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its--fandom--darling · 4 years ago

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Neighbor Dearest pt 2.

Pairing: Colin Shea x Reader A/N: This chapter is kinda angsty with lots of feelings. I hoping to have this just be a 3 part fic but here ya go. Using the trope “ Oops I caught feelings for you and I got ‘em baddd. “ from @stargazingfangirl18 and @navybrat817‘s August Writing Challenge. There will be smut at some point so please 18+ only.

Over the course of the next week, it became abundantly clear that Colin had firmly planted himself into your life. Sure, he could be obnoxious but he was also helpful and made you laugh more than you ever had in your life. He even put himself out there by handing out your resumes at every event he went while you still scanned the newspaper and job sites for potential openings.

You were feeling rather discourage one night when you heard Colin’s signature knock on the door. “Come in, Colin.” You called, shutting your laptop and moving to the fridge to get two beers.

You heard the door shut and soon Colin appeared in the kitchen. “Who’s the best neighbor in the world?” He says, with a wide grin.

“Let me guess, You?” you say holding out a beer to him. He nods, “Correct, take a look at this,” he says, holding out a hot pink sticky note with a number scribbled on it under the name Vicki.

“Why are you showing me some girls number?” you ask, sipping your beer.

“You know for somebody with a college degree you’re pretty dumb sometimes.” He murmurs, sticking the note to your forehead. “That ‘girl’ just so happens to be the owner and head chef of Gastronomé, the up and coming catering company that’s been in all the culinary magazines.”

You mouth gapes open, “Oh my god, oh my god,” you gasp. “Colin, how did you manage to get this?”

He smiles, “I used all of this,” he gestures up and down to suit clad body, “and turned on the charm.”

“What did she say?”

“She said to call and that she’d set up an interview with you, she’s looking for a Sous Chef. (y/n), Please don’t think that you only go this interview because I flirted, I sang the praises of your cooking until I was practically blue in the face.” He says, with a smirk.

You look down at the sticky note again and hug Colin. “Thank you, Colin, for believing in me.”

He gives you a squeeze, “No thanks necessary, you deserve this opportunity.” You pull back and smile at him, “Colin, you’re seriously the best. I’ll give her a call in the morning.”

He smiles, “Awesome, so tell me, what’s for dinner.”

You laugh and throw the hand towel at him. “Rude, one favor and you think I’m your personal chef?”

He chuckles. “Consider it practice, I’ll help in whatever way I can.”

You roll your eyes, “Ok, fine, how do Cheddar-stuffed Burgers with Pickled Slaw and Fried Shallots sound?”

He rubs his hands together, “That sounds so good, what do you want me to do?”

You turn to the counter and grab two shallots, “Slice these bad boys up, while I’ll make the pickled slaw.”

You pull a head of purple and green cabbage out of the fridge and begin to cut it up. You mix in the oil, vinegar and other spices into the dish with the cabbage. You grab some carrots and slice those up to and toss them into the mix, you put the mixture into a pot and add some sugar. You get it boiling and then you turn towards Colin. You can’t help but giggle a bit as he concentrates on slicing the onions, his tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth.

“Want me to show you how to do that faster?” You ask, softly.

He shakes his head, “I got this.”

You nod, “Alright, I’m starting on the burgers.”

You guys finish preparing the meal in relative silence, instead working in tandem in the kitchen. The evening passes in a flurry of laughter, good food, and Colin playing his guitar. Before you know it, he’s saying good night and dropping a sweet kiss on your cheek before he scoots across the hall to his apartment. You touch your cheek briefly and then flop on your couch.

Fuck, you’re falling in love.

The next morning, you call Vicki and set up the interview, thanking her profusely for the opportunity. She assures you that if you’re half as good as Colin made you out to be, you’ll be a shoe-in for the position. She asked, you to prep your three best appetizers, two savory and one sweet for the interview. Excitement bubbled in your chest all day as you headed to the local farmers market that you’d found to collect all the ingredients you needed for the interview tomorrow. You’d probably be baking all night, but it’d be worth to be Vicki Bernard’s sous chef.

Colin was out at a gig and probably wouldn’t be back until late according to the note he slipped under your door before he’d left.

Once home, you set all your ingredients out, turned your favorite music on before tying on your lucky apron and getting started on your tasting menu.

You lost yourself in your task and soon it was after midnight and you’d already prepped a baker’s dozen of your sweet appetizer and we’re working on both of your savory ones simultaneously when you heard a crash from the stairwell and a female giggle. You wiped your hands on your apron and headed over to peak our your peephole. Your heart sank when you saw Colin wrapped around a leggy blonde. Tears pricked your eyes and you turned away as you saw them unlock Colin’s door. Resting against the door, you wiped your nose and tried to will yourself not to cry.

Colin hadn’t brought anyone home in weeks and had instead taken to spending his evenings with you. You guess a small part of you had hoped that he was falling for you too, but I guess that wasn’t the case. The timer on the stove blared breaking you out of your heartbreak. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, before heading back to the kitchen because Colin or not you needed this job.

At 3am, you finally finished and all but collapsed on your couch for a few hours of sleep. You phone alarm taunted you at 7am, but you knew you’d need the time to get ready and transport the food across the city safely before your interview at 11.

You went through your morning routine and then starting packing your appetizers into the cooler bag for transport. The other side of the hall, was strangely quiet but you willed yourself not to think of it. You got everything ready and headed out to meet your Uber. As you sat in the backseat, your cooler balanced carefully on your lap, you watched the city pass by and willed the universe to let this interview work out.

~ COLIN ~

Colin stretched up towards the ceiling before running a hand over his face. He stands and walked out of his bedroom in his boxers. Heading into the kitchen to open the fridge to grab the jug of orange juice and draining the last of it. He let out a burp and tossed the tug into the recycling bin like a basketball.

Movement from the living room caught his attention and he turned to the body on the couch. A blonde sat up and stretched, “Morning, Collie,” she says, softly as she stands up.

He groans at the chipper tone of her voice, “What happened last night?”

She shrugs, “Nothing much, we kissed a little, but when I tried to start something more you started talking about this girl, (y/n) or (y/n/n) something like that and then said you thought you were gonna pass out so I put you to bed and crashed on your couch.”

He rubs his forehead, “Damn, do you know if anyone saw us coming up the stairs?”

She shrugs, “I don’t think so but I wasn’t completely with it and I wasn’t exactly focused on what was going on around me while trying to hold you up.” She says, pulling on her shoes.

“Well, Collie, it’s been fun but I’m gonna be heading out.”

“Wait, do you want breakfast or anything?” He asks, she shakes her head.

“Colin, I’m not one to stay where I’m not wanted.”

Colin starts to sputter and she rolls her eyes, “You are clearly in love with (y/n).”

“She’s my neighbor.”

“Well you’re in love with little neighbor dearest. You talked like they hung the moon, you know what you want and it’s (y/n), for some reason you’re just not letting yourself go for it.”

“Who and what are you?”

She shrugs, “Listen, you wanna be a rockstar and I wanna be a psychologist but we both have to the bills somehow, that’s why I bartend.” She grabs her purse.

“Do yourself a favor, Colin, tell (y/n) how you feel.” With that she turns on her heel and lets herself out.

Colin winces as the doot slams behind her and then reaches for the bottle of advil on his counter, hoping that he didn’t somehow royally fuck everything up with (y/n).

#shamelesshoesforchris #Colin shea x reader

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hernehillandy · 6 years ago

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What Ottolenghi did next

IN setting the flavour of our times, this decade has been Yotam Ottolenghi’s. The Israeli-born chef and his Palestinian business partner, Sami Tamimi, first set up shop in Notting Hill in 2002. But it was the publication of Ottolenghi’s second cookbook, Plenty (2010) and the opening of Soho restaurant Nopi the following year that shot him to ubiquity. Since then he has launched a series of celebrated cookbooks and TV shows. And his fame is international: when a New Yorker friend visited me last week, the top of her to-do list was eating at Ottolenghi’s restaurants.

His significance is, however, much greater than that: Ottolenghi has quite simply changed the way we (or at least the metropolitan middle class) eat. It’s a point already made unimprovably by the Sunday Times’s brilliant Marina O’Loughlin. Put it this way: what were until recently obscure Levantine ingredients such as za’atar, sumac and pomegranate molasses have become everyday in a way that once took, say, balsamic vinegar 20 years. There are now Waitrose own-brand versions of all three ingredients. Meanwhile Ottolenghi is surely responsible in part for the governing restaurant trend of small plates, and for the breakthrough of other Israeli-inspired eateries (The Barbary, Honey and Smoke). And I can’t think of a single book since the River Café Cook Book (1995) that has so thoroughly changed my own kitchen.

Yet Ottolenghi resisted the temptation to open more restaurants after Nopi. Then last summer he launched Rovi in Fitzrovia; on the principle that I don’t try any fancy restaurant until it has O’Loughlin’s approval, I only made it there last week. And it is magnificent.

It’s a bigger space than Nopi, but with even greater attention to detail: airy, pale wood and comfortable, vaguely Nordic seating. We sat at the bar. But you’re here for the food: and as a succession of taste sensations, I’d put it up there with, for example, a visit to Albert Adrià’s celebrated Barcelona tapas joint, Tickets.

The dishes came as a cascade of delights, with us trying to pin down flavours and figure out just what was in front of us and in our mouths. This was a meal where most of our talk was about the food.

Thus we started with snacks of carrot jerky with gooseberry boshi, smoked labneh and chilli, and duck pastrami with a selection of pickles (cabbage, endive, purple carrot and something neither we nor the bar staff could identify; both dishes pictured above.) No, I don’t really know what gooseberry boshi is either: it’s hard to Google as there’s some Nintendo character of that name who gums up searches (this is food that demands a fair bit of at-table googling.) But in any case, the sum of these flavours almost defies description.

Indeed vegetables dominate the mostly small-plates menu. It’s another key part of Ottolenghi’s influence: he’s taken vegetarian food from Guardian self-righteousness – a column there was the genesis of Plenty – to bleeding-edge London foodie hip.

Using the kind of Levantine flavours we’re familiar with from him, Ottolenghi (or rather his chefs – he’s not in the kitchen here) delivers hugely satisfying vegetable dishes such as celeriac shawarma with bkeila, a spinach herb paste, and fermented tomato (pictured above). I yield to no-one in my love of lamb shawarma but this was just about enough to turn me veggie.

The big shift from Nopi is the Asian influences here: furikake (Japanese fish/seaweed seasoning), kosho (a seasoning paste with chilli), fermented black vinegar and (presumably) boshi. We loved the tempura stems and herbs with Szechuan, mandarin and lime-leaf vinegar, and a side dish of spring greens with dashi and sesame; and asparagus with wild garlic, burnt butter, lemon kosho and jalapeño.

But as those combinations suggest, these are dishes and flavours that are genuinely hard to describe – and the menu provides only an approximate guide. Take the delectable “beef carpaccio (grass fed), Jerusalem artichoke, Crowdie” (pictured above). Never mind the quality of ingredients – pink, melt-in-your-mouth rounds of beef – or that I’d never have identified the sweet-sour artichoke for what it was (pickled?), or the oddness of pairing it with a Scottish soft cheese: as an ensemble, it delivered flavours and textures greater and more unexpected than its parts.

The same is true of the astonishing desserts – something I am rarely tempted to order. Eventually we plumped for rhubarb and rose doughnuts with vanilla cream and pistachio, and five-spice pumpkin and apple fritters with clementine, buckwheat and coconut sorbet: both combinations of wonder. We left eager to taste the rest of the menu.

The wine list is fascinating and appropriately sparky, though for me it somehow doesn’t quite hang together. It’s fairly pricey: there isn’t much under £40. It is also heavy on natural wines: with our opening snacks I drank Nando rebula (ie ribolla gialla) Blue Label 2017. Having a fairly obscure Slovenian orange wine like this on a list carries a certain kudos amongst today’s hipper London sommeliers; I just thought it cidery. As for the Jurschitsch Belle Naturale grüner veltliner 2017, Kamptal, also orange (though not on the list as such), I sent it back: not only did it bear no resemblance to any GV I’ve ever tasted, it was just an unbalanced mess.

But tasting one’s way through such a list is an adventure – especially with bar staff as good as these. Ciù Ciù “Falerio” 2018, Oris Bianco, a trebbiano/pecorino-based white from the Marche region, also had some skin contact but was utterly charming. The La Raia Gavi 2018 (organic) was much more classic, beautifully clean.

Among the reds, there is Alfredo Maestro’s well-balanced Valdecastrillo Ribera del Duero 2016 by the glass. But the real discovery is Cremisan Baladi 2017, Palestine, made on an estate owned by a Catholic order in the West Bank by a Christian Palestinian winemaker. From the local baladi grape, it’s dark, juicy, not unlike cinsault, with a touch of oak. Elsewhere on the list is a trio of beautiful nebbiolos, at a price (including ones from the rarely seen Ghemme and Gattinara areas in Lombardy) as well as Christian Tschida’s intriguing and very individual Felsen II syrah 2016, Burgenland.

Rovi triumphantly takes Ottololenghi’s middle-eastern fusion cuisine to a new level. It will be interesting to see whether it spawns a cookbook. My instinct is that this is the kind of food that you simply cannot prepare at home; then again, maybe in three years’ time we’ll all be incorporating koshu and furikake into our dinner-party dishes? You read it here first.

Rovi, 59 Wells St, London W1A. 020 3963 8270.

6 May 2019

#LondonRestaurants #Ottolenghi #wine

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writinggeisha · 6 years ago

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Colour Words

White: French beige, Navajo white, alabaster white, albino white, antique white, arctic white, argent white, ashen white, beige, birch, biscuit white, bisque, blanched almond, blanched white, bleached white, blonde, bone white, buff, camel, canvas beige, linen white, marshmallow white, milk white, mocassin, mother-of-pearl, mushroom, neutral white, nude, oatmeal white, off-white, old lace white, opal, paper white, pearl white, piano key white, polar white, porcelain, powder white, pure white, raw cotton white, coconut white, contrast white, cotton white, cream, diamond, dove white, ecru, eggshell white, flax, flour white, fog white, frosted white, ghost white, goose white, hemp, ivory white, lace white, latte, light tan, lily white, sandstone, seashell white, sheep white, sheet white, shell white, shining star white, silvery white, smoky beige, snow white, solid white, spotless white, sugar white, toothpaste white, vanilla, waxen white, wedding white, whey, white, white chocolate, white smoke Yellow: Chardonnay, French fry yellow, Titanium yellow, amber, banana yellow, bleached blond, blond, buff, bumblebee yellow, butter yellow, buttercup, butternut squash yellow, butterscotch, cadmium yellow, canary yellow, champagne, citrine, corn yellow, lemon peel, lemon sherbet, lemon yellow, linen, lion yellow, maize, marigold yellow, mellow yellow, metallic gold, mimosa yellow, mustard yellow, ochre, olive, omelette yellow, palamino, papaya, parakeet yellow, pencil yellow, cream, custard yellow, daffodil yellow, dandelion, duckling yellow, egg yolk yellow, electric yellow, flax, flesh tone, gold, gold yellow, golden bronze, golden yellow, goldenrod, highlighter yellow, honey yellow, lemon chiffon, lemon drop, pineapple yellow, popcorn yellow, raincoat yellow, saffron, school bus yellow, squash yellow, straw yellow, sunflower yellow, sunglow yellow, sunset yellow, sunshine yellow, taxi cab yellow, topaz, vanilla, wheat, yellow, yolk yellow

Orange: amber, apricot, basketball orange, blood orange, bourbon, burnt orange, butterfly orange, candlelight orange, candy corn, cantaloupe orange, carnelian, carotene, carrot orange, cheddar orange, cinnamon, mango, marigold orange, melon orange, neon orange, old gold, orange, orange juice, orange peel, orange sherbet, orange soda, orange-red, papaya, peach, persimmon, pumpkin orange, copper penny, coral, dark orange, dark salmon, dayglo orange, ember orange, fall leaves orange, flame orange, ginger orange, gold, golden orange, goldfish orange, ice pop orange, light orange, light salmon, rust orange, safety orange, saffron, salamander orange, starfish orange, sunrise orange, tabby, tangelo, tangerine, tawny, tiger orange, tiger stripe orange, traffic cone orange, yam orange

Red: Bordeaux red, Indian red, alizarin crimson, amaranth, apple red, auburn, autumn leaf red, barn red, beet red, blood red, blush, bougainvillea, bourbon, brick red, bright red, burgundy, burnt sienna, candy apple red, cardinal red, carmine, carnelian, cerise, cherry red, chestnut red, chili pepper red, magenta, magma red, maroon, orange-red, paprika, pepperoni red, persimmon red, pink red, pomegranate red, poppy red, rabbit eye red, radish red, rare steak red, raspberry red, red, red apple, red berry, red carpet, red licorice, red lipstick, red nose, red pepper, red potato, red rose, red velvet, claret, copper, coral red, crab red, cranberry red, crimson red, dark cerise, dark red, deep pink, devil red, faded rose, fire engine red, fire red, fire truck red, flame red, florid red, fruit punch red, garnet red, geranium red, henna, hibiscus red, hot pink, ketchup red, ladybug red, lipstick red, red wine vinegar, redwood, rosewood, rouge, ruby red, russet red, rust red, sangria red, scarlet, sports car red, stop light red, stop sign red, strawberry red, tawny port red, tawny red, terra cotta, tomato bisque, tomato red, torch red, vermillion, watermelon flesh, wine red, winter apple red

Pink: Pepto Bismal pink, Persian rose, amaranth, apricot, ash rose, baby cheeks pink, baby pink, bacon pink, ballerina pink, ballet pink, ballet slipper pink, begonia, blush pink, bougainvillea, bubblegum pink, cameo, carmine, carnation pink, cerise, cherry blossom, mulberry, neon pink, orchid, pale pink, pastel pink, peach, peach puff, peony pink, petunia pink, pig pink, pink, pink Cadillac, pink champagne, pink cheeks, pink diamond, pink grapefruit, pink lemonade, pink sherbet, polka dot pink, powder pink, conch pink, coral pink, cotton candy, cranberry, cupcake pink, dayglo pink, dusty rose, eraser pink, flamingo pink, flesh, flesh-colored, fuchsia, grapefruit pink, hibiscus pink, hot pink, jellyfish pink, lavender pink, light plum, lipstick pink, magenta, rose, rose petal, rose pink, rose quartz, rosy red, ruby, ruddy pink, sand pink, seashell pink, shocking pink, soft pink, strawberry jam, strawberry milkshake, sunset pink, tea rose, thistle pink, tongue pink, tulip pink, turnip pink, worm pink

Purple: Concord grape, amethyst, aubergine, beet purple, bilberry purple, blackberry, blackcurrant, blue violet, blueberry, brandywine, bruise purple, byzantium, cerise, claret, currant, dahlia, magenta, mauve, monster purple, mulberry, opal purple, orchid purple, pale plum, pansy purple, passionfruit purple, pastel purple, periwinkle, plum, prune, purple, purple cabbage, purple jam, dark raspberry, dark violet, eggplant purple, fandango, grape crush, grape jam purple, grape jelly purple, grape purple, heliotrope, hyacinth, inky purple, iris purple, juice purple, lavender, lavender blush, lilac purple, quartz, raisin purple, raspberry, rhubarb purple, royal purple, thistle, true purple, turnip purple, violet, violet red, wild berry purple, wild grape, wine, wisteria

Blue: Caribbean blue, Caribbean turquoise, Dodger blue, Pacific blue, Prussian blue, Tiffany blue, alice blue, aqua blue, aquamarine, azure blue, baby blue, blue belle, blue ice, blue jean blue, blue-green, blueberry, bluebird blue, bluebonnet blue, cadet blue, lapis lazuli, light blue, marine blue, marlin blue, midnight blue, navy blue, neon blue, nighttime blue, ocean blue, pale blue, pastel blue, peacock blue, police officer blue, pool blue, powder blue, ribbon blue, robin egg, royal blue, sapphire blue, cobalt, cornflower, cyan, dark blue, dark slate blue, deep sky blue, denim blue, dolphin blue, electric blue, frostbite blue, glacial blue, heather, iceberg blue, icy blue, imperial blue, indigo blue, inky blue, jay blue, lake blue, slate blue, snowflake blue, stained glass blue, steel blue, stone blue, summer sky blue, surf blue, swimming pool, teal blue, true blue, turquoise, ultra blue, ultramarine, verdigris, violet blue, washed denim blue, whale blue

Green: Granny Smith apple, Kelly green, Kermit green, Persian green, absinthe, algae green, alligator green, apple green, aqua, army green, artichoke green, asparagus green, avocado green, bay leaf green, bluegrass green, boxwood green, broccoli green, cabbage green, cactus green, caterpillar green, celery green, chartreuse, chive green, chlorophyll green, iceberg lettuce, iguana green, ivy green, jade green, jadestone, jungle green, kelp green, key lime green, leaf green, leprechaun green, lettuce green, lichen green, light cyan, lime green, lizard green, melon rind green, metallic mint, mint green, moss green, myrtle green, neon green, olive drab, olive green, parrot green, crocodile green, cucumber green, cyan, cypress, dark khaki green, dark olive green, dollar bill green, drab olive, eel green, emerald green, evergreen, fern green, forest green, frog green, grass green, grasshopper green, green, green apple, green olive, green pepper, green tea, green-yellow, holly, honeydew green, pea soup, pear green, pickle green, pine green, pistachio, sage green, sea green, seafoam green, seaweed green, shamrock green, spinach green, spring bud green, spring green, sprout green, spruce green, summer grass, swamp green, tea green, turtle green, verdant, verdigris, wasabi green, zucchini green

Brown: October brown, acorn brown, auburn, autumn leaf, barbecue sauce brown, bark brown, bay, bear brown, beetle brown, biscuit brown, branch brown, brick brown, bronze, brown, brown sugar, brunette, burnt sienna, burnt umber, butterscotch brow, cafe au lait, camel brown, cappuccino brown, caramel brown, cardboard brown, chestnut brown, kangaroo brown, khaki, leather, lion brown, liver brown, mahogany, maple brown, maple sugar brown, maroon, meatball brown, milk chocolate, mink, mocha brown, mud brown, nougat, nude, nut brown, nut brown ale, nutmeg, oak brown, pancake brown, peanut butter brown, potato brown, pretzel brown, raisin brown, cinnamon brown, cocoa, cocoa brown, coffee bean brown, coffee brown, coffee stain brown, copper, dark chocolate brown, dark citrine, deer brown, desert sand, dirt, doeskin, dun, earth brown, earth yellow, earthenware brown, fallow, fawn brown, football brown, fox brown, freckle brown, ginger brown, golden brown, hazel brown, rich earth, roan, root beer brown, rosewood, ruddy brown, russet brown, rust, saddle brown, sand, sandy brown, sea lion brown, semi-sweet chocolate, sepia, sienna, sorrel, steak brown, tan, tan brown, tan-nude, tawny, toast brown, tumbleweed, tweed brown, walnut brown, wheat,

Gray/Grey: argent silver, ash gray, battleship gray, cadet gray, charcoal gray, chrome, cloud gray, cloudy day gray, concrete gray, cool gray, cool grey, dim gray, dolphin gray, dove gray, overcast gray, owl gray, oyster gray, pewter, pigeon gray, platinum, rainy day gray, rhinoceros gray, river rock, salt and pepper gray, sardine gray, seal gray, shark gray, silver, elephant gray, fog gray, grandma gray, granite gray, gray, grey, gunmetal gray, haze gray, hippopotamus gray, iron gray, koala gray, metal gray, mist gray, moon gray, smoke gray, soot gray, steel gray, stone gray, storm gray, stormy sea gray, taupe gray, thunder cloud gray, warm gray, wed sidewalk gray, wool gray, zinc gray

Black: Mars black, black, black cat, black coffee, black licorice, black pearl, black pepper, black tar, blackboard black, blackout, blue-black, bow tie black, kettle black, kohl black, licorice black, mascara black, mica, midnight black, molasses black, night sky black, ninja black, obsidian, onyx, outer space black, caviar black, chalkboard black, charcoal black, coal black, ebony black, eclipse black, eyelash black, fig, gothic black, hearse black, ink black, jet black, piano key black, pitch black, pupil black, raven black, sable black, shadow black, smoky black, sooty black, spade black, spider black, tar black, tarmac black

https://www.words-to-use.com/words/colors-names/

#tools #links #colours #lists #word lists

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olgagarmash · 4 years ago

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20 Crisp and Cool Cucumber Recipes for Summer

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Fresh cucumber salad is a hallmark of summer picnics and backyard barbecues for many of us. Just-picked, thinly sliced cukes marinated with onions in a vinegar dressing sounds as delicious as it is nutritious! With warm weather and sunshine season upon us, cucumber recipes are a low-cal, refreshing and surprisingly healthy way to get in your daily veggie servings.

Powerhouses of Nutrients, Electrolytes, and Hydration

Did you know that cucumbers are about 96 percent H2O? Of course, with all that water they’re definitely hydrating! Keeping up your fluid intake is essential for health and weight loss, particularly during the heat of the summer. Water also keeps your joints lubricated and gives you energy.1

However, cucumbers are more than just crunchy water. With cukes, you also get nutrients like magnesium, potassium and vitamins C and K. If you don’t peel and seed them, you also get fiber and beta-carotene. According to one study, cucumber seeds are loaded with calcium.2

Bonus: Cukes contain two plant chemicals, lignans and cucurbitacins, that may guard against certain cancers.2

Surprising Fun Fact: Cucumbers, like tomatoes, are actually a fruit!

Easy Cucumber Recipes For Fresh Summer Meals

Time to add some more cucumber recipes to your repertoire, particularly if you have a surplus from your backyard garden! Here are 20 easy cucumber recipes you’re going to enjoy guilt-free all summer long.

Whole wheat orzo—a rice-shaped pasta—makes the perfect base for healthy pasta salad recipes when paired with fresh summer veggies like cucumber. In this version, we add cucumbers, tomatoes and onions for a totally refreshing summer salad that will make you pass up mayonnaise-y potato salad every time. It’s dressed with a piquant lemon dressing made of lemon juice, zest, olive oil and black pepper. The longest step of this recipe is waiting for the orzo to cook. One serving is 276 calories and counts as one Smart Carb, half of a PowerFuel, one Extra and one Vegetable serving. Click here for the full recipe! >

Cucumbers shine in the creamy avocado salsa that tops this light, flaky fish dinner. Tilapia is coated in a dry-rub seasoning made from paprika, cayenne, thyme, oregano, garlic, onion powder and black pepper. Sautéed in light butter, it’s capped with the refreshing salsa that combines chopped cucumber, red onions, avocado and lime juice. The recipe makes four servings at 210 calories each. One serving counts as one PowerFuel and two Extras. Click here for the full recipe! >

Cucumber takes the place of bread so you can have two whole deli sandwiches for lunch! Spread with a wedge of cheese and topped with deli meat, it’s a low-carb and low-calorie lunch that you’ll want to make every day. One serving is only 108 calories and counts as one PowerFuel, one Extra and one Vegetable. You can also feel free to get creative with this one and make different types of cucumber sandwich recipes with different toppings. Click here for the full recipe! >

Restaurant and store-bought sushi can hide loads of calories. Making your own keeps it light and healthy. This creative take on sushi turns it into a tower with all of your favorite ingredients. Tower construction is easy: Start with a sweet and savory mango-cuke mixture, followed by chopped sushi-grade tuna, avocado and spicy brown rice. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before flipping it over and serving with a sprinkling of black sesame seeds. This dish for sophisticated palates can be served over veggie noodles, a salad or eaten as is for only 295 calories. On Nutrisystem it counts as one SmartCarb, one PowerFuel and two Extras. Click here for the full recipe! >

Did we have you at “3-Ingredient?” This may be one of the easiest cucumber snack recipes for weight loss! Partially peel a cucumber, slice it into sticks and dust each one with chili lime seasoning and Pink Himalayan salt. Eat. It’s that simple and delish! One serving is only 40 calories and counts as one unlimited Vegetable on Nutrisystem. Click here for the full recipe! >

Invest in a low-cost spiralizer—you won’t be sorry! It makes veggie pasta swaps that are great if you’re trying to cut carbs or calories. Try making cucumber noodle recipes made with English cucumbers (no seeds). We did and combined them with red bell peppers and red onions for this easy salad. Top these veggies with a homemade dressing made from sesame oil, rice vinegar, reduced sodium soy sauce, red chili flakes and a couple of drops of stevia. A sprinkle of sesame seeds adorns this 49-calorie side dish that counts as one Vegetable and one Extra on Nutrisystem. Click here for the full recipe! >

This cool-as-a-cucumber salad makes four servings. However, at 34 calories per serving, you could eat all four without sabotaging your weight loss! Plus, it’s so easy to make: toss together this mélange of sliced cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions and mint. Topped with a tasty homemade lemon dressing, one serving counts as one Vegetable on the Nutrisystem plan. It’s one of the best cucumber salad recipes! Click here for the full recipe! >

If you’ve never had it, farro is a nutty, chewy form of wheat that’s super versatile. Combined with deshelled cooked edamame, coleslaw mix, shredded purple cabbage, chopped green onion and cucumbers, it’s the perfect summer side dish. Dress it up with a mixture of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, olive oil and garlic powder, then sprinkle with some cashews and black sesame seeds. It counts as one SmartCarb, one PowerFuel, one Vegetable and one Extra. Click here for the full recipe! >

If you like tabbouleh—the Middle Eastern grain salad with cukes, lemon, parsley and mint—you’ll love this take that substitutes quinoa for the classic bulgur. Salad ingredients include diced cucumber, chilled cooked quinoa, red onion, mint and roughly chopped fresh parsley. It’s dressed lightly with a mixture of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, lime juice and black pepper. One serving is 262 calories and counts as one SmartCarb, one and a half Vegetables and two and a half Extras on Nutrisystem. Click here for the full recipe! >

This lunch recipe turns deli meat and other savory ingredients into simple skewers which are way more fun to eat than a plain old sandwich. You can choose your favorite low-salt deli meats (chicken, turkey, ham or roast beef) and alter a few ingredients—add pickles if you don’t like black olives, for example—to suit your taste. The recipe starts with four slices of deli meat, which you thread on a skewer with cheese cubes, thick slices of romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, black olives, cucumber slices and pieces of whole wheat pita bread. Your lunch (two skewers!) clocks in at only 253 calories and counts as one SmartCarb, two PowerFuels and one Extra. Click here for the full recipe! >

This new take on the old picnic standard will become one of your go-tos. It’s so easy to make! A chopped seedless cucumber marinates for four hours in a dressing of white vinegar, fresh parsley, chopped fresh fill, minced garlic and salt. You’ll taste that zesty dressing in every bite. Minimal calories for one tasty Vegetable serving. Click here for the full recipe! >

If this reminds you of Greek tzatziki sauce, that’s because it has the same ingredients: plain Greek yogurt, chopped cucumber, dill, garlic and lemon juice. It makes a wonderful low-cal (73.5 calories per serving) dip for crackers or crudité, a spread for sandwiches or even a topping that turns a plain broiled chicken breast into something more delicious. One serving counts as half of a PowerFuel. Click here for the full recipe! >

Start your morning off right with this tasty sandwich chockfull of veggies. It’s made with a Nutrisystem Honey Wheat Bagel topped with fat-free cream cheese, sliced cucumbers and raw bell peppers. It has the right amount of chew, creaminess and crunch to satisfy every savory breakfast lover. One is only 184 calories and counts as one Nutrisystem Breakfast, half of a Vegetable serving and one Extra. Click here for the full recipe! >

Giving nachos the Greek treatment is perfection! You’ll make some pita chips from three pieces of whole wheat pita bread, which you’ll top with shredded cooked chicken and feta cheese. Just bake it to melt the cheese a little. Finally, top these tasty nachos with cherry tomatoes, diced cucumber, chopped red onion, fresh parsley, tzatziki dip and sliced black olives. The recipe makes six servings, each clocking in at 175 calories. It counts as one SmartCarb, on PowerFuel and one Extra. Click here for the full recipe! >

Use the seafood of your choice in this recipe (which calls for imitation crabmeat) but stick with the many crunchy veggies: This healthy dinner bowl contains Persian cucumbers, avocados, carrots, edamame and scallion over riced cauliflower. Dressed in a combo of light mayonnaise and sriracha, plus a sprinkling of sesame seeds, this is one satisfying meal which clocks in at 317 calories and counts as two PowerFuels, two Extras and two Vegetables. Click here for the full recipe! >

World’s easiest brunch—for you and a friend or partner—or just an extra special breakfast, this take on avocado toast starts with two slices of whole wheat bread. Of course, you add a schmear of creamy avocado, but then you top with thin slices of cucumber, halved cherry tomatoes, chopped Kalamata olives, reduced fat feta cheese, dried oregano and a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes if you want a little more bite to your breakfast. One slice is 205 calories and counts as one SmartCarb one PowerFuel and two Extras. Click here for the full recipe! >

Sesame Avocado Toast! >

Cucumber serves as the vessel for a delicious crab salad made from crab (of course!) mixed with lemon juice, light mayonnaise, minced cilantro and diced red onion. Place mixture into the scooped out center of one-inch cucumber slices. It contains 150 calories per serving, plus 17 grams of satisfying protein. This tasty lunch, dinner or party appetizer counts as one PowerFuel, two Vegetables and one Extra. Click here for the full recipe! >

Check out these other delicious cucumber cup recipe ideas:

This warm weather appetizer is cute, colorful and creative. Easy Melon Prosciutto Skewers are simple to make and feature a unique sweet and salty flavor combo. Fresh melon cubes and slices of prosciutto are stacked onto toothpicks with cucumber slices, fresh basil and mozzarella balls for an easy no-bake appetizer. Click here for the full recipe! >

Cucumbers are a staple for summer salad recipes, including this diet-friendly Panzanella Salad that packs in the nutrition and flavor. In addition to crunchy cukes, it also has artichoke hearts and shredded rotisserie chicken for plenty of fiber and protein. The homemade vinaigrette will definitely become a go-to staple for all of your side salads. Click here for the full recipe! >

Summer meal prep is made easy and delicious with this perfect, refreshing and healthy lunch idea. Featuring crisp veggies like cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and onions, plus Greek salad staples like olives, chickpeas and feta cheese, this Mason Jar Greek Salad is made for grabbing and going on the way out the door. Click here for the full recipe! >

Sources:

https://snap-ed.michiganfitness.org/wp-content/uploads/cucumbers-family-newsletter-2016.pdf

https://www.livescience.com/51000-cucumber-nutrition.html

source https://wealthch.com/20-crisp-and-cool-cucumber-recipes-for-summer/

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edgewaterfarmcsa · 4 years ago

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CSA WEEK 5

p i c k l i s t

CABBAGE - CELERY - BEETS - CARROTS - SHISO -

TULSI BASIL - FENNEL - CAULIFLOWER

CSA FRAAAANDS!! On account of way too many crops that will leave y’all scratching your heads wondering what exactly you signed up for, I am skipping the farm updates and moving right into PRO-TIPS. And if anyone needs more on how we spent this week in farming, I can assure you this. No one went home dry. Yes, our wells and water-tables are pumped but ugggh my feet exist in a constant prune state.

PRO TIPS:

SHISO: This week we are going to try something new. We are all going to use SHISO (the beautiful reddish purple bunch in your CSA) and learn this herb together. Full disclosure, I know nothing about it. I’ve eyed it for years- heard stories of pickling and fermenting, garnishing, juicing, etc. But this year we have a really beautiful crop and it’s time to expand our horizons.

(Delicious Korean pickled perilla (shiso) leaves in soy sauce brine)

32 leaves shiso

SEASONING SAUCE (MIX THESE IN A MEDIUM-SIZED BOWL)

10 Tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp Korean chili flakes (gochugaru)

1 tsp minced garlic

2 Tbsp brown sugar

2 Tbsp spring onion , finely chopped

2 Tbsp green chilies or red chilies, finely chopped

Rinse the shiso leaves in cold running water and drain/air dry them while left in the colander.

While waiting for the perilla leaves to dry, prepare the seasoning sauce.

Place the perilla leaves in stacks in a large (glass) container (with a lid). Spread (about 1 Tbsp worth of) seasoning sauce on top of the perilla leaf. Repeat this process for every 3 leaves for the rest of the leaves. As it is already stacked, you will have to lift the leaves at every third interval with one hand while the other hand is spreading the sauce. You don’t need to spread the sauce on every leaf. If you have any sauce leftover, pour it onto the stacked leaves. If you run out of sauce, tip the container and scoop out the sauce from the bottom corner of the container and spread it over the perilla leaves.

Close the lid and move the container to the fridge. You can start eating this from the next day. Serve it with a hot bowl of rice. (It can be stored in the fridge for at least one week. Though traditionally this dish was made during the summer months when many perilla leaves are available and consumed through the summer to winter.)

18 oz Red/Purple Shiso leaves * 1 or 500g

2 cups water

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

Instructions

Prepare shiso leaves to boil. Wash and trim the shiso leaves.

Bring the 2 cups of water to boil in a large sauce pan and add the prepared shiso leaves.

Turn the heat down to medium heat and cook the shiso leaves for about a few minutes. The leaves colour will change from purple to a greenish colour.

Drain the shiso leaves with a strainer and squeeze the leaves to extract as much as you can. It is hot so be careful not to burn your fingers. I used a spoon to extract all liquid.

Place the drained liquid back to the saucepan and bring it simmer.

Add the sugar, and when the sugar is dissolved, turn the heat off and add the apple cider vinegar.

Cool it down and keep it in a clean bottle in a fridge. If you sterilize the container in which you keep the syrup, it will last about 6 months in the fridge.

To make shiso juice, place 1/4 cup of the syrup into a glass and pour about 200 ml of mineral water or fizzy soda water over the top. Add ice cubes.

Tulsi: Tulsi, or Holy Basil. This herb, I LOVE. Tulsi, the green bunch in your box topped with little purple flower is an herbal adaptogen. My dear friend and favorite herbalist Rachael Keener of ALKAME CO. wrote the following about adaptogens,

“ADAPTOGENS ARE CONSIDERED HERBAL SUPERSTARS BECAUSE OF THEIR UNIQUE ABILITY TO SUPPORT A HEALTHY STRESS RESPONSE. In what can sometimes feel like the barrage of the modern era, these plants stand beside us fostering grace and balance while offering their generous hand of support.

What’s even more impressive about adaptogens is that we’re not just talking about resilience to the occasional stress of the modern demands of work, family, etc. They may also support our body’s response to environmental stressors like pollutants in our water, and chemicals in our body products. These too pose a challenge unique to the times we are living in.

Interestingly, adaptogens don’t have one specific way in which they act. Instead, they act as harmonizers. Their diverse chemistry helps balance our diverse chemistry and supports the stability of our neuroendocrine and immune systems (aka how we perceive and respond to mental/emotional and environmental/chemical stressors). Science has identified some of the ways in which adaptogens do this, but due to their broad-ranging mechanisms of actions, every aspect of how they work has yet to be clearly defined.

Adaptogens are, by definition, considered appropriate for long-term use… Best adopted as daily tonics, they build our resilience over time. They are not an instant fix, and they do not stand alone as a replacement for other forms of self-care. Instead they stand firmly behind us, supporting lifestyle changes that promote resilience in this wild world*.

With self-care and adaptogens at our side, we can restore our ability to be actors in our worlds. We can orient to action, rather than reaction. The world is indeed a crazy place, and yet we still belong to it. Lean on your plant friends when the going gets rough and you notice that you’re having a hard time adapting or finding balance. They make pleasant companions and reflect back to us how to welcome ourselves home no matter what is happening around us.”

MORE ON Tulsi from Urban Moonshine… “Tulsi, in particular, is one of the few adaptogens that come in a green leafy form, this plant supports our nervous system during periods of occasional stress and burn out. It's sweet, spicy vanilla aroma and taste make it a favorite one to uplift the spirit. It's a favorite in tea, as well as smoothies, salads and fresh juices.”

All this being said, I remember when I was pregnant my midwife discouraged tulsi… Not entirely sure why- but if you are a pregnant person, please ask your midwife first.

TULSI TEA

1 cup water

1 tsp-2 tsp dried tulsi, or 4 tsp fresh (really based on the taste you prefer)

Bring the water to a boil. Remove from the heat and pour over the tulsi in a heat-safe container.

Allow the tea to steep, covered, for 10-15 minutes.

Strain tulsi from tea and enjoy daily.

USE FRESH LEAVES: Add chopped leaves to culinary dishes just as you would basil. Freeze leaves in ice cubes to add to summer drinks. Eat a few fresh leaves to get phytonutrients and boost your immunity.

TULSI is also found in tinctures, infused honeys, elixirs, vinegars etc… for more on that give it a google.

Caramelized fennel with parmy frico

by Molly Baz from the book: COOK THIS BOOK

(recommended by Coreen at the farmstand!)

3 large fennel bulbs with fronds

1 lemon

2oz Parmesan cheese

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

salt & pep

Position a rack in the lower third of your oven. Preheat the oven to 425*f

Prep the fennel and Parm:

Trim off the long stalks of 3 fennel bulbs, right where they meet the bulb. Reserve about half of them; discard the rest. Trim the root ends of the bulbs if they are looking a little brown and sad. Discard any bruised outer layers of the fennel bulbs. Position each bulb upright on your cutting board, root-end down, and cut into ½-inch thick planks. Transfer the planks to a large rimmed baking sheet.

Drizzle the fennel planks with ¼ cup olive oil, being sure to coat them evenly and all over. Season with salt and black pepper.

Using a microplane, finely grate 1 ounce of Parmesan cheese (about ¼ cup) over the fennel (on top only, no need to flip). Roast until the fennel is deeply caramelized on the underside, 20 to 25 minutes.

Remove from the oven and flip each plank. Finely grate 1 ounce more cheese (about ¼ cup) over the caramelized side of the fennel. Return to the oven and roast until tender and browned all over, 10 to 15 minutes longer.

Prep the raw fennel salad:

While the fennel roasts, pluck any fronds attached to the reserved fennel stalks and coarsely chop them. Thinly slice the fennel stalks crosswise into coins. Transfer everything to a medium bowl.

Cut 1 lemon in half; squeeze the juice from both halves over the raw fennel. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil, season with salt and black pepper, and toss well to dress the fennel. Taste and adjust the seasoning if it needs it.

SERVE: Transfer the roasted fennel planks to a serving dish. Scatter the r

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studyshrine7-blog · 5 years ago

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Sweet As Mackay!

Sugar Cane Factory

The lush, green area of Mackay in Queensland is just 1.5 hours away from Airlie Beach. It's a area famous for sugarcane but it's also one where nature literally sits on your doorstep and one where the food scene is coming ahead in leaps and bounds with plenty of local and Queensland grown produce.

Tourism Events Queensland

Ivy busies herself with the rental car while I watch the sugar cane leaves flapping in the warm breeze as we drive past. It's the first time to Mackay for both Ivy and I and while we knew that it was famous for sugarcane, we had no idea that it is literally everywhere you look, even at the airport.

As we touched down, I saw vast expanses of green swathes across the landscape. Early April is just after monsoon season and as a result the greens pop. To orient ourselves we drive the adorably named Mango Avenue in Eimeo to the Eimeo Pacific Hotel, a faded retro blue pub that looks like it has stepped out of the movie set. From there you can have a coffee or tea while the view below shows St Bees Island.

It's time for lunch and we visit 9th Lane Grind, a cafe located in the middle of town. It has an on trend menu of cafe offerings along with a range of home baked cakes, sweets and donuts. Service is very friendly and we take a seat at an outside, undercover table.

Chai Frappe $7 and Pina Colada Smoothie $7.50

Drinks wise, my chai frappe is too good that even though I can't finish it because of its size, I take it to go so that I can sip on it all afternoon. The non alcoholic pina colada smoothie is also full of fresh pineapple flavour.

Creamy truffle mushrooms $21.50

The creamy truffle mushrooms are just about the perfect breakfast or lunch dish. With a fat slice of downy soft brioche, a generous portion of streaky bacon, wilted spinach and creamy mushrooms in a truffle cheese sauce, forget calories or diets or any strange notions and just eat this and be happy with your life choices. It's so good that it doesn't even need bacon (but really who is going to ever leave bacon behind?).

Beef Brisket Benny $21.50

The beef brisket benny comes on two slices of bread with two poached eggs, potato hash, beetroot hollandaise and plenty of soft, saucy beef brisket in a barbecue style sauce.

KFCB Kristy's Fried Chicken Burger $18

The fried chicken burger is luscious with a saucy kaleslaw, Sriracha mayonnaise and smashed avocado with a crispy deep fried chicken fillet all on a charcoal bun. It's creamy and crunchy and slightly messy but oh so good at the same time.

Shoe string fries and sweet potato fries $4 each

And for the perennially greedy and undecided (guilty as charged!) you can get both types of fries-shoestring with a salt and vinegar powder as well as excellent sweet potato fries with aioli.

Tim Tam Pancakes $19

And for dessert? It's hard to choose because the cakes are calling me. But we decide to try the Tim Tam pancakes served with Nutella mascarpone, chocolate fairy floss, dark chocolate pearls, berries and house made fudge sauce as well as whole and smashed up Tim Tams. It's enormous and rich but we had to start our trip off with a bang!

Our first home for our Mackay stay is the Rydges Mackay centrally located right opposite 9th Lane Grind. We have a connecting room with two separate entrances and separate ensuites. It's a spacious simply designed room with a king bed.

The bathroom is large with a spa bath and Biology toiletries while there is a separate room for the toilet. Service does vary somewhat but there is a really helpful staff member who assists me when I need to change rooms because the air conditioning wasn't able to be switched off in my original room. Once I move to my new room it doesn't have wifi in it.

Downstairs is the Moss on Wood restaurant where there is a bar area as well as the restaurant at the front. We take a seat at one of the huge white wooden booths and order one of their steaks.

Black Angus Rib Fillet 300g $39 and potato puree $7

The Black Angus rib fillet is from Darling Downs in Queensland and has been dry aged for 100 days. It's perfectly cooked medium rare and comes with battered fries and a salad with honey mustard dressing as well as a sauce of your choice. We chose the red wine jus and the peppercorn sauce, the latter being our favourite. The steak is fantastic and we also order a side of potato puree made with real potato and it's such a satisfying meal especially when we spoon some of that peppercorn sauce on the potatoes.

The next morning we make our way to The Greater Whitsundays Farmers Markets that are held every Wednesday at Bluewater Quay. It's a small but well stocked market with a good range of items from meats, fruit, honeys as well as other goods.

We end up buying some goats milk shampoo bars, lip balms and honeys and trying some samples of sweet Queensland grown bananas and pineapple and pet an adorable doggy called Audrey with a purple tail!

Hi Audrey!

After doing a spot of clothes shopping we head towards The Dispensary which is a bar as well as a breakfast, lunch and dinner eatery. We take a seat under the large painting of a cow and settle into comfortable leather chairs for a feast.

The freshly shucked oysters are served with fresh citrus and Yarra Mountain Ash triple smoked caviar.

Duck Liver Parfait $19

The duck liver parfait is flavoured with Cointreau, sage and orange jelly and comes with a generous serve of roti bread. The duck liver is quite a bit stronger than chicken liver but the onion pickles help pare back the intensity (just a bit more of them please).

Warm Bread $15

We nibble on slices of buttered, toasted warm bread with hazelnut dukkah, olive oil and balsamic glaze. Although we're trying a lot of food both Ivy and I can't resist another buttery slice of toast.

Grilled Scallops $26

The grilled scallops are served on the shell with some smooth red apple puree, roasted hazelnut butter and apple micro salad and have a good balance of flavours.

Fresh fettuccine $26

Mains wise, we are sharing three -the first is the fresh fettucine with lime crème fraîche, smoked salmon and grilled asparagus and basil.

Chicken Teriyaki $24

Our lovely waitress tells us that the teriyaki chicken and the fettucine are the two most popular dishes on the menu with the chicken being the most popular. The teriyaki chicken is served with a sliced daikon and cabbage slaw in a horseradish dressing. We both like that it is served with a lighter side than rice because the weather is so balmy and warm.

Sumac grilled local kingfish $34

My favourite main is the sumac grilled local kingfish with crispy skin. It's served on a bed of cherry tomatoes with a spiced chermoula. It's a simple dish but cooked well, the kingfish perfectly moist.

Dark Chocolate Tart $18

And then we come to dessert. The dark chocolate tart is paired with a delightfully crunchy Queensland macadamia crumb and house made chocolate mint ice cream and blueberries. Ivy likes the serving size of this, it's not too overwhelmingly large or small and the tart has a nice dark intensity to it.

Crema Catalana $16.50

While the crema catalana makes use of one of Mackay's biggest exports-sugar. It's a lightly spiced crema catalana with orange and cinnamon and topped with torched Mackay sugar.

Speaking of sugar the nearby town of Sarina, around 40 minutes drive is home to the Sarina Sugar Shed. They hold four tours daily that detail the interesting history of sugar in the region. It's well worth doing as it is actually really fascinating.

Our fantastic guide Trudy tells us that 95% of Australia's sugar is produced in Queensland. Mackay itself processes around 6-7 tonnes of sugar cane a year. She explains the sugar cane harvesting and growing process to us that starts with small pieces of sugarcane on the ground. The "eyes" on the sugar cane sticks or billets grow the sugarcane which rises to the sky and this process of "planting" the sugar only has to be done every 2-5 years. Sugar cane needs heat humidity and lots of rain or irrigation.

The top leaves of the sugar cane makes the sugar by accessing sunshine but the sugar is stored in stalks and when harvested they do not need the leaves (they can cause problems with the harvesting machines). Decades ago, sugar cane farmers used to burn the sugar cane but that is largely an abandoned process with many just cutting down the leaves to make a trash bed on the ground that breaks down to become nutrients in the soil.

There are 30-40 varieties of sugar cane grown in this area although there are around 160 varieties in total. The farmers help to fund research into finding more disease resistant varieties. And when it comes to harvesting and selling the sugar cane, the farmers are paid by the sugar level in their cane.

Trudy then takes us to the factory to explain the process of how sugar is made in their micro factory. It is first crushed and then they add natural lime to have the mixture reach a ph level of 8 so that it won't rot or deteriorate. It is then heated to 104C/219F to kill bacteria. A flocculant is added to clarify the mixture much in the same way that egg white is added to wine. From an original 80 litres of juice you will get 20 litres of syrup to work with. From this syrup you grow the sugar crystals using a process called "shock seeding" which starts to crystallisation process. They inject raw sugar crystals, raw sugar syrup and air and then the sugar crystals start to form. The longer they sit in the pan the larger the crystals. 7 tonnes of sugar cane will reduce down to create 1 tonne of sugar crystals.

Trudy then shows us the difference between molasses, treacle and golden syrup. Molasses is most concentrated in terms of water but it is also the least sweet. Treacle has more water and sugar while the highest level of sugar and water is with golden syrup.

And that brings us to a very interesting point-did you know that raw sugar in Australia is not actually raw at all? Food standards have ruled that for Australian consumption no sugar can actually be raw. So raw sugar is actually refined sugar that has an additional process to add molasses into it to make it taste like a raw sugar and is actually more refined than white sugar! And most of us I think would assume that we're doing better by using raw sugar.

After blowing our minds with that tidbit we adjourn back to the video room where we get to try all of the products that they produce from chutneys to sauces. I particularly love the ginger sweet chilli sauce and the Asian style mango chutney. All items are gluten, colour and preservative free.

Then she takes us through the alcoholic spirits and the various rums offering us any to taste. The special edition rum is smooth and sweet and spicy while the Noi (Nice over Ice) is perfectly balanced limey deliciousness.

And then Trudy asks us if we'd like a freshly made fairy floss. I don't think that this day could have gotten any better but it does! We are transformed into kids again with our very own stick of lemon fairy floss.

We head back to the town area. The Riviera Mackay is the home for our second night in Mackay. Located right by the River the atmosphere here is a bit more relaxed than in the centre of town. Check in is smooth, parking is easy and we quickly find our way up to our seventh floor two bedroom apartment with two separate bedrooms and two separate bathrooms.

The accommodation is a really pleasant surprise. They are serviced apartments with a kitchenette which we never tend to use as we eat out. But the colour scheme is visually appealing with whites, yellows and pineapple motifs and plenty of neutrals. There are nice touches like L'Occitane toiletries. The apartment is roomy with a good sized balcony. Internet is fast and free but drops in and out and Ivy isn't able to connect at all.

I have a shower and do some work and then we head out again to dinner. Tonight's dinner is at Romeo and Juliet's at the Shakespeare Motel. We sink into a powder blue velvet booth that oversees the whole restaurant and Ivy whispers that she feels like Tony Soprano.

As the name suggests it's a rather romantic restaurant. I'm guessing a birthday or anniversary sort of place although it looks like there are guests that are staying at the motel dining there.

Oysters $34 for a dozen

We start with a dozen oysters with soy, mirin and ginger. They're nice although the soy does tend to overpower the flavour of the oysters.

Caprese Risotto $17

Given we've eaten 10 courses for lunch we go for a lighter dinner. We decide to share a Caprese risotto entree and a pasta main. The caprese risotto ends up being my favourite dish of the night. It's a tomato based risotto with plenty of flavour, sliced up buffalo mozzarella and roasted red vein cherry tomatoes and micro basil. I would have happily devoured this perfectly portioned size dish.

Pappardelle with chicken and mushrooms $26

We also order the pappardelle with shimeji and shiitake mushrooms in a cream sauce. It needs a little seasoning but it is comforting and the pasta well cooked.

Chocolate pave $18

Dessert is a chocolate pave slice, with sticky caramel popcorn and a popcorn sorbet which is a milky, mild sorbet with a touch of butter flavour.

Raspberry and yogurt terrine

There's also a raspberry and yogurt terrine which is Ivy's favourite. It's tart and refreshing and served with fresh strawberries. It's a quick drive back home to rest and sleep before we head to our next stop! Stay tuned because up next Mackay has some nature surprises in store for us.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you like doing food tours like the sugar tour? Did you know that about raw sugar not being raw at all? Have you ever visited Mackay?

NQN and Ivy were guests of Mackay Tourism but all opinions remain her own.

9th Lane Grind

43 Wood St, Mackay QLD 4740 Monday to Friday 6:30am–3:30pm Saturday 6:30am–2:30pm Sunday closed Phone: 0428 897 861

Rydges Mackay Suites

9 Gregory St, Mackay QLD 4740 Phone: (07) 4969 1000 rydges.com/accommodation/mackay-qld/mackay-suites/

Moss On Wood

Ground floor, Rydges Mackay Suites

Greater Whitsundays Farmer's Markets

River St, Mackay QLD 4740 Wednesday 7–11am Phone: 0498 717 941 greaterwhitsundayfood.org.au/farmers-market

The Dispensary

84 Wood St, Mackay QLD 4740 Monday to Saturday 6am–12am Sunday Closed Phone: (07) 4951 3546 thedispensary.nefood.com.au/

Sarina Sugar Shed

Field of Dreams Parkland, Railway Square, Sarina QLD 4737 Open 7 days 9am–4pm Phone: (07) 4943 2801 sarinasugarshed.com.au/

Riviera Mackay

5/7 Nelson St, Mackay QLD 4740 Phone: (07) 4914 2460 rivieramackay.com.au/

Romeo and Juliet's

Shakespeare Motel 309 Shakespeare St, Mackay QLD 4740 Open 7 days 6am–9pm Phone: (07) 4969 0200 shakespearemotel.com.au/dining/

Source: https://www.notquitenigella.com/2019/04/11/mackay-queensland-food-things-to-do/

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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organiclifestylemagazine · 8 years ago

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10 Blood Sugar Lowering Foods

Eat less sugar, and you’ll be healthier.

This fact has been demonstrated over and over again in studies that compare different whole-food-based diets (like the ketogenic diet, vegan diet, and low glycemic index diet) to the conventional American diet.

If you eat more whole foods, you will consume less sugar. Less sugar consumption leads to healthier blood sugar levels. And healthier blood sugar levels lead to less diabetes, heart disease, and inflammation. It’s that simple.

The Only Issue With Reversing Diseases Like Diabetes

Improving your blood sugar is not easy. It may take a couple months with a whole-food plant-based diet before blood sugar levels normalize. During those months, it will be difficult for you and your body to adjust.

This rapid shift from processed foods to whole plant foods can be a shock to the system. Your body adapts to a change in diet in dramatically different ways.

In response to processed foods, your cells become more resistant to insulin — the hormone that shuttles sugar into the cells to be used as energy. As you keep eating processed foods, you keep feeding a vicious cycle of insulin resistance that leads to higher blood sugar levels and more insulin resistance. This leads to chronic inflammation, fat accumulation, vision loss, kidney disease, and nerve damage.

Must Read: Optimize Your Candida Cleanse & Minimize the Symptoms of Die

But Isn’t Sugar Natural?

Chronic inflammation, fat gain, kidney issues, vision loss, and nerve damage? Sounds like a silly way for the body to handle something that is natural.

How natural something is doesn’t matter as much as what it does in the body. Sugar, for example, is toxic to the body.

When sugar is consumed regularly without the fibers, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants found in whole plant foods, it overwhelms the cells. Cellular toxins will then begin to accumulate until the cell dies. If your cells never became resistant to insulin then your cells would continue to be overwhelmed by sugar, and you would have a much shorter life. However, if you’re eating whole plant foods your cells won’t have to become insulin resistant to save your life.

For example, let’s compare an apple to apple juice. Eat a whole organic apple, and it will lead to a gentle increase in blood sugar levels that nourishes the cells. This is because the fiber slows sugar absorption, and the antioxidants, enzymes, vitamins, and minerals from the apple help the cells utilize the sugar effectively (before it can become toxic).

But what happens if you drink apple juice instead? Blood sugar will increase much more because most of the fiber, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and antioxidants were taken out during processing.

This means that the best strategy to improve health is to eat more whole plant foods rather than processed foods like fruit juice and cookies. However, if your goal is to improve blood sugar levels right away, it is best to consume these ten foods.

The Top Ten Foods That Lower Blood Sugar

Patience is a virtue, but sometimes it is better to be impatient when it comes to your health. Eat these ten foods if you don’t want to be a patient with diabetes.

1. Red Cabbage

Red Cabbage is packed with anthocyanins — the pigment that gives this vegetable its dark red color. Many studies have found that anthocyanins can prevent or reverse obesity and type 2 diabetes by reducing inflammation, lowering blood sugar, and improving insulin resistance (the driving factor that leads to type 2 diabetes).

If you are not a fan of red cabbage, you can still get the benefits of blood sugar lowering anthocyanins by eating other dark red, purple, or blue plant foods like blueberries.

2. Blueberries

Blueberries contain a type of anthocyanin that is an active blood sugar lowering agent. Studies have found that the flavonoids in blueberries (and other berries) may provide us with cardiovascular benefits, cancer prevention, and cognitive improvement.

3. Turmeric

Turmeric contains a bright yellow chemical called curcumin. Curcumin has been studied extensively as a potential treatment for diabetes — and the results are promising.

Not only does curcumin lower blood sugar like red cabbage and blueberries, it also promotes the function of the beta cells in the islets of Langerhans of the pancreas (the cells that produce insulin). This means that curcumin can lower your blood sugar in the short-term and improve your ability to use carbohydrates in the long-term.

One concern about curcumin is that it is poorly absorbed. If you want to ensure that you will get the benefits of curcumin, it is best to have it in a supplement called Meriva or a supplement that combines Bioperine with curcumin. Both curcumin preparations increase the absorption of curcumin much more than just having curcumin alone.

4. Cinnamon

Whether it is Ceylon or Cassia cinnamon, it will reduce fasting blood sugar levels and improve insulin sensitivity (the opposite of insulin resistance). But there is one caveat — Cassia cinnamon contains a toxic compound called coumarin that can cause kidney, liver, and lung damage. Just 1-2 teaspoons a day of Cassia cinnamon has enough coumarin to cause toxic effects, so it is best to stick with Ceylon cinnamon to lower blood sugar levels.

5. Lemons

There are thousands of different flavonoids that can be found in plant foods, and lemons have two that can improve fat and glucose metabolism. These flavonoids are called hesperidin and naringin, and they help lower blood sugar, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels.

Put lemon juice in your water or meals to provide you with health-boosting, blood-sugar-lowering flavonoids whenever you want. If you are looking to detox and lower your blood sugar levels at the same time, try our inexpensive, easy detox – The One Gallon Challenge.

6. Fenugreek Seeds

This flavorful seed provides us with a quick and easy way to improve blood sugar levels while fasting and after a meal. The effects of fenugreek seeds are so powerful that they can help lower blood sugar levels in people with type 1 diabetes. This means that fenugreek seeds are effective with and without the help of insulin.

You can consume fenugreek seeds in the form of a tea or add fenugreek seed powder to dressings, sauces, or curries. It is commonly used in Indian foods to give them a slightly sweet, nutty flavor that is often described as a cross between celery and maple.

7. Dark Chocolate

This guilty pleasure may be as pleasureful for you as it is for your body. The cacao in dark chocolate contains many flavanols (a type of flavonoid) that decrease blood pressure and insulin resistance. This decrease in insulin resistance helps the cells use up excess blood sugar, which lowers blood sugar naturally.

However, make sure you are consuming dark chocolate that contains no refined sugar at all. You can avoid this by making your own dark chocolate at home.

Simply melt a half cup of coconut oil in a pan, add in a half cup of raw organic cacao powder (because it has the highest flavanol content) with a tablespoon of a healthy, alternative sweetener. Stir until it is completely mixed, transfer it to a container, and put it in the refrigerator. After a couple hours, you will have your own blood-sugar-lowering dark chocolate without any dubious ingredients.

8. Broccoli Sprouts

Dozens of studies on broccoli sprouts have surfaced over the past decade. They have been found to have anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties, but do these sprouts also help lower blood sugar?

In one randomized double-blind clinical trial, researchers found that 10 grams of broccoli sprouts per day significantly decreased insulin levels. This suggests that broccoli sprouts may improve insulin sensitivity, leading to lower blood sugar levels.

These medicinal sprouts can easily be grown indoors in less than a week (for cheap). Once they are finished growing, you can have them as a snack or with meals.

Recommended Reading: You Need Sulforaphane — How and Why to Grow Broccoli Sprouts

9. Onions

Onion bulb extract was found to strongly lower blood glucose in diabetic rats. Although onion’s effect on the blood sugar levels of humans is uncertain, this vegetable still has many potential health benefits.

These health benefits are partly caused by quercetin, a flavonoid antioxidant that is found in many vegetables including onions. Quercetin has been found to lower blood sugar before and after meals in many different animals with diabetes. This is a promising finding for those who want to lower their blood sugar.

However, onions aren’t the best vegetable if you want to maximize your quercetin consumption.

10. Capers

Capers have the highest quercetin content of all the foods that have been studied. These edible flower buds are picked just before they ripen and pickled before they hit your taste buds with their tangy, briny, and slightly lemony flavor.

Studies on capers have found that they have so much antioxidant activity that just a small amount prevents fat from oxidizing and causing cell damage. This makes capers the perfect addition to any meal that has meat and fat in it.

The Ultimate Blood-Sugar-Lowering Meal

Eating these ten foods on a daily basis will help you lower your blood sugar levels fast. But how do you fit these foods into your day?

By putting them all into one meal.

Imagine this — A bowl filled with salad greens of your choice and:

shredded red cabbage

capers

chopped onions

broccoli sprouts

a handful of blueberries

Toss all of that together with a homemade dressing made of lemon, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and fenugreek powder. Delicious!

And for dessert — homemade chocolate with a sprinkle of cinnamon. Finish it off with a curcumin supplement, and you’ve just combined all ten blood sugar lowering foods into one delicious meal.

However, you don’t have to rely on these foods to lower your blood sugar. In fact, the quickest and easiest way to improve your blood sugar levels is free.

Must read: Improve Your Blood Sugar Levels and Reverse Diabetes For Free (link to the article)

Further Reading:

Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included

Cinnamon – Ceylon Vs Cassia, Health Benefits, and Other Interesting Facts

How to Optimize Curcumin Absorption – With Golden Milk Tea Recipe

Sources:

High Blood Sugar and Diabetes — WebMD

Diabetes — World Health Organization

Type 1 diabetes mellitus successfully managed with the paleolithic ketogenic diet — Edorium Journals

Beneficial effects of ketogenic diet in obese diabetic subjects — Springer Link

A low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet to treat type 2 diabetes — Nutrition & Metabolism

The effect of a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet versus a low-glycemic index diet on glycemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus — Nutrition & Metabolism

Effect of low-calorie versus low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet in type 2 diabetes — Nutrition

USDA Database for the Flavonoid Content of Selected Foods — USDA

Low–Glycemic Index Diets in the Management of Diabetes — American Diabetes Association

Systematic review and meta-analysis of dietary carbohydrate restriction in patients with type 2 diabetes — BMJ

The effect of a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet versus a low-glycemic index diet on glycemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus — Nutrition & Metabolism

The health benefits of berry flavonoids for menopausal women: Cardiovascular disease, cancer and cognition — Science Direct

Hypoglycemic activity of a novel Anthocyanin-rich formulation from Lowbush Blueberry, Vaccinium angustifolium Aiton — NCBI

The update of anthocyanins on obesity and type 2 diabetes: Experimental evidence and clinical perspectives — Springer Link

Curcumin and Diabetes: A Systematic Review— Hindawi

Anti-inflammatory Properties of Curcumin, a Major Constituent of Curcuma longa:A Review of Preclinical and Clinical Research — Alternative Medicine Review

Comparison of systemic availability of curcumin with that of curcumin formulated with phosphatidylcholine — Springer Link

Cinnamon: Potential Role in the Prevention of Insulin Resistance, Metabolic Syndrome, and Type 2 Diabetes — NCBI

Efficacy and safety of ‘true’ cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) as a pharmaceutical agent in diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. — NCBI

Effect of citrus flavonoids on lipid metabolism and glucose-regulating enzyme mRNA levels in type-2 diabetic mice — Science Direct

Dietary Conjugated Linoleic Acid Normalizes Impaired Glucose Tolerance in the Zucker Diabetic Fattyfa/faRat — Science Direct

Ceylon vs Cassia – Not All Cinnamon Is Created Equal— Authority Nutrition

Recent Developments in Delivery, Bioavailability, Absorption and Metabolism of Curcumin: the Golden Pigment from Golden Spice — NCBI

Cocoa Reduces Blood Pressure and Insulin Resistance and Improves Endothelium-Dependent Vasodilation in Hypertensives — AHA Journals

Effect of broccoli sprouts on insulin resistance in type 2 diabetic patients: a randomized double-blind clinical trial. — NCBI

Sulforaphane — Examine

Relative bioavailability of the antioxidant flavonoid quercetin from various foods in man — Science Direct

Bioactive components of caper (Capparis spinosa L.) from Sicily and antioxidant effects in a red meat simulated gastric digestion. — NCBI

Quercetin attenuates fasting and postprandial hyperglycemia in animal models of diabetes mellitus — NCBI

Antidiabetic influence of quercetin in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats — Science Direct

Onion extract may improve high blood sugar and cholesterol— Science Daily

Effect of fenugreek seeds on blood glucose and serum lipids in Type 1 diabetes — Indian Council of Medical Research

Effect of ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.) and fenugreek (Trigonella foenumgraecum L.) on blood lipids, blood sugar and platelet aggregation in patients with coronary artery disease — Science Direct

Intake of Fruit, Vegetables, and Fruit Juices and Risk of Diabetes in Women — NCBI

10 Blood Sugar Lowering Foods was originally published on Organic Lifestyle Magazine

#Blood sugar #Diabetes #Whole Foods

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olgagarmash · 4 years ago

Link

Show Full Article

Powerhouses of Nutrients, Electrolytes, and Hydration

Bonus: Cukes contain two plant chemicals, lignans and cucurbitacins, that may guard against certain cancers.2

Surprising Fun Fact: Cucumbers, like tomatoes, are actually a fruit!

Easy Cucumber Recipes For Fresh Summer Meals

Sesame Avocado Toast! >

Check out these other delicious cucumber cup recipe ideas:

Sources:

https://snap-ed.michiganfitness.org/wp-content/uploads/cucumbers-family-newsletter-2016.pdf

https://www.livescience.com/51000-cucumber-nutrition.html

via Wealth Health

#IFTTT #Wealth Health

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edgewaterfarmcsa · 4 years ago

Text

CSA WEEK 7

p i c k l i s t

Tomatoes - Carmen Sweet Pepper (big) - Jalapeno Pepper (little) - Purple Pepper -

Pickling Cucumbers - Parsley - Corn - Garlic - Blueberries

Yall. I unintentionally included two recipes that are far too long to offer field reports from the week (because i limit myself to a one sheet print out per CSAer)- HOWEVER, the following recipes are important (to me) and can be used throughout the Summer in many ways as they are both extremely adaptable with the current influx of cabbage heads and otherwise. Also, if you have not done so and are curious about fermented foods, the second recipe on sauerkraut is your gateway to filling your house with never enough crocks and never enough cabbage, etc… And just so I don’t leave you completely hanging on field reports: An amazing amount of hours were spent this week picking blueberries.

TIPS - TRICKS - RECIPES:

LENTIL, CABBAGE, AND FETA SALAD WITH FRIZZLED ONIONS BY LUKAS VOLGER

JENNY’S NOTE: My house has been eating this once a week since cabbage has been field ready. We never have all the ingredients. Many times we’ve made this without the lentils or onion- BUT the main players here are cabbage, feta, toasted almonds and fresh herbs, salt, and dressong. If you can gather those essential foods then chop on and eat up! (Also, I use the term “we” incredibly loosely, as my dear friend/housemate Rich, has been doing the cooking here).

Also, the book this recipe is from, START SIMPLE by Lukas Volger (Copyright © 2020 by Lukas Volger. Published by Harper Wave, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.) proves to be an excellent Summer eating resource.

INGREDIENTS:

½ cup brown, black or dark green lentils

Salt

½ medium white or yellow onion

Olive oil

5 cups sliced cabbage

¼ teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons red or white wine vinegar

2 teaspoons dijon mustard

¼ teaspoon honey

½ cup crumbled feta cheese

1.2 cup coarsely chopped toasted almonds

½ cup parsley leaves or dill fronds

Combine the lentils with 1 cup water and ½ teaspoon salt in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook until tender, 12 to 18 minutes, depending on which lentils you use. Drain off and liquid left in the pan and allow to cool.

(JENNY’S NOTE: SO FAR, WE HAVE NOT DONE THE FOLLOWING BECAUSE THE ONIONS HAVE ONLY RECENTLY STARTED PUTTING ON SIZE, IT SOUNDS DELISH, BUT FEEL FREE TO SKIP IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANY ONIONS) Meanwhile, slice the onion into paper-thin wasps, preferably using a mandolin, or working carefully with a chef’s knife. Warm about ¼ inch of the olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Dip a piece of onion into it to ensure it’s properly hot- it should sizzle immediately- then add all the onions. Cook, stirring often with a fork, untl they get crispy and turn a reddish-brown color, 10 to 20 minutes. Watch carefully for the final few minutes, as they burn easily. Use a slotted spoon to transfer them to a paper towel- lined plate and sprinkle with salt. SAVE THE OIL!

When the oil has cooled until it’s safe to handle, strain it through a fine mesh sieve or coffee filter to remove all solids into a glass jar (I use a 3-inch strainer for this task).

Toss the cabbage, ½ teaspoon of salt, and the sugar in a colander and let soften for 15 to 30 minutes, then gentlypress with a spatula to drain off excess liquid.

Combine the vinegar, mustard, and honey in a jar, along with the 3 tablespoons of the cooled onion-cooking oil. Shake to emulsify.

Fold the cabbage, lentils, cheese, almonds, and parsley leaves with most of the dressing in a serving bowl. Taste and add more dressing if needed. Pile the frizzled onions on top, tossing them into the salad at the table it’s being served.

(JENNYS NOTE: The following recipe has actually change my life)

Written by Sandor Katz

Sandor Ellix Katz, the creator of this site, has earned the nickname “Sandorkraut” for his love of sauerkraut. This is Sandorkaut’s easy sauerkraut recipe from his book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods (Chelsea Green, 2003).

Timeframe: 3 days to 3 months (and beyond) Vessel: 1-quart/1-liter wide-mouth jar, or a larger jar or crock

Ingredients (for 1 quart/1 liter):

2 pounds/1 kilogram of vegetables per quart/liter, any varieties of cabbage alone or in combination, or at least half cabbage and the remainder any combination of radishes, turnips, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, Jerusalem artichokes, onions, shallots, leeks, garlic, greens, peppers, or other vegetables

Approximately 1 tablespoon salt (start with a little less, add if needed after tasting)

Other seasonings as desired, such as caraway seeds (for classic kraut), juniper berries, dill, chili peppers, ginger, turmeric, dried cranberries, or whatever you can conjure in your imagination

Process:

Prepare the vegetables. Remove the outer leaves of the cabbage and reserve. Scrub the root vegetables but do not peel. Chop or grate all vegetables into a bowl. The purpose of this is to expose surface area in order to pull water out of the vegetables, so that they can be submerged under their own juices. The finer the veggies are shredded, the easier it is to get juices out, but fineness or coarseness can vary with excellent results.

Salt and season. Salt the vegetables lightly and add seasonings as you chop. Sauerkraut does not require heavy salting. Taste after the next step and add more salt or seasonings, if desired. It is always easier to add salt than to remove it. (If you must, cover the veggies with dechlorinated water, let this sit for 5 minutes, then pour off the excess water.)

Squeeze the salted vegetables with your hands for a few minutes (or pound with a blunt tool). This bruises the vegetables, breaking down cell walls and enabling them to release their juices. Squeeze until you can pick up a handful and when you squeeze, juice releases (as from a wet sponge).

Pack the salted and squeezed vegetables into your jar. Press the vegetables down with force, using your fingers or a blunt tool, so that air pockets are expelled and juice rises up and over the vegetables. Fill the jar not quite all the way to the top, leaving a little space for expansion. The vegetables have a tendency to float to the top of the brine, so it’s best to keep them pressed down, using one of the cabbage’s outer leaves, folded to fit inside the jar, or a carved chunk of a root vegetable, or a small glass or ceramic insert. Screw the top on the jar; lactic acid bacteria are anaerobic and do not need oxygen (though they can function in the presence of oxygen). However, be aware that fermentation produces carbon dioxide, so pressure will build up in the jar and needs to be released daily, especially the first few days when fermentation will be most vigorous.

Wait. Be sure to loosen the top to relieve pressure each day for the first few days. The rate of fermentation will be faster in a warm environment, slower in a cool one. Some people prefer their krauts lightly fermented for just a few days; others prefer a stronger, more acidic flavor that develops over weeks or months. Taste after just a few days, then a few days later, and at regular intervals to discover what you prefer. Along with the flavor, the texture changes over time, beginning crunchy and gradually softening. Move to the refrigerator if you wish to stop (or rather slow) the fermentation. In a cool environment, kraut can continue fermenting slowly for months. In the summer or in a heated room, its life cycle is more rapid; eventually it can become soft and mushy.

Surface growth. The most common problem that people encounter in fermenting vegetables is surface growth of yeasts and/or molds, facilitated by oxygen. Many books refer to this as “scum,” but I prefer to think of it as a bloom. It’s a surface phenomenon, a result of contact with the air. If you should encounter surface growth, remove as much of it as you can, along with any discolored or soft kraut from the top layer, and discard. The fermented vegetables beneath will generally look, smell, and taste fine. The surface growth can break up as you remove it, making it impossible to remove all of it. Don’t worry.

Enjoy your kraut! I start eating it when the kraut is young and enjoy its evolving flavor over the course of a few weeks (or months in a large batch). Be sure to try the sauerkraut juice that will be left after the kraut is eaten. Sauerkraut juice packs a strong flavor, and is unparalleled as a digestive tonic or hangover cure. Develop a rhythm. Start a new batch before the previous one runs out. Get a few different flavors or styles going at once for variety. Experiment!

When you buy fresh parsley, trim the ends off the stems right when you get home, and stick it in a cup (or a pretty little vase!) of water, as you would for cut flowers. If you don’t use it all right away, change the water every day. Don’t let it go to waste! Start putting it on everything. Don’t take the simplest, loveliest things for granted.

1. Put chopped parsley on everything: Don’t chop it too finely — bigger pieces are prettier and have more flavor. Throw it with abandon on top of grilled vegetables, roasted potatoes, a cold green-bean salad, stews, soups, pasta, hot or cold grain dishes like couscous or quinoa or tabbouleh or …

2. Make a super-simple parsley salad: Throw it together along the lines of the Epicurious recipe that involves just a couple-few cups of Italian parsley leaves, a couple tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice and a little salt (or, to get fancy, substitute umeboshi vinegar for the salt).

3. Make a slightly more complicated parsley salad: Try (or make your own variation on) Alton Brown’s parsley salad recipe, with flat-leaf parsley, lemon juice, lemon zest, walnut and sesame oil, honey and sesame seeds. Find it online, along with a minute-long video in which he declares it’s “perfectly capable of playing first string” — my hero! And he notes that this parsley salad keeps for three weeks (!?) in the refrigerator, though how you wouldn’t eat it all up immediately is a mystery.

