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

Partner Plot News, Fresh from the Corn Field

Our friend, Steve, was busy with his camera during the last 2 weeks, as teams from St. Olaf and All Peoples harvested corn fresh from the partner field!  Neither heat, nor pending storms kept the team from completing its mission!  Everyone involved had fun, learned a lot and says THANK YOU!

This team helped collect the first batch of corn for the All Peoples vegetable stand.
The community was so excited to get its first taste of fresh, Wisconsin sweet corn!

Check out how beautiful all of the produce grown in St. Olaf partner
plots looks at the free produce stand!

It's so much fun when we work together!
St. Olaf friends will recognize this woman doing her part.

The littlest harvester was a pretty great helper!

Our friend Steve calls this "four-handed picking"

What's the last you thing you did before heading off to college?  Picked corn, of course!

Always stop to smell the flowers.  And photograph bees.

Photos submitted by St. Olaf Lutheran Church, Rubicon, WI

Kohlrabi - It looks like an Alien

If you grew up in Wisconsin, you probably grew up eating raw kohlrabi.  In my home, we had kohlrabi slices next to our sandwiches instead of potato chips (and as kids, we were not too happy about that).

Yet, if you grew up with this vegetable and you have not had it for a while, you might find a taste of it will bring back fond memories.  It does make a great snack, and the new juicier, tender varieties taste better than you will remember.

Kohlrabi (pronounce it like coal-robby) is in the family of vegetables that includes turnips, rutabaga, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, broccoli and cauliflower.   These vegetables mostly were grown in Europe and then later brought to the Americas.  Kohlrabi is popular in the US with families of German heritage.  Even the name is German:  Khol for cabbage and Rabi for turnip.  

Wisconsin's cooler climate is very similar to the climate in Germany, and kohlrabi grows really well here.  The plant looks pretty weird as it grows.  The leaves are light green, and are good to cook and eat just like you would cook collard greens or kale.  The bulb part grows above the soil, and is actually part of the stem.  It can be white-ish, light green and even purple.  No matter the color of the stems or the bulb on the outside, the inside of the kohlrabi bulb is bright white.  

Small kohlrabi bulb growing in the All Peoples
Darius Simmons Community Garden

If you are growing kohlrabi, don't let it get too big!  Most varieties of kohrabi get tough or "woody" (hard to chew, like if you were trying to chew wood) if the bulb gets too big.  When the bulb is about the size of a baseball, it is just right for picking.  A softball size kohlrabi will be too big and tough to eat.

When it is ready, you can harvest the kohlrabi by picking the plant right up out of the soil.  Cut off the leaves and wash them.  Cut them up and prepare them just like you would any kind of green.

The top of the kohlrabi bulb

The bottom or root side of the kohlrabi bulb

The bulb is prepared by peeling it.  Like rutabaga, kohlrabi has a waxy outside skin and an inner tough skin.  You need peel off the skin in order to eat kohlrabi raw or to cook it.  

Cut a thin slice to cut the top off

The root side can be tough, find the place
where it is tender and cut it off

Inside, the flesh is white and juicy

Use a sharp knife to carefully peel away the waxy outer
and green inner skin. 

Once the kohlrabi is peeled, you can cut it up however you like.

Raw kohlrabi is good to eat in slices, chopped or shredded on salads.  It is also a good vegetable to serve with dip or hummus.  

Thin slices or strips of kohlrabi are very good as a substitute for bamboo shoots in Chinese dishes or as a nice crunchy addition to any stir fry.

So if you come on over to the All Peoples garden and you see these weird green or purple balls with leaves growing out of them, you have found the kohlrabi.  They do look a little bit like garden aliens.  Usually kohlrabi are ready to harvest in early to mid-July.  Maybe you will get lucky and can find some freshly harvested kohlrabi on the garden stand so you can take it home and try it.

The Plant Diaries: We've Got Mail!

We've got mail!  

Ever since our tomato plant friends, Tom & Mat O. wrote their first letter to All Peoples, we have been hoping to hear from them again.  One day, we missed them so much that we put on our masks, drove over to see them took a couple of sneaky photos.  We don't want to be helicopter parents, but gosh, they are growing up so quickly!  But never could we have guessed that they would send us this news so soon!  Here's the letter we just received:

Dear APC Friends,

We are bursting with excitement to share our big news – WE’RE EXPECTING! We’ve included a picture so you can see the beginnings of our little babies. They’re just little blossoms now, but it won’t be long before they are strong and robust tomatoes.

 

We really hadn’t planned on starting our family so soon, but there were a few days when we drank in a little too much sun. That and the healthy, organic soil we’re living in  made us decide there was really no reason to wait. And we’re not the only ones. Our neighbors in the pots on either side of us are also looking forward to the arrival of their red little bundles of juiciness.

