiling water into the cornmeal mixture.

-THE STEAM WILL BURN YOU, WATCH OUT- 

But you must stir, or you'll get clumps instead of smoothness!!
Pour Maybe a couple cups of liquid. STIR CAREFULLY but with determination! 
This is where I have been burned more times than I care to say. Yes, the water will jump, and pop and hiss, and cornmeal seems to fly everywhere. This is why we used a pot with high sides.
You can either wear an oven mitt, or as I sometimes do, pull my hand into my sweater, and hold the wooden spoon with my sweater covered hand.   When the water has been absorbed by the cornmeal, pour more water, and MIX again.

4) Put Cornmeal mush back on the range, and turn on to medium-low heat. You will add water and stir a few times until it is at the consistency below. YOU MAY/MAY NOT USE ALL THE WATER.

I Just made a sweeping generalization because I never know how much I'm going to use! You just want to do this until the cornmeal is soft enough but isn't a watery slurry.  Taste it. It will taste a little bitter, but we're testing for texture right now...  is it grainy? Add more water.  Keep stirring!!!  Needs salt? Add it now. Keep stirring!!!  Too bland and soft? Don't add water, but continue to stir and cook until some of the water has evaporated. Yes, it is hard to stir, but you MUST PERSEVERE ON! YOU CAN DO IT!  Turn off the heat (Aaaargh! My tendonitis!).

5) In a small frying, put the 1/2 cup of oil in it.  Heat it up until there are ripples in the oil.   Pour this onto the cornmeal mixture. It will pop! it will hiss! it's craziness! Use oven mitt, hold spoon, and stir with fierce perseverance!  This oil is the difference between it tasting bitter, and it tasting like Frito's. After all the oil has been mixed in evenly, pour this out onto a plate.

6) Serve with slices of raw sweet onions, and Bulgarian feta cheese.

See this image below: the plate on the left has the Katchemak, and that's how it should look.

Another satisfied Customer!  The kids BEG for this every so often for breakfast.

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In the very beginning when I tried to make it, it was ALWAYS too dry. Not enough stirring.
Not enough adding water and stirring it in a way where ALL the grains of cornmeal could absorb the water, so there'd be dry little pebbles. BLEAUGH. Don't give up! It still happens to me sometimes.

A few times ago, I made it too watery and it came out looking like this:

That's ok, too. It's a little too much water, but tastes alright. Honestly better to have too much water than too little and be eating sand.

DON'T GIVE UP!!!!!!!

You'll get better with more practice. We'll cook it just as good as Nani.  Maybe that's why she made it so deliciously... she's had SO many years of experience with the water ratio and all that stirring.

Love you, Nani and Jisho!