Partner Plot News: Honey!

This is the story, told in pictures, of how jars of fresh, artisanal honey made their way to the free produce stand in the All Peoples Darius Simmons Community Garden.

These are bee hives.  In nature, bees make their own hives, but bee keepers build these little houses which are just perfect for honey bee colonies.  Each bee in the colony has its own job.  Forager bees are the bees we see in the garden.  Their job is to go out into the world, flying from flower to flower to collect nectar (the sweet juice in the center of the flower). The nectar will be turned into food for the bees in the hive. Pollen from flowers sticks to the bees, so as the bees go from flower to flower, that pollen moves from flower to flower with them.  This pollinating process makes it possible for plants and trees to produce fruits, from apples to zucchini.  This is why taking good care of bees is so important!

When the forager bees come home to the hives, they give the nectar to the house bees. A little bit of bee spit from the forager mixes with the nectar.  A little bit more bee spit mixes in when the nectar goes to the house bee. That bee spit helps the nectar turn into honey.

Inside the hive, the house bees build little hexagonal cylinders out of wax to hold the nectar. After bees squirt the nectar into the wax hexagons, the bees inside the hive make a warm breeze with their wings to remove some of the water from the nectar.  The nectar becomes thicker.  That is how it becomes honey!  To keep the honey fresh, the bees make a little beeswax cap for each hexagonal honey pot. In this photo you can see the honeycomb - all of the little hexagons are filled with honey!

Bee keepers collect honey from the hives by removing some of the honeycomb.  It is important to leave enough honey in the hive so that the bees have food for the winter!  Remember, honey is bee food first, and people food second.

The process of collecting the honeycomb and squeezing out the honey is sticky business!

This is a honey press.

Look at all that honey!!

It's important to remember that raw honey should not be given to children under age 2.

The pressed honey is then decanted into jars.

Good to the last drop!!

And that is the story of how jars of yummy honey made it to the All Peoples produce stand. Thank you to Pastor Larry, the honey team and friends from St. Olaf for this fun Partner Plot Project!!

What do you like to make with Beets?

The other day, a friend told me that she had received a couple of beets from the All Peoples garden. She had eaten store-bought, canned beets before, but had never eaten a fresh beet in her whole life. She wanted to know how to cook it. So, let's talk about beets!

Photo credit:  Culinary Hill

Beet Basics

Beets have three basic parts:  the leaves, the stems and the bulb or root. Beets come in different colors, usually described as golden beets or red beets. When we think about eating beets, we usually think about the big round root bulb, but we can actually eat all of these parts of the beet plant.

Beet leaves are great for using in salad, if they are small and tender. Use a scissors or a knife to cut them from the beet stems, and be sure to wash the leaves well. Bigger leaves can be cooked in the same way that you might cook Swiss chard or collard greens.

The stems are also edible, and can be used in the same way that you might use celery. The bigger ones can be tough and stringy, so those might be better off in the compost pile than on your dinner plate.

The beet root itself might be big, might or might be small. The bigger the beet, the tougher it might be. If you want to eat the beet raw, you need to wash it really well, peel it with a potato peeler and then grate it.  There are many recipes online for grated beet salad. Most recipes call for cooked beets. If you have big beets, it is best to cook them.

If you are going to cook your beets, or use them in a recipe such as pickled beets, the easiest way to remove the peel is to boil the beets. Use a scissors or knife to cut the stems, leaving just a little bit of each stem still on the beet. Wash the beets really well, and put them in a pot. Cover them with water and set them on the stove to boil until they are tender enough to stick a fork in them. Do not boil them until they are mushy. You can save that beet water to use for soup stock or as the liquid to make pink tortillas or bread or muffins. Let the beets cool a bit. Stick a fork into the end with the stem bits and gently use a paring knife to slip the skins off toward the fork. Lastly, set the beet down and cut off the stem end, like you would an onion.