 

Our friends, the Radishes, advise us to enjoy every moment, because these kids grow up so fast. A whole bunch of their children left to start their careers filling empty stomachs. We’ve included their last “class” picture before they were packed into bags and took off. They’re a crunchy bunch!

 

That’s news for now. Until we talk again, remember to set your roots firmly in the soil and reach high in the sky!

Peace and love,

Tom & Mat O

Tom & Mat O. sent us this selfie!

Tom & Mat O. sent us this photo of their neighbors, the Radishes.

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.

50 Bags of Green

Rainbow Swiss Chard

Today the children and youth took home 50 bags of greens.  We are growing collards, dinosaur kale, rainbow Swiss chard, and a bunch of different kinds of mustard greens.  Today we harvested collards, kale and chard.

Dinosaur kale and wrapping lettuce at our free farm stand

The kids in our Kids Working to Succeed program planted the seeds back in April and May.  Throughout the summer, the kids and adult volunteers have carefully watered, and weeded, and fertilized with catfish-gut-tea and Milorganite.  For the last month, we have been able to cut many pounds of greens to give away at our free farm stand.  Today was the day for the kids to learn how to harvest and to bag up the greens for their own families.

Harvesting is done by gently cutting the largest leaves and their stems away from the center stalk.  The plants continue to produce new leaves for harvesting off of the main stalk.  The children use small scissors and are learning to be gentle with the plants, to cut one leaf at a time, and to stack the leaves gently so they don't become bruised.

Family recipes for cooking greens are plentiful - and we invite families to share those recipes on this blog by emailing them to the church office!!  Some of the children specifically wanted kale to put into smoothies.  Some of the children asked if they could just eat greens raw (and they nibbled bits of leaves to see if they liked raw greens.  Some of the children had no idea what to do with the greens, so we offered to post one simple recipe which can be used for any kind of greens.

Simple Skillet Greens
submitted by Miss Linda

Ingredients:
Greens - washed and chopped into large chunks/strips (about 4 cups but any amount is really OK)
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic (or use garlic salt if you don't have fresh)
1 large or 2 smaller potatoes
Or, if you are using turnip greens, 1 or 2 turnips
Fresh or dried herbs (such as parsley, chives, basil)
Black pepper
Salt (to taste)
Olive oil (or whatever kind of oil you have)

Optional Additions:  Bacon or ham or sausage, mushrooms, pasta (cooked ahead of time)

Process:
1)  Wash the greens by filling a big bowl or your sink with cold water and put all the greens in for a bath.  Wiggle them around until they are clean and put them into a colander or on a towel to dry.  Repeat this step if the greens are really dirty.

2)  Cut the greens into slices or chunks - not too small because they will cook down.

3)  Wash and chop the onion into a medium dice.

4)  Smash and peel the garlic and chop it up small.

5)  If adding mushrooms, wash and slice them. If adding potato or turnip, peel and wash and chop into small cubes.

6) If using bacon, cut raw bacon up into 1/2" chunks (remember to use a different knife and board for meat/bacon or wash everything really well with soapy water after it touches the meat)

7)  Put about 2 - 3 Tablespoons of olive oil into a big frying pan or skillet.  Turn on medium heat.  Add onions and bacon first.  Cook and stir for 4 minutes for bacon or ham, cook a little longer for raw sausage.  Keep stirring!

8) Add mushrooms, potato or turnip, and garlic or a few shakes of garlic salt.  Add fresh ground pepper to taste.  Cook for about 10 minutes or until the veggies are getting soft.

Turnip greens with chopped turnips, bacon,
potato, onion, celery, garlic and herbs

9)  Add the greens all at once.  Just pile them into the skillet.  If you need to let some cook down so you can add them all, that is OK.  Stir quickly to cover the greens with the oils in the pan.  Drizzle a little more olive oil over the greens when you add them if you need to. Cook until the greens wilt. Add herbs.  Stir well.  Cook until the greens are soft.  Each green will cook differently.

10)  Add pasta and cook just until pasta is heated.  Add salt last and taste.  Eat while hot!

What to do with Rhubarb

As promised, we are posting recipes which use rhubarb.  We do not have photos, but as soon as we do some baking we will add the pics.  You can also send us photos of your creations!

Fresh Rhubarb Crisp

Topping Ingredients:
1 cup sifted flour  (you can use unbleached, whole wheat and/or organic)
1/2 cup raw rolled oats (not quick oats)
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter






Filling Ingredients:
4 cups fresh rhubarb (previously washed and cut int 1/2 inch pieces)**
3/4 cup regular sugar (you can use any healthy substitute for white sugar)
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup water**

**You can use 4 cups of cut frozen rhubarb, which will be very juicy.  Do NOT use the 1/2 cup water if you use frozen rhubarb.