4. Make a salad with lots of parsley in it: Tear up any mild lettuce (butter is nice), and mix in plenty of Italian or curly parsley, roughly chopped (a cup or even two!), then dress with a favorite vinaigrette. I know this sounds boring. It is not. Or …

5. Make super-delicious creamy parsley salad dressing, and put it on a salad with lots of parsley in it: It’s just ½ cup plain Greek yogurt (whole milk is best), ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil, ¼ cup (or more!) fresh parsley (either kind), kosher salt and fresh-ground black pepper, all mixed up together — chop the parsley and mix by hand, or use an immersion blender (easiest cleanup), regular blender or food processor. This also makes a great dip for vegetables. Or for chips. Or your life in general. This dressing is really, truly, surprisingly spectacular. (I stole the idea from Amy Pennington’s cookbook “Salad Days,” which has the same recipe but calls for dill. Nobody truly loves dill.)

6. Make tomato-parsley sumac salad:Mehdi Boujrada of local spice-and-oil company Villa Jerada sent me this one, and it is good. Combine 2 tomatoes (roughly diced), ¼ cup white onion (more finely diced) and ½ cup parsley leaves (roughly chopped); drizzle with olive oil; then add sumac, salt and pepper to taste (start slowly, mix, add more, and when it starts to taste marvelous, add yet a little bit more).

7. Put parsley in a smoothie: This comes from Becky Selengut’s “How to Taste,” and she promises it gives “a burst of brightness.” (She also mentions doing this with mint … sure, fine.) Another Selengut parsley hint: Instead of discarding stems, stow them in a bag in the freezer, and throw them in when making stock.

8. Make a super-simple parsley sauce, and put it on everything: Put a half a bunch of parsley (use mostly leaves, about a cup), a clove of garlic (I prefer a smaller one or half a big one), ½ teaspoon of kosher salt and about ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil together, and blend well. You could add lemon juice and zest, and call it gremolata; add toasted nuts and Parmesan, and make it pesto; sub a bit of shallot for the garlic; add a little anchovy paste for a lot more oomph (but less pure parsley taste). Again, an immersion blender is your friend here, though a regular one or a food processor is fine; you also could chop and blend by hand. This sauce is magical on a juicy steak, or a piece of fish (maybe cooked en papillote), or on vegetables, or inside a grilled-cheese sandwich, or drizzled on a soup or stew, or … It also keeps for a long time in the fridge — just let it warm to room temperature to use.

9. Make garlic-parsley butter, and apply with abandon: Called, fancily, “Beurre Maître d’Hôtel” in French, this is just butter (say ½ cup), fresh lemon juice (a tablespoon or so), garlic (optional, a clove or two, minced finely) and finely chopped parsley (¼ cup) creamed together — start with the butter alone, then slowly add the rest in order. Add a little lemon zest for more, well, zestiness. Again, apply to seafood, grilled meat, vegetables, life.

You might think it’s weird to love parsley, but you’ll see!

Bethany Jean Clement is The Seattle Times’ food writer. Reach her at [email protected] or 206-464-2050. On Twitter: @BJeanClement

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potatelach · 5 years ago

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Mendel's dips list

Oops....I seem to have sprained my ankle, so I'm making this quick dip recipe list so that Mendel can make them instead of me for our shul's chol hamoed shabbat meal and I may as well put it here.

This is all large batches as we plan to have 150+ people.

Good luck Mendel!!

Dill pickle dip.

2 cups mayonnaise

1/2 cup mustard

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 cup chopped sweet pickles

1/3 cup chopped fresh dill

As much minced fresh garlic as you feel like mincing.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Mix together and serve.

Pretty purple cole slaw

1 whole purple cabbage chopped

2 cups shredded cabbage

1 large or 2 medium purple onion chopped

1 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar (optional)

Salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste

Ashkenormative cuccumber salad

I medium/large salad bowl of cucumbers sliced thin.

2 medium onion chopped

1 cup fresh dill chopped

3/4 cup white vinegar

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup lemon juice

I/2 cup white sugar

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 1/2 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon pepper

Deviled egg salad

About 15 large eggs boiled and mashed

6 scallions chopped

1 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup mustard

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon of paprika (sweet or spicy)

Salt and pepper to taste

0 notes

sustainhealthmagazine · 6 years ago

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What will the celebrities at this years 2019 Oscars be eating? Find out what culinary genius @WolfgangPuck has in store

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With the 91st Oscars almost upon us (airing 5:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT on Sunday, February 24), we wanted to find out what the Hollywood A-listers would be eating on the night of the ceremony.

The full culinary lineup for Governors Ball (the official post-Oscars celebration) is again designed by Wolfgang Puck and Eric Klein, vice president of culinary at Wolfgang Puck Catering, has finally been revealed.

Wolgang and his company must be getting something right as It’s the 25th consecutive year the company is catering for the event, and a release notes the culinary offerings pair “glamour with innovation.”

Signature guest favourites like Smoked Salmon Oscars, Potato and Caviar 2.0, and Winter Truffle Baked Cavatappi and Cheese will be served alongside new items including Heirloom Carrot “Tartare,” Vegan Torchio Pasta with Arugula, Tomato and Caper Berries, and Nashville Hot Fried Quail with Red Velvet Waffle.

And on the sweeter side of things, pastry team Kamel Guechida, Garry Larduinat and Jason Lemmonier are planning an assortment of not one but three dozen “show-stopping desserts,” from the popular 24K Gold Dusted Chocolate Oscars to Golden Piper Heidsieck Champagne and Strawberry Push-Up Pops, plus action stations like Affogato with Housemade Ice Cream and Stumptown Nitro Cold Brew.

See below for the full menu.

Amuse Bouche

Crostini of Compressed Watermelon with Citrus Feta Cheese  

Crab Deviled Eggs  

Avocado Tostadas with Crunch Cabbage and Chipotle Glaze (V)  

Crostini with New York Steak, Classic Chimichurri  

Spicy Ranch Popcorn  

Tray-Passed Hors d’Oeuvres

Wild Mushroom Potsticker, Black Truffle Ponzu (V)

Miyazaki Wagyu Beef Tartare on Tapioca Crisp, Togarashi

Mini Taro Root Taco with Miso Glazed Eggplant and Smoked Soy Mushrooms (V)

Heirloom Carrot “Tartare”, Pickled Mustard Seed, Horseradish, Sunchoke Bark (V)

Smoked Salmon Oscars Matzo

Miniature Miyazaki Wagyu Burger, Sharp Cheddar, Remoulade

Wolfgang Puck Signature Pizzas

Spicy Tuna Tartare In Sesame Miso Cones

Alaskan King Crab, Crispy Rice Cake, Avocado, Aji Amario-Yuzu Ponzu

Opal Apple “Summer Roll”, Cucumber, Shiso, Pomegranate Pearl (V, GF)

Raw Bar

SERVED ON HAND CARVED ICE BAR

Spicy Tuna Rolls

California Rolls

Vegetable Rolls

Made To Order Nigiri

Scallop Ceviche, Black Garlic, Satsuma Tangerine Miso, Micro Herbs

Sea Urchin with Eggless Custard, Dashi, Unagi Glaze, Finger Lime

Albacore Tataki, Sweet Onions, Ginger, Momiji Chili, Ponzu

Oysters

Snow Crab Claws

King Crab Legs

Lobster

Shrimp

Passed Small Plates

SERVED COLD

Caramelized Cauliflower, Golden Raisin, Lime, Labneh, Pinenut, Shiso-Za’atar

Frozen Golden Beets, Almond Custard, Meyer Lemon, Ice Lettuce (V)

Snap Peas, Asian Pear, Pomelo Salad, Cacik Cheese, Mint, Walnut

Compressed Persimmon, Cinco Jotas Jamón Ibérico, Burrata, Wild Arugula

SERVED HOT

Sunchoke and Fennel Soup, Chips, Truffle Gremolata

Potato and Caviar 2.0

Black Truffle Chicken Pot Pie

Winter Truffle Baked Cavatappi and Cheese

Pea Agnolotti, Black Truffle, Peas Shoot, Parmesan Reggiano Brittle

Miyazaki Wagyu Beef Ny, Carrot Vichy, Spigarello, Yuzu Kotcho Ponzu

Loup De Mer, Calçot Onions, Artichokes, Fennel, Romesco Salsa, Espelette

Nashville Hot Fried Quail, House Made Pickles, Red Velvet Waffle

Torchio Pasta, Arugula, Tomato, Caper Berries, Aleppo Pepper, Black Olive Oil, Basil Flower (V)

Austrian Ricotta Dumpling, Watercress-Pea Pesto, Lemon Brown Butter

V - VEGAN GF - GLUTEN FREE

Individual & Plated Sweets

24 Karat Dusted Valrhona Illanka Chocolate Oscars

Ombre Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

Pillow Cake with Coconut Mango and Passion Fruit

Coconut - Chocolate Bar (V)

Yuzu Religieuse

Passion Fruit Cookie with Chocolate Chunks

Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Milk Chocolate and Caramelized Pecan Cookies

Strawberry Cookies

Hazelnut and Almond Brownies

Espresso Macaron

Matcha Cherry Macaron

Hibiscus Orange Pate De Fruit

Piper Heidsieck Golden Champagne Strawberry Push Pop

Mini Wolfgang Puck Dark Chocolate Bars

Passed Small Plates

Black Forest “Cherry”

Butterscotch Verrine with Dark Chocolate Nest

Tropical Pavlova with Macerated Jackfruit and Dragon Fruit (V)

Strawberry Ginger Cheesecake with Jasmine Gelee

LOLLIPOPS

Passion Fruit Cheesecake

Praline Almond Chocolate

Chocolate Oscars with Strawberry Valrhona Chocolate

CHOCOLATE BON BONS

Chai Latte

Thai Tea with Young Coconut

Honey Jasmine

Earl Grey Tea Biscuit

Espresso Triple Shot

Praline Roasted Coffee Bean

Dessert Action Stations

MADE TO ORDER

Air Bread “Sea Urchin” with Passion Fruit Caviar

Affogato with Housemade Ice Creams and Stumptown Nitro Cold-Brew

Vegan Sweets (without gluten)

Hawaiian Superfood Spheres

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

Cashew Vanilla Tiramisu

Tropical Halo-Halo

Sunflower Raspberry Macaron

Chocolate and Sea Salt Cookies

V - VEGAN GF - GLUTEN FREE

OSCARS BY THE numbers

Ball Production by Cheryl Cecchetto / Sequoia Productions. Menu Created by Wolfgang Puck and Eric Klein, VP Culinary of Wolfgang Puck Catering. Pastry design by Kamel Guechida, Garry Larduinat and Jason Lemonnier. Restaurant-style service directed by Carl Schuster, CEO Wolfgang Puck Catering.

IN THE KITCHEN

200 culinary staff

2,600 pound sculpted ice bar

240 kilos Miyazaki wagyu beef

4 pounds yuzu kotcho

400 each quail

10 gallons buttermilk

100 pounds housemade bread and butter pickles

6,500 wood-fired Oscar-shaped flat bread

3,500 sesame miso cones

350 pounds Atlantic bigeye tuna

10 whole US wild-caught yellowtail

15 kilos American farm-raised caviar

600 pieces housemade wild mushroom pot-stickers

500 uni tongues

5 gallons dashi stock

7,500 individual US shrimp

250 Maine lobster

800 crab claws

225 pounds sushi rice

200 pounds Alaskan King Crab legs

30 gallons housemade cocktail sauce

50 whole yellowtail snapper

50 pounds live scallops

450 pounds house smoked salmon

300 whole loup de mer

2 gallons Pedro Ximenez

2 gallons French olive oil Ahuile de Provence from

black olives

2 gallons Minu-8 vinegar

1 kilo Piment d’ Espelette

300 pounds eggplant

500 sheets of nori

20 pounds house pickled ginger

400 homemade signature pizzas

750 cage free eggs

5 pounds smoked trout roe

100 lbs sunchokes

100 pounds Snake River Farms 0/0 Gold Grade

New York sirloin

125 pounds aged Vermont cheddar cheese

250 pounds Parmesan Reggiano

100 pounds five year aged white cheddar

1,500 Yukon gold potatoes

35 pounds winter black truffles from Burgundy

1,000 pounds Jidori chicken

3,500 pieces house made spiced lavash

5 gallons homemade boursin

2,375 housemade pretzel bites

3,500 Fleur de Sel breadsticks

6,000 pieces mini brioche buns

5000 pieces handmade English pea “agnolotti”

200 pounds persimmon

5 whole legs jamon iberico

4 pounds sumac

2 pounds za’atar

50 lbs tapioca pearls

50 pounds white pommellos

50 pounds red pommellos

500 blood oranges

200 pounds fresh ginger

180 each opal apple

200 pounds cavatappi pasta

15,000 pieces handmade torchio pasta

50 pounds caper berries

125 pounds housemade ricotta

150 pounds arugula

100 pounds watercress

75 each yellow cauliflower

75 each white cauliflower

75 each purple cauliflower

750 florets cauliflower romanesco

150 stalks of celery

200 pounds carrots

50 pounds heirloom baby carrots

5 pounds mustard seed

100 pounds radicchio

50 pounds taro root

2019 GOVERNORS BALL MENU

OSCARS BY THE numbers

IN THE KITCHEN (CONTINUED)

3,000 multi-color baby beets

10 gallons Greek yogurt

450 quarts heavy cream

450 quarts milk

450 organic sugar

6500 Valrhona Illanka chocolate Oscar statues

550 Kg of Valrhona dark chocolate

25 Kg of fresh passion fruit purée

20 Kg of aqua fava for vegan pavlovas

10 Kg of gold luster to spray the Oscars statues

10 Bottle of Piper-Heidsieck Champagne

10 flats of strawberries

80 pounds of jackfruit

40 dragon fruits straight from Philippines

5 kegs of Stumptown Nitro Cold Brew

5 gallons of fresh brewed Hibiscus tea for our

pate de fruit

IN THE BALLROOM

1,500 guests

Team of 10 maitre d’ staff

850 service and support staff

13,000 glasses for beverages

4,800 small plates

4,500 ramekins and verrines

6,000 cocktail forks

Lighting and video prep in ShowPro’s 100% solar powered, carbon-neutral facility.

Over 700 lighting instruments

Mixture of high-CRI LED and incandescent sources

20,000 ft of power cable and 3,000 ft of data control cable to support lighting

Over 20 lighting practicals

2,500 yrds of royal velvet

800 ft of 1”x4”

2.5 miles of tread

800 ft of pvc pipe

1,000 ft of wire rope

4,200 zip ties

2,000 yrds of soft, elegant color tones including Oyster Metallic Mesh, Platinum Gemstone, Champagne Metallic Nusilk, Bronzine Nusilks, Coffee Bark Taffetas, Antique Ivory Taffetas and Champagne Halo Circle.

Au Lait and Beige Sparkle Velvets in the Governors seating area

5,000 succulents mixed with roses

2 succulent towers

Succulents will be planted at the Motion Picture Television Fund for residents to enjoy.

Over 2 miles of chain and steel holding up the truss ceiling

Over 1 mile of truss supporting the ceiling

Over 700 shackles used to make connections in the ceiling

150 years of experience between audio crew • Over 4 miles of cabling to support speakers, microphones, and audio consoles

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#health #fitness #lifestyle #good health #brits

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jeninthegarden · 6 years ago

Text

The Garden reflections 2019

Back to Eden (are we there yet??)

This is my 11th year of garden logging. So it is time to do a little retrospective on a decade of negligent vegetable gardening. The big issues remain WATER and DEER. I refuse to create any kind of irrigation system. While I may mound up to help drainage, hugle to use up logs and preserve moisture, plant closely to prevent things getting too dry, I have not invested in any drip irrigation or rain barrels, or even ollas (buried terra cotta pots). So, after a decade, I remain largely at the mercy of the weather. I am still on the fence about any larger investment. If anything, it has been too much rain and too many snap heat waves that have been the most disruptive events. I haven’t ever had a real drought. Row covers have been useful for direct seeding germination. Still considering rain barrels, but still haven’t done it. The greenhouse we had for a couple of seasons was more useful as a screen house to keep chipmunks away from the tomatoes than for weather protection. I prefer row covers and bird-netting.

The other ongoing issue is still the deer – from the very first years when I covered my tomatoes with sheets at night and still found half eaten tomatoes floating in the bird bath the next morning, to the Mexican deer that happily ate all my hot peppers (because I wrongly assumed they were too spicy and it was therefore safe to plant them outside the fence), the depressed deer that tried to off themselves by eating my rhubarb leaves. The list of things I have assumed deer would not eat and been proved wrong is apparently endless. I had a brief respite when a local coyote put us on his day and night patrol route, but he has moved on and the pesky deer leaned over the garden fence to eat the tops of my tomatoes this fall. My investment in infrastructure to keep deer out of my garden has also been limited. I still do not have any permanent enclosure other than my original 20x30 fenced garden. And that is in serious need of a facelift since it is now 13 years old. The decadal lesson on deer is that there are more of them than you think and they are really just large rodents that eat everything.

The secondary issue that stands out from the decade is WEEDS. I am a negligent gardener so the weeds sneak up on me every year. I have a complicated relationship with weeds: I know most of their names. I eat the ones which are edible: purslane, lambs quarter, burdock, wild garlic, dandelions. I find some of them interesting too look at: bittersweet and porcelain berry vines are invasive but pretty. I should exterminate them but they are growing rampant in the back of my yard. Some I even cultivate because they are so hardy and ornamental: I am constantly moving violets out of the yards and into the herb garden and I never weed them out of the vegetable garden. Fuzzy mullein is everywhere and I am always moving it around. And then there are the cultivated plants which have gone native: lemon balm I planted one plant of has spread all over the property and I just move it around now. Giant red India mustard self-seeds and is also to be found everywhere on the property.

WEEDS I have learned must be controlled from earliest spring. The only patches of garden that remain weed free by July are the ones that were mulched with newspaper and straw by the end of April. This is true every year. My success in controlling the weeds depends on how much time and effort I put into weed control in the month of April. Propagation can always be supplemented with bought seedlings and I have no issues with soil quality because I compost and rotate crops routinely. But I just do not weed, routinely or even at all some years, so weeds that sprout quickly overtake me.

Being at the mercy of the weather means that some years are better for certain crops than others. And, whichever vegetable patch is fully mulched by April, those vegetables don’t get subsumed by the weeds. I enjoy abundance, of whatever happens to grow vigorously. I always appreciate volunteers that go to seed and grow again unassisted and leftover plants that make it through the winter. I subscribe to the philosophy of Eat the Invaders, so I eat whichever weeds are edible. Some of the most satisfying plants I have grown are:

Peas. There are never enough peas and everyone loves peas. I dry and save seeds for the next year. They are so easy to grow. I never forget to plant peas and since they are planted very early, they are always mulched and never lost to the sea of weeds.

Cabbage. From the days of Helen having to be taught to only eat one leaf off each red cabbage seedling, to watching the chickadees bathe in the rainwater caught in giant cabbage leaves, to my favorite quote of the decade: “But always to her the red and green cabbages would be jade and burgundy, chrysoprase and porphyry; life has no weapon against a woman like that!” I love cabbages. I love to interplant them with sky-blue petunias and dill. I like to pickle cabbage. I have even made sauerkraut. I always plant cabbage. My chickens love cabbages too. I will never be able to free range the chickens in my garden.

Tomatoes. Heirloom tomatoes are my favorites. Nothing will ever compare to the taste of an heirloom tomato you have just picked from your own garden. I am partial to the yellow with red stripe varieties like Big Rainbow and Mr. Stripey. Dan likes the black varieties like Black Krim and Purple Cherokee. I like the Hungarian Heart paste tomatoes. Unfortunately everything likes tomatoes and it is difficult to protect them from deer, squirrels and chipmunks, and field mice. Weather is always an issue, especially when you think you are getting a head start by planting early but the weather never warms sufficiently for the fruit to set. Nevertheless there is no question that there will always be tomato plants in my garden.

Leeks. From the earliest days of the leaky dance, we always plant leeks. Mostly because they are the first thing that needs to be planted, right after Christmas, right now in fact. And then they just need to be transplanted and allowed to grow, for 10 months. And they need to be planted inside the garden because trial and error has proved that there are Welsh deer hereabouts that will eat leeks. Oddly, although I plant them compulsively, and dance the obligatory leaky dance (it is like ribbon dancing with leek tops) when they are harvested. I eat them right away, if at all, and never store them. And I have never yet let them go to seed and saved the seeds.

Nasturtiums. Yes, I really do always plant nasturtiums. I love the shape of the leaves. I love the taste of the leaves and the flowers, tastes like bell pepper/cucumber/arugula with salt and pepper. I usually plant them around the leeks. Sometimes I save the seeds for planting the next year. I have even pickled the buds and seed pods like capers. The leaves with long stems still attached are beautiful in vinegar, in old, odd shaped scotch bottles.

That is the top five constants for the past decade. I have grown these 5 every year and have every intention of continuing to grow them in every vegetable garden I ever plant.

The top five favorites of the decade are:

Arugula. Love arugula. It is tasty; it is cold hardy; it is actually biannual; it self- seeds. It is a reliable germinator very early in the spring and will keep growing through the fall. It produces many seed pods so it is easy to save seeds for the next spring planting, and if you aren’t interested in moving the arugula bed, it will self-seed. I like it in salad and in sandwiches, and even in soup.

Parsley. It is cold hardy; it is biannual; it can be brought inside for the winter; it is very shade tolerant. My favorite thing to do with parsley is make chimichurri sauce, which is a parsley pesto made with parsley, garlic, olive oil and salt. It is great on steaks. And it is very easy to freeze the ground parsley and garlic for later use, just don’t add the olive oil until you want to serve the chimichurri. And no parmesan in this pesto.

Runner Beans: They are one of the most satisfying pole beans. An early starter with good germination rate. The blossoms are beautiful and really sweet to eat. The young beans can be harvested and eaten like string beans, the mature beans can be shelled and used in salads or soups. All very tasty and not commercially available. Because they are a neglected varietal, there are generally only two or three types available and they are heirloom. I prefer the Painted Lady – larger blossoms that are pink and white, instead of red.

Zucchini: I love the blossoms, cooked with sage and eggs. I love the zucchini made into zoodles, cooked with tomatoes, stuffed with sausage, grilled with Greek dressing marinade, breaded into sticks with marinara sauce. Zucchini is a weed – really easy to grow and you only need one bush. I like Burpee’s variety called “Sure Thing” because it is resistant to powdery mildew and does not require full sun.

Asparagus: Fresh picked asparagus is up there with heirloom tomatoes, sweet corn and sweet peas. There is nothing store-bought or even farmstand fresh that compares. It is almost too good to cook. If I do cook it, I only blanch it. But it is perfect cut up raw with raw garden peas in a salad (with a little fresh ricotta). Or you can puree it raw for a chilled summer soup with a drizzle of olive oil and salt.

The top five failures:

Radishes. I have never yet succeeded in growing a radish root. They get a yard high with lush green, downright bushy tops, and below ground nothing but a thin pink hair of a root. Not standard radishes or daikon, not in sandy soil, full sun, dry soil, partial shade. Not mixed with carrots and lettuce. Every year, every way, I try, try and try again, and never succeed. The easiest crop to grown, planted as soon as the soil can be worked. And I have never yet produced a radish.

Celeriac. I can’t even get these to germinate, indoors, outdoors, nothing. And I love celeriac, so like radishes, I try every year and fail. Celeriac makes a wonderful soup (with green apples) and amazing schnitzel steaks. It is a late fall root so it is readily available in the green markets. I should just give up trying to grow it, but I don’t like sacrificing garden space to stalk celery when I could grow celeriac and have both the root and celery leaves for soup. But I also grow lovage in the herb garden which is a “cutting celery” that can be used for soups.

Corn. Fixation on the Three Sisters native American planting of corn, beans and squash has led me to try over and over again to cultivate corn. Makes a nice bean pole. But the sweet corn and even the popcorn attracts squirrels. So even if the ears form, and don’t have corn ear fungus, 2 days before I decide to harvest, the squirrels strip the cobs and break the stalks.

Hot Peppers. Have never produced a hot pepper. They have cross-pollinated with sweet peppers resulting in bitter peppers. Or they have not produced any fruit, or the Mexican deer ate them.

Pumpkins. Never enough space for pumpkins. They need too much room and whenever I try to cultivate them outside the fenced in garden, the deer and the groundhogs eat the vines.

The top five freaks:

Noodle Beans: They score high on the fun factor. They are neat looking and they are tasty. They need a lot of support which I have so far failed to provide. Different varieties vary widely in taste from the more asparagus tasting green variety to a hazelnutty tasting red variety.

Portuguese Kale: I just love how this looks. It is a sweeter variety of kale that ends up looking like a giant open rose. It is green but somebody developed a lavender variety that is stunning. It is very tasty and easy to grow but gets large and needs a lot of space per plant.

Purple Orach: tastes just like spinach but is a deep, purple-magenta color (with a slightly velvet texture) and grows on an upright stalk which is a real space saver. It is cold hardy and so beautiful in salads, especially with nasturtium flowers.

Typhon Holland Greens: This is one of the fastest growing brassica ever. It looks a lot like romaine lettuce but tastes like a mild mustard or turnip green. It is crazy tolerant of heat and drought.

Claytonia: another strange shaped veritable – looks like a clump of lily pads. It has only one, tiny tap root. It is very cold hardy and it self seeds and comes up everywhere. It tastes like a cross between cucumber and butter-leaf lettuce.

The top five flight risk:

Horseradish - it is a weed. I don’t even see seeds so I can’t figure out how it is moving so quickly and spreading so far. The roots may look dead, but resuscitate miraculously. That can lie bare on the compost pile all winter and still sprout new leaves in the spring. I should never have bothered planting them in the enclosed garden. They grow 4 feet tall with wide, collard-like leaves. I think they need to move to the west wall of the house and be cultivated in semi ornamental clumps. Yes I was digging it up at Christmas because fresh grated horseradish is so sweet and spicy and goes perfectly on fresh shucked oysters! Giant red India mustard - I decided to save the seeds of my first harvest. I was shelling the seed pods on the patio and the seeds are so small that I dropped a couple hundred, which washed off the patio in a rainstorm, into the herb bed. The next spring they were a lovely bronze carpet of seedlings very early and I weeded them out as necessary to make room for the other plants, but allowed several clumps up remain because they are such a nice color contrast. Those clumps went to seed (300-500 seeds per plant) and it was game over. In the heat of summer, the mustard taste gets really spicy. A leaf or two on your sandwich or burger or taco instead of lettuce is great. Lemon balm: one plant. I thought it was going to be a culinary herb for tea and sautés. It is pretty much inedible because it naturally contains citronella. It thrives in anything from full sun to full shade, any soil type. It can propitiate by underground runners that pop up a foot or more away, or by wind blown seeds - it flowers at least twice a season. I am constantly pulling it out. However, i have planted it all around the patio in a defensive ring because it does keep the mosquitos away. Mutant pak choi. I bought some kind of a hybrid Asian green maybe 5 years ago. Some of it went to seed and ever since it has been randomly volunteering in the garden, except that its subsequent generations have reverted back to one of the plants it was hybridized from which is more like a biannual headless broccoli. And another strain is coming up fresh each spring looking like a rootless turnip green. Again, nothing like what I once planted. It is very cold hardy and not particularly tasty. Burdock. It is a weed. And at one point a couple volunteered in my garden, and that year the weeds won, and one of the burdock flowered dropped several hundred seeds in my garden. And then I started harvesting it and cultivating it and letting just one go to seed each year so I always have plenty of seeds. I don’t mind burdock. It’s first year it makes a nice ground cover and only gets about 12 inches high. It comes up very early, very beginning of March and the young leaves are edible. They are also very easy to see in March - the only green thing in the garden, so I harvest what I want and later, I just cut the tops off if they are in my way or over-shadowing things.

The garden report from the past year:

The cloche experiment: fail. It did not work. Nothing under a milk jug survived. Good-bye milk jugs. Like the greenhouse, without electric controls over heat and ventilation, it is not effective. I either need a cold-frame or row covers. The rosemary died as usual. The parsley not under milk jugs survived better than the parsley that was covered.

The herb bed: about eight years ago I improved the soil with woodchips, and the herb garden has flourished. I need to re-mulch with woodchips this year. The oregano has begun to wander. The Egyptian walking onions have begun to peter out. I am weeding out violets, or rather, moving them to other spots on the property. I never get rid of them; they are excellent groundcover. The thyme has really established itself and comes back with gusto. The sage has thinned and needs to be replaced. The rosemary is all dead. The lavender is surviving inside. I may put it out but keep it in pots on the patio. Mint, a weed, was all wiped out by black spot fungus in the shade bed. I treated the bed with neem oil and will try adding woodchips. The Lemon balm, of course, in the same bed, contracted the same fungus and survived anyway. The rhubarb is okay. I thought it was thriving until I saw somebody’s rhubarb patch on Cape Cod which was a four foot tall hedge. The bed needs more compost, and some wood chips.

The west wall project: The west wall of the house gets total afternoon sun and plenty of water coming down the hill. It is also entirely devoid of plantings – the grass comes right up to the foundation of the house. I have decided to build a 3 foot wide garden bed all along that side. I hate grass, so I am smothering it. I am going to plant the new west wall bed with clumps of horse-radish which grow very tall and sturdy green leaves. I will relocate the asparagus to clumps there because the current asparagus bed in the fenced garden is a waste of space since only humans eat asparagus. Asparagus get nice tall, feathery fronds with red berries. Fall blooming saffron crocus, with wire covers because the deer like to eat crocus. Strawberries, also under wire cloche because everything eats strawberries. Oddly strawberries, asparagus and horse-radish are companion plants. And they all like borage, so I’ll throw in some of that. And I’ll relocate some of the violets to there. And maybe some of the rhubarb.

So the back Back to Eden weed barrier method of gardening worked really well in the children’s garden, which took up all the cardboard I had saved. I am busy hording up more cardboard boxes for spring but now have a much clearer idea of just how much more cardboard I need. I will have to solicit people’s old moving boxes in the spring. And I will order wood chips to spread on top of it. This year we just used old leaves – didn’t have enough of those either. I have been sheet composting with chicken manure and used coop straw. Plenty of that to go around. And I am now faithfully saving my used coffee grounds and citrus peels for the same (the only kitchen scraps the chickens won’t eat). Once I move the asparagus bed out of the fenced garden I can cover the whole thing with compost, cardboard and woodchips and begin the grand experiment in my garden, and hopefully defeat the weeds this coming year. The children’s garden was pretty weed free, but we didn’t get the fencing up so critters ate everything.

An update on the house plants. I repotted all the house plants and even divided some. The largest corn plant, that I divided, has thrived in one pot and is wilting away in the other. I have the Areogrow planter out and ready to plant my winter culinary herbs. It is an excellent little hydroponic system. Last year’s Christmas poinsettias died. But I have 3 new ones I will attempt to nurse through the year. Will try forcing bulbs in the next month. I did plant another 200 daffodils, and 200 crocus. I clumped the daffodils and spread the crocus throughout the lawn because the deer eat all the crocus clumps by the porch in a night. So I’m making things more difficult for them. The large art glass globe still needs to be replanted. And I am still contemplating getting a bee hive.

The seed list this year is a fresh start. I have no seeds saved or stock-piled so I get to order all new this year. Looking back at my lists of constants, favorites, fails and freaks, it is not hard to guess at least 10 plants that will be in my garden. The choices this year will be what varieties and the fun factor. And yes, still following the crop rotation schedule.

Legumes (follow the Root crops):

Grew no beans in 2018, I planted them and most of the seeds were just too old and did not germinate. The few that sprouted were eaten by I do not know what kind of caterpillar. I give up on fava beans. No reason they shouldn’t grow here, but they just don’t. 500 peas planted in 3 successions, 2 weeks apart, in the spring and one fall planting will suffice. Runner beans, if I decide to try 3 sisters again.

Brassica – Cole - Green Crops (follow the legumes):

I love all members of the cabbage family. But they also like space. I can grow, and the chickens love, cabbage too. I likely will not start from seed because it is too easy and inexpensive to buy the seedlings. Same for cauliflower. I have saved lettuce seeds for so many years, and only bought mixes, that this is an exciting year when I get to buy seed and actually select certain varieties like “spotted trout” and “deer tongue”. Romaine lettuce now comes in a pale pink variety, as well as bronze. Escarole is my new favorite vegetable – I’ve stopped just throwing it in soup. Now I like it sautéed, and escarole chips are far superior to kale chips. Claytonia and purple orach are still lots of fun

Fruits (follow the Brassica and Greens):

The weather and the squirrels, chipmunks and mice all devastated my tomatoes, and then the deer leaned over the fence and ate the tops. So tomato plants will be purchased this year. As will screen covers for the plants. Likewise, the zucchini will have to be covered with netting row covers. I’m not crazy about my eggplant and pepper crops. Maybe my problem is I don’t like bell peppers – all of them got sunburn this summer and had horrible brown scales. Maybe I should grow a different variety. Eggplant, I always try to grow Japanese variety, with moderate success except for years when this really odd insect eats the whole plant. Melons, cucumbers, pumpkins and winter squash all need much more space and protection from every kind of predator. Okra – some one in the garden club successfully grew okra this past year so I am going to try to grow it. I like okra blistered and dipped in chili salt and hummus.

Roots (follow the fruits):

I certainly will be harvesting burdock. I didn’t plant it, but it self-seeded and there will be plenty in the spring. I am crazed for watermelon daikon radishes – they get grapefruit sized and thin slices make wonderful tacos for shredded duck and scallions. I also love the chopped radish and ricotta salad. Black Spanish radish doubles as horseradish – very sad tale from a local farmer who used to grow black radish for Heintz because it made up almost 80% of their prepared bottled horseradish, but new labeling rules forced them to switch to mostly pure horseradish so the black radish industry collapsed. However, black radishes are large enough to stuff with clams casino and roast, so, here we go again trying to grow radishes. There are so many available at the green market I should just give up, but I can’t. Still have not perfected the potato in the bucket method. Despite being in raised towers, they got too much water. I think I need to try sandier soil this year.

Flowers:

We are still working on smothering the lawn in several large swaths and planting wildflowers. I have more seeds ready to spread in spring. Going to keep adding perennials like Echinacea, milk thistle, comos, sunflowers. I also bought cardinal flowers (lobelia) and zinnias to add around the edges. I have some salvia and primrose that a neighbor sneaked into my herb garden. Might add some more primrose to the shade bed. Nasturtiums and petunias and marigolds are all important companion plants in the vegetable garden. And I am going to experiment with some saffron crocus for the west wall.

Herbs:

The new mint garden has still to be planted. I ended up inter-planting some with the lemon balm border around the patio, but the lemon balm really crowds it out. Not sure where the mint will go this year. The front of the house may be dug up for the new front walk this year so I am not going to do any planting out there. As always I have grand designs for growing cumin. But not really hot enough here, so maybe I will try it in a pot on the patio where it can get some extra heat from the stones. Same for the Indian Hibiscus. And sorrel, I like to grow it but don’t really like to eat it, so don’t know if that will get into the herb garden this year. It is a bit too tempting for the deer, so it doesn’t survive outside the fenced garden. And I have not come across any good companion planting for sorrel, so unless I eat some sorrel dish that is really tasty, I might skip it. Sage needs to be replanted, several varieties – I had the most delicious dish of walnut and gorgonzola raviolis served with whole sautéed sage leaves in olive oil. I also like batter fried sage leaves with warm olives.

Seed List

The seed list will be shared separately this year. As I mentioned above, I am out of seeds. Nothing saved or in stock, so I get to start fresh! The poor germination rates this past year really motivated me to just dispose of everything. So now I have the very pleasurable chance to peruse all the incoming seed catalogues and consider all the newest hybrids. I will circulate the seed list after I have spent the next few weeks researching.

#gardening backyardgardens

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tyleroakley-obsessed · 6 years ago

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Ed. Note: If you’re looking for healthy food in Memphis, contributor Stacey has started a list of places to eat healthy, with a focus on salads that aren’t boring, that are filling, and most importantly, delicious. This isn’t everywhere to get a great salad, of course. If you have favorites, please put them in the comments! I like to think of salads as nachos made with lettuce instead of chips. Doesn’t that sound nice? But really, I could – and should — eat a salad every day, and I almost always end up wracking my brain trying to remember who has a good one. Now I’ve made this lovely list of my tried-and-true go-to salads, so all of us to can refer to it as needed. Chicken Salad Salad at Edge Alley Edge Alley is one of my favorite places to get a salad. They have several good ones to choose from, they have awesome window seating and best of all, I get to have a second coffee of the day. (Carbonated cold brew FTW.) I really like the Shrimp Cobb (below) but lately the Chicken Salad Salad ($8) has been my go to. It’s a tad heartier and has great flavor. All of the salads are made with arugula so they don’t feel massive. Made with local chicken, mango, peanuts, tomato, onion, and radish, the Chicken Salad Salad is a winner. Also very important to note: You can add bacon, avocado and/or a fried egg to anything for $2 each. Read more about Edge Alley here. Gaspacho Salad at Maciel’s Look, I know it’s hard to bypass the taco menu at Maciel’s, but they have what is probably my very most favorite salad ever – the Gaspacho Salad ($7.75!!!). I really don’t understand the name as it has nothing to do with cold tomato soup, so just put that out of your mind. It’s a heaping portion of grilled steak, diced mango, chopped cilantro, tomatoes, onion, sliced avocado and shredded lettuce. It’s served with chipotle dressing and you can spice it up with one of the other house made sauces if you like. Ok, sure, the shredded lettuce is not providing the highest nutritional content a salad has ever offered, but it’s not a fried tortilla, right? And yes, the other salads at Maciel’s are pretty freaking good too. Read more about Maciel’s here. The Memphis Cobb at Carolina Watershed Pulled pork on a salad? Yes, please. According to the menu, the Memphis Cobb ($12.50) includes a nice serving of pulled pork, Carolina Watershed smoked applewood bacon, blue cheese crumbles, roasted cherry tomatoes, sweet onions and avocado. Our version also featured grilled corn, pickled onions, a hardboiled egg and a nice toast…your mileage may vary. Still a very solid choice. Be the Chef at Cheffie’s For those of you who like your salad the way you like it, then Cheffie’s is for you. (They have several signature salads to choose from if you don’t want to do the hard work of deciding too.) For $9.95 you can create your own masterpiece from a choice of greens (romaine, baby spinach, kale, or mixed greens), proteins (chicken, turkey, ham, roast beef, pimento cheese, tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad), and more cheeses, fruit & veggie toppings, crunchies and dressings than I can list here. A basic bowl comes with one of everything, except toppings—you can choose up to four of those. There’s a small charge for double meat and any extras if you do not want to be constrained by any rules. The key at Cheffie’s, no matter what you get, is to let them CHOP IT ALL UP for you. It’s just somehow better that way. Shawerma Salad at Casablanca The Shawerma Salad ($10) is another one of my very most favorite salads, and I am amazed every time when I order it because it means I had the willpower to forgo the delicious falafel, hummus and pita. I do not pass up the tea though. I’m not completely crazy! Now, I do need to state for the record that there are two ways to get the Shawerma Salad. One is to just order it off the menu. The other way is to order a small Greek Salad ($5) and add lamb ($7). What’s the difference? The latter option gets you feta cheese and banana peppers. Both are key in my opinion and only the Greek has them. Lettuce, tomato, onion, black olives and cucumbers are on both. There’s also more meat options if you go with the Greek. It can be complicated, if you want it to be. Ha! Grille 901 (http://bit.ly/2F5fXSH) also has a fairly good approximation of this for $8.98 ($5.99 Greek Salad plus $1.99 for lamb) if you want a grab and go option, or something a little more casual. Get in the Chopper at City Silo Table + Pantry I want to eat EVERYTHING at City Silo. I love it so much. I wish it was in Midtown or Downtown. The Buffalo Tempeh and Sesame Cauliflower Bowl is my boyfriend, but sometimes I cheat on him with a salad. The Get in the Chopper ($11) is the most popular, and yes, it’s all chopped up and easy to eat. It features arugula, quinoa, sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, roasted pepitas, raisins, balsamic, pink salt, parmesan (if you want) and comes with cashew basil aioli. I add tempeh ($1.50), because where else can you add tempeh? You can also add avocado, egg, and/or chicken. Live it up! Memphis Belle at Tamp & Tap Tamp & Tap has overhauled their menu to give it a fresher, healthier feel. There are several new salads and The Memphis Belle ($9) makes a great lunch. The base is fresh spinach and the toppings are top notch –strawberries, feta, pickled onions, candied pecans, HALF an avocado, and in this case, grilled chicken (add $2). The chicken was served warm and gave the whole salad a really nourishing feel. The balsamic vinaigrette was the perfect final note. This seemingly simple salad will surprise you. This is also another great spot to sneak in a second coffee. Read more about Tamp & Tap. Beef Salad at Bhan Thai The Beef Salad ($11.25) at Bhan Thai hits all of the right notes and lights up your mouth. Tender filets of beef are doused in a spicy mixture of lime, onions, and roasted chili pepper sauce; garnished with fresh tomatoes and cucumbers; and served atop a bed of fresh greens. Simple and delicious and you don’t miss having rice. Read more about Bhan Thai. Portabella Salad at Central Barbecue For some it may seem blasphemous to go to Central and not get barbecue, but the salads at Central are worth a trip of their own, and they also provide an option for any vegetarians visiting Memphis who want to experience this local favorite restaurant. Central’s salads all build off of the basic House Salad ($5.25) which is romaine lettuce, carrots & red cabbage, served in a sun-dried tomato-basil tortilla bowl, topped with shredded colby-jack, tomatoes & pepperoncini peppers. If you want to add meat, it’s called a BBQ Chef Salad ($9.99). And if you want to add a portabella, and trust me, you do, it’s simply called the Portabella Salad ($7.35). Central grills the 7-8″ portabella mushrooms and marinates them in balsamic vinegar, olive oil & spices and makes them taste SO good. Grilled Salmon Nicoise at Majestic Grill If you are looking for a salad to fill you up, then the Grilled Salmon Nicoise ($11) is the ticket. A really nice serving of perfectly cooked salmon rests on a bed of greens and is surrounded by an amazing supporting cast – a hardboiled egg, artichoke hearts, black olives, green beans and tomatoes. Not surprisingly, this is one of many fine salads on the menu. You could spend a work week trying them all – the Majestic Cobb, The Seared Tuna, The Chophouse Salad, and The Old Post Office Waldorf are all just as worthy of their own starring role. Shrimp Salad at The Cove For a dive bar that specializes in oysters, the Cove has a pretty nice selection of salads. There’s the Classic Caesar, the Mermaid (a wedge), the Port (featuring a portabella mushroom) and my pick, the Shrimp Salad ($12). It’s basic, but the five large seasoned grilled shrimp are flavorful and not too filling. Placed atop romaine lettuce and decorated with grape tomatoes, goat cheese and purple onion, the whole thing is lightly tossed with house made garlic lemon vinaigrette and topped with croutons. Goes great with a nice can of Wiseacre or one of their signature cocktails. And gives you a great excuse (“You had a healthy dinner”) to order Not Wings or Stoner Pie later in the evening! Field Trip Greens at Lunchbox Eats I’m not going to lie. The Field Trip Greens Salad ($10) with avocado ($4) and fried tenders ($4) may be the most expensive salad I’ve ever eaten ($18). And, I’m hoping I went on a day that they accidentally only put the teeniest amount of chicken tenders on my salad (accident?) But, having said that, this salad has good bones. There are homemade pickles, a tasty corn muffin, grilled corn, roasted peppers, and fun crunchies. I say no avocado is worth $4, but advocate for a nice serving of tenders and absolutely get a giant tumbler of lemonade. Made fresh each day, it’ll put a smile on your face no matter what happens to your salad! Holly here. Stacey and I had a few more we wanted to add in… Make Your Own Salad at Pyro’s Pyro’s is a local chain that is all about fast and affordable. Most people know them for their fast pizzas that you build yourself by choosing proteins, veggies, and other toppings. But, I actually love them for their salads, which are similarly constructed to order. It it my number one go-to when I’m in a hurry and need something filling and healthy. I get a large salad topped with shredded Cajun chicken, marinated zucchini and peppers, sliced almonds, feta, broccoli, and poppy seed dressing on the side. (The photo here is a slightly different version, also Pyro’s bread is now served in little rolls rather than like what’s pictured.) Mama’s Real Greek Salad at Rendezvous Another salad from a barbecue restaurant?! Yep, I’m going to tell you the truth: the Greek salad from the Rendezvous is underrated. It’s colorful and fresh, with cucumbers, green peppers, tomatoes, olives, red onions, pepperoncinis, and feta, all tossed in some kind of magical Greek-seasoned vinaigrette. I’d eat it by itself, or with a side of brisket. Build Your Own Salad at Wild Beet Salad Co. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Wild Beet Salad Company (@wildbeetsaladco) on Dec 8, 2017 at 9:35am PST Wild Beet (originally known as Lettuce Eat) is a make-your-own salad place where you go down the line and have the attendants build you a delicious meal with the ingredients that you choose. They have a huge selection of options for proteins, including shrimp, quinoa, chicken, turkey, and more, plus just about every vegetable or other topping you can think of. Plus, this one from McEwen’s: View this post on Instagram Late lunch … but a good one! Jungle of Greens Salad with Seared Salmon at @mcewensmemphis ! One of my fav salads in town. #lunch #salad #wearememphisfood #salmon #eatseafood2xwk #healthy #yum A post shared by Jennifer Chandler (@cookwjennifer) on Dec 3, 2018 at 12:24pm PST Got more salads to add? Leave ’em in the comments. About The Author Stacey Greenberg is a freelance writer who lives in Cooper Young with her two teenaged sons. She’s a contributor to Thrillist.com, Edible Memphis, I Love Memphis, and Memphis Travel. She’s also the author of the award winning blog, Dining with Monkeys (diningwithmonkeys.com). A lifelong Memphian, she loves the fact that she’s never met a stranger here. Are you a home owner in Memphis, with a broken garage door? Call ASAP garage door today at 901-461-0385 or checkout http://bit.ly/1B5z3Pc

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