The cooked, peeled beets are then ready to eat. You can eat them warm or make a beet salad or use them in a recipe. When I was growing up, we picked beets and ate them several times each week, usually warm with a little butter on them (which I personally DO NOT like). My grandmothers always canned jars and jars of pickled beets every summer (which I personally LOVE). If I have beets, I usually make beet salad with goat cheese or I make pickled beets.

This year, I was looking through my grandma's cookbooks and found a recipe for Beet Relish, submitted to a community cookbook in 1923. I decided to give it a try, and I am very glad I did!

Beet Relish Recipe

This is the original recipe as it appears in the cookbook.

I put my cooked, peeled beets into my food processor.  I scooped one cup
of ground beets into a measuring cup, and estimated I had 1 1/2 cups total.
This is where fraction math comes in handy!  1 1/2 cups, or 3/2 cups is 3/4 of
the original recipe.  Multiply each ingredient by 3/4 to make the adjustment.
If you need help with that, be sure to contact Miss Linda for  math lesson
at Peeps Academy!

This is what the beet relish looked like once I added all of the other
ingredients.  

I like to store relish and pesto in small canning jars. Because there
is butter in this recipe, the relish cannot be canned in sealed jars for storing
in the pantry. Instead, it is best stored in the freezer.

It is important to label your homemade items so you are sure to use the
oldest things first. 

Are you curious about this?  Do you see my frozen saved beet water?
This is the collection of stuff I saved from one week of harvesting, freezing,
canning and cooking. The celery water and beet water melt down with the
vegetable scraps to make a nice vegetable stock, which I cooked, strained and froze for soup.

What kinds of things do you like to make with beets? Maybe you can try out a new recipe and post a photo in the comments.

Note:  Beets are very good for you and if you eat a bunch of the red ones, yes, your pee will turn pink.

Submitted by Linda Muth

Chimichurri Basics

Have you ever tried chimichurri?  Maybe you have, but you didn't know it!

Chimichurri is a sauce which you can use as a dipping sauce, a salad dressing, or a marinade for meat.  This style of sauce is very common in Uruguay and Argentina, often served with beef.  Here is Wisconsin, you might not only find it as a dipping sauce for Argentinian beef, but also as one of the dipping sauces served with tacos or empanadas.

Early summer is a good time of year to talk about chimicurri and how to make it.  That's because the main ingredient is a green herb.  I am pretty sure you can experiment with any kind of green, leafy herb for your chimichurri sauce.  The most commonly used ones are flat-leaf parsley or cilantro.  

You can use a blender, a food processor or a knife to finely chop the ingredients.  The basic ingredients are:

1 big bunch of herbs

1 clove of garlic

1/4 cup of olive oil (or another kind if you don't have olive)

2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice (or the bottled kind if you don't have a lemon)

2 Tablespoons vinegar (red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar are best)

Fresh red chile pepper (or substitute red pepper flakes) - this is optional if you want a little heat in your sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

Wash the herbs really well.  The easiest way is to fill a big bowl with water.  Dunk the herbs in there and swish them around.  Lift them out and put them into a colander.  Dump the dirty water on your plants outside.  Repeat this process until the water does not look dirty.

Pat the herbs dry with a clean towel.  Remove any yucky leaves and break off any thick stems.  Put those in your compost.

Chop the herbs and garlic until they are really small.  Then add the other ingredients and mix well.  Or, just put the herbs, garlic and liquids into the food processor and pulse a few times, then process till everything is mixed.  You can add a little extra lemon juice and vinegar if it is too thick.

This batch of chimichurri is made with cilantro.

You can see some ingredients here.  You can experiment
with different flavors of oil, vinegar and lemon or lime.

This is what it looks like when it is chopped.  Use
a plastic spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl so
you get everything mixed.  That blade is sharp!  
If you are a kid, get help from a grown-up.

Storing chimichurri, pesto and other sauces in reusable glass
jars is a good idea.  Put a little paper label on top with the name
of what's inside and the date.  If you aren't going to use the sauce
right away, put it in your freezer.

What herbs are growing in the All Peoples Darius Simmons Community Garden?  Maybe you can find some and experiment with making chimichurri or pesto.  Perhaps you could experiment with:

Basil

Chives

Oregano

Cilantro

Flat leaf parsley

Garlic chives (eliminate the garlic clove if you use these)

Mint

Sage

Tarragon

Although purslane is not an herb, it's worth experimenting with those leaves too!

Once your chimichurri is made, you can use it as a dipping sauce or to marinade chicken or beef or pork.  Another easy idea is to cook some pasta, drain it, and put some chimichurri or pesto into the pasta pan, dump the pasta back in, put it over low heat and carefully stir it up for a couple of minutes until it is warm and mixed.  

Have fun experimenting!!

Chives, chives, chives!

I grew up in Wisconsin and lived pretty close to Underwood Creek, back when it was still a natural creek (or crick, as we would say).  One of my memories of springtime is the taste of wild chives.  We used to walk in the woods along that creek looking for crayfish and would munch on chives for a snack.

Maybe that was a little weird for a kid, but how many of us as adults love our sour cream and chives on baked potatoes?  You know what I am talking about.  Yum!

One of the chive pots on my front porch. This is a sister plant
to the ones that grow along the All Peoples Greenhouse.

Springtime is chive time.  Specifically, springtime is the time when chives bloom.  Different varieties of chive plants produce flowers from pale pink (almost white), to deep purple, to dusky blue (if you are growing garlic chives).  Leaves can vary in color from lime green to forest green, some are rounder and some more flat.  A fun thing to do with kids or adults is a taste test - pick a chive leaf from each different plant and see if you can taste any difference as you munch on the different leaves.

Most of the time, chive harvesting is done by cutting the leaves off of the plant with a scissors.  Cut them in bunches, leaving about an inch of leaf left at the base.  Wash and dry them, then snip away over your salads, soups and baked potatoes.  Chives are best when harvested right before you use them, and you can cut them all summer long. 

However, in early June, while it is in full bloom, before the plant produces little black seeds between the flower petals, the chive flower is delicious to eat!  The chive flower sits atop a stalk that is coarse and not good for snipping. We have all probably gotten that tough flower stem stuck in the scissors while trying to cut the leaves.  Harvest the flower by plucking the head off of the stem. Let the stem remain part of the plant and dry.  Gather a few fresh flowers in the morning to wash and break apart over your salad or sandwich.  If you aren't sure what the taste is like, sample one little bloom from the compound flower head.  Enjoy it's delightful crunch and burst of sweet, onion flavor.

To keep your chive plants healthy, leave some flowers on the plant and let them go to seed.  Most mature plants produce more flowers than are needed for seed or that can be used for salads.  Another fun thing to do with chive flowers is to make chive-infused vinegar.

Pop your clean chive flowers into small glass bottles or jars.  You can experiment
with the number of flowers needed for the flavor strength that you like.
I usually use 3 flowers for each small bottle.

My chive flowers are huge.  I try to pick smaller ones, and close them up
a bit to push them, stem first, into the bottles.  I use a chop stick to get them in there.
Don't worry if a few small pieces fall off.  I just toss them in with the flowers.

Use a funnel and carefully add distilled, white vinegar
to each bottle.  The flowers will float up a bit.  I bought bottles
with the nifty plastic tops that snap on for easy drizzles onto
salads and such, but you can use whatever bottles you have.
If you use recycled bottles (with or without the plastic toppers)
be sure to wash them super well so they don't have residual smells.

Screw the lids on tightly and set your vinegar in a cool,
dark place, like a cupboard.  After one day, you will already
see a change! Store in a cupboard, away from sunlight to retain
the pink color.  The chive flavor will grow stronger as it sits,
and after about 2 weeks it is ready to use. You can keep it for 2 years.

During the summer, you can freeze little bundles of snipped up chives to pop into your winter soups and stews.  The dry flower stalk is sturdy, and you can use it as a natural skewer.  I leave all the dead growth on my plants over the winter to protect them.  In the spring, before the leaves begin to sprout again, I remove most of the dead stuff and add it as a brown ingredient to my compost.  

What are your favorite things to do with chives?  Tell your stories and share your photos in the comments!

Submitted by Linda Muth

Pickles Pickles Pickles

Submitted by Linda Muth

Well, church work is chaotic, that is for sure.  Suddenly a year has passed by!  During our hiatus from blogging, our gardens have slept through a winter and risen again with great vigor.  It was a warm winter, a cold spring and a rainy summer.  Get ready for photos, recipes and more!!

One of the blessings of our Free Garden Table is that we are able to accept gifts from farmers outside of our urban area and place them onto the table for church families and neighbors to take.  There are some things which do not thrive in our city gardens (such as corn), and so this urban-rural partnership helps us to diversify the fruits and vegetables we have available.







This week we received a huge load of sweet corn, and tucked in the corner of the load was a big shopping bag full of pickling cucumbers.  Some of the neighbors are avid picklers, and it will be fun to see what recipes emerge from this big batch of cukes.  I ended up with a bag full, and decided to conduct a few pickling experiments of my own.







The following recipes are for shelf-stable pickles.  I typically like to can in smaller containers and use some pint jars, and some half-pints.  I use jars that held pickles 50 years ago in my grandma's pantry.  Other jars are recycled or new.  I purchase lids and rims in bulk from Amazon.  When canning, it is important to make sure all of the jars, lids and rims are washed and clean.  I heat the jars in the boiling water which I use later for processing the filled jars.

With each pickle recipe, I pack the whole or sliced cucumbers into the jars, along with whatever herbs and spices I have chosen.  Then I pour the hot brine over the cucumbers and herbs, filling the jars to 1/2 inch below the rim.  Next the lids went on and the rims were screwed into place, but not too tightly.  All of the pickle jars were placed into boiling water and processed for 20 minutes.  The jars rest on a dish towel and the lids go "pop pop pop" as the seals form.  The pickles rest on the counter for 24 hours to be sure the seals are set.

Now the challenge is...not to eat them before the winter!  We will do a little taste testing to figure out how to tweak the recipes.

Pickle Brine
Water, apple cider vinegar, pickling salt.
Use in a ratio of
2 cups of water + 1 cup of vinegar + 1 Tablespoon of pickling salt
Bring to boiling.  Pour into prepared pickle jars.

Whole Baby Dill Pickles #1
Place 1 large or 2 small dill flower heads (plus stems) into pint jars.
Add 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
Pack cleaned whole baby cucumbers loosely into the jar.
Fill with brine and process.

Whole Baby Dill Pickles #2
Place 1 or 2 small dill flower heads (plus stems) into pint jars.
Add 1-2 cloves of garlic
Add 1 full teaspoon pickling spice
Pack cleaned whole baby cucumbers loosely into the jar.
Fill with brine and process.

Whole Baby Dill Pickles #3
Place 1 or 2 small dill flower heads (plus stems) into pint jars.
Add 1/4 to 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes or part of a dried hot pepper
Add 1 full teaspoon pickling spice
Pack cleaned whole baby cucumbers loosely into the jar.
Fill with brine and process.

Sliced Garlic Chive Pickles
Slice the clean baby cucumbers into 1/4" slices
Pack into 1/2 pint jars
Add 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
Add a little bundle of snipped garlic chives
Fill with brine and process.

Sliced Bread and Butter Pickles
Slice the clean baby cucumbers into 1/4" slices
Pack into 1/2 pint jars
Add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon pickling spice
Fill with brine and process.

I use Penzeys pickling spice.  And I grow my own herbs.

Rhubarb Special Sauce

submitted by Linda Muth

When you think of "special sauce" in Wisconsin, you think about that tasty stuff at the condiment station at Miller Park - you know - the stuff you squeeze onto your brat or Italian sausage.

The suggestion that you might want to replace THAT special sauce with a rhubarb-based product might seem way out in left field, but seriously, once you make this stuff, you will not only squeeze it out over your sausages, but will find yourself licking it up by the spoonful.

This recipe is based off of a similar recipe featured in the summer 2016 issue of "Graze" - the magazine put out by Outpost Foods.  My version is a result of not having the exact ingredients suggested in the Outpost recipe, and because I always like to mix things up a bit.

Ingredients
4 1/2 cups of sliced rhubarb (1/4 to 1/2 inch slices)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar (or whatever kind you have)
5 cardamom pods*
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 to 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp grated fresh ginger**
1/2 cup lavender vinegar (or any fragrant floral or fruity vinegar)
1/8 tsp ground mustard
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or toss in part of a chopped up pepper or roasted pepper - not too spicy)
1/2 tsp paprika
3 Tbsp honey

*You could try substituting 1/4 tsp to 1/2 tsp of ground cardamom
**I keep a chunk of ginger in the freezer, but you could substitute 1/4 tsp to 1/2 tsp ground ginger

Dump everything into a pot.  Simmer and stir frequently for about 40 minutes until the rhubarb is soft.  Find the cardamom pod shells and remove them.  Use an immersion blender and blend until smooth.  Place into prepared canning jars and process the jars using a hot water bath, boiling for 8 minutes.  Carefully remove the jars and place them on a towel and listen for the lids to pop.  Do not disturb them for 12-24 hours.

Got Cilantro?

Reposted from Linda's El Salvador Blog

For anyone who grows cilantro or buys cilantro, you know that it is a short-lived crop and does not keep very well in the fridge or on the counter.  So, when you have a batch, it's important to find good ways to use it. It's also important to wash it well by grabbing the bundle by the stems and swirling the leaves in a bowl full of water.  Repeat this step if your bundle is pretty dirty.  Then remove any slimy stems or leaves.


One of my favorite things to make with cilantro, whether in El Salvador or the US, is chirmol.  It's easy, it's tasty, it's healthy and it goes with everything.

Ingredients:
3 medium tomatoes, chopped small
1/2 medium onion, chopped small
Juice of 1 large lime
Chopped cilantro to taste
Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Mix up all the ingredients and let it sit for a bit, then enjoy!  You can keep it in a sealed container in the fridge for a week.



No matter how big a batch of chirmol you make, you will no doubt have leftover cilantro.  A good way to keep it is to let it dry.  You can dry it with the stems on or off.  I do it on the kitchen counter on a clean cloth and cover it with a second clean cloth.  In El Salvador during the rainy season, it takes a while to dry.  Once the leaves are crispy, remove them from the stems and put them into a recycled spice jar. I prefer to crush mine right before use.

Dried cilantro is great in chicken soup, beans, rice, salad dressings ... any number of things.

Freeze the Beans

 Green beans galore!  Whether you pick them in El Salvador or Wisconsin, ejotes or green beans often come in great number in a short time.  If you find yourself with an abundance of green beans, why not consider preserving them?

Freezing beans is very easy, and frozen beans taste great in the winter or dry season.  Follow these step by step instructions to safely preserve your green beans:

1)  Thoroughly wash the beans, being certain to rub off any soil that clings to the beans.

2)  Trim the ends off of the beans, and cut away any insect or critter damage or rusty spots.

3)  Use a stock pot and bring water to a boil.  Use enough water so that the beans can swim freely.  Dump the beans into the boiling water, keeping the heat on high.

4)  Wait until the water starts bubbling and set a timer for 4 minutes.  Let the beans boil for exactly 4 minutes.  Carefully remove the beans from the heat and dump them into a colander which is sitting in a big bowl of cold water or immediately run cold water over the beans.  (The

cold water stops the cooking process.)

5)  Make sure your hands are very clean or use a clean tongs and place beans immediately into freezer bags or clean containers.  (Beans will still be warm.)  Be sure to label the bags with the date and place them into the freezer.