1.  Preheat oven to 375º F
2.  Melt butter in a small pan on the stove or in the microwave.
3.  Combine flour, oats and sugar in a medium bowl.
4.  With a fork, stir butter into flour mixture until the mixture is crumbly.
5.  Use the butter wrapper to grease an 8 x 8 x 2 inch backing pan/dish.    You might need to add a little extra butter or vegetable shortening.
6.  Dump all of the filling ingredients into the pan and mix it together with a rubber spatula until it is well-mixed.
7.  Sprinkle the crumbly topping all over the rhubarb mix and use your fingers to gently spread it out evenly.
8.  Bake until the topping is golden brown and the rhubarb is thick and bubbly.  It takes 35 - 50 minutes, depending on your oven and the rhubarb.
9.  Cool.  Serve plain or with vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream.

Tips:  Set the pan on top of a piece of foil if your pan is full.  If it bubbles over it will not mess up your oven.  If the topping seems like it is getting too dark before the rhubarb is cooked and bubbly, you can loosely cover the pan with foil.

Submitted by Miss Linda

Easy Rhubarb Sauce

Ingredients:

Any amount of rhubarb, washed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
A little bit of water
Sugar to taste

Put the rhubarb in a deep sauce pan.  Add water so that there is about an inch of water in the bottom of the pan.  Cook over medium heat, until the rhubarb starts to break apart into strings.  Stir the rhubarb every now and then with a metal spoon.  If the sauce seems to think, add just a little bit of extra water.  Once the rhubarb is soft, turn the heat to very low.  Add sugar, about 1/4 cup at a time and stir until your sauce tastes just as sweet as you want it.  After the sugar dissolves, turn off the heat.  The sauce will be VERY hot, so let it cool.  You can eat it warm, or cold.  You can eat it all by itself, or as a topping over ice cream, over fruit or over granola.

Options:
Substitute brown sugar for white sugar.  Add a little cinnamon.

Submitted by Miss Linda

Rhubarb Basics

Harvest from one of our plants

Did you know that rhubarb is a vegetable and that it originally grew in China?  It was brought to

 Europe by Marco Polo, where it was grown as a medicinal plant.  Eventually it came to North America with European immigrants.  It needs freezing cold winters to help the root to produce new spring growth, and it does not like hot summer temperatures.  Therefore, it grows really well in Wisconsin!

The rhubarb that grows in All Peoples Global Garden comes from a mother root that is more than 100 years old.  Pieces of the root were handed down through five generations of a church family.  Every time the family has moved, pieces of the root have been dug up and planted in new locations.  Pieces of the root were planted at All Peoples in 2014.  All Peoples rhubarb has bright red stems with a little hint of green in them, but there are other types of rhubarb that vary from green to pink and different colors of red.

Rhubarb flower stalk headed for the compost pile

In the spring, new stems shoot up from the root.  During the first year, it is best not to pick any stems.  During the second year, it is best to pick about half of the stems.  From then on, it is OK to harvest most of the stems.  To harvest rhubarb, you grasp one stem firmly near the base and pull.  Pull one stem at a time, taking the fattest and longest ones first.  Rhubarb can be harvested over several weeks in the spring, and sometimes throughout the summer or after a second sprouting at the end of summer.   If you harvest rhubarb in the cooler part of the day, it stays crisper.   Leave some of the stems that get scarred from the soil or heavy rain so that their leaves can give energy to the roots for future growth.  If a flower stalk forms, pick it so that the plant continues to give most of its energy to producing good stems and not seeds (unless you want to harvest seeds for future planting).

There is a plant called common burdock that likes to grow near the rhubarb.  It looks a lot like rhubarb, but has hairy, hollow stems and produces tall stalks that eventually produce burrs.  The root (and other parts of the burdock plant) are used by some people to make medicine.  It is never good to eat any plant that you do not know is good as a food, because medicinal plants can harm your body and many plants contain poisons.

Rhubarb stems are food.  Rhubarb leaves are poisonous.  Do not eat them.  Cut the leaf from each stem right after harvesting.  Cut the little end off the stem base too.  The leaves and the ends can be tossed into your compost pile.

Remove the stem from the leaf

Remove the end of the stem

Do not eat the leaves and do not let your pets eat them

Stems ready for use

Wash each stem thoroughly.  Place the stems on a towel to dry.  

Rhubarb can be used in recipes right away (or within a day or two if you keep the whole stems wrapped in a damp towel and plastic wrap in the fridge).  It is easy and convenient to freeze the rhubarb.  By freezing rhubarb in measured quantities, you can save up enough for a favorite recipe.  Freeze rhubarb as soon as possible after picking to produce the best results.  

  Cut the washed rhubarb stems into 1/2 inch pieces.  If the stems are a little wet, that is OK.  Use it right away or put the cut rhubarb into freezer bags or containers.  Recycled yogurt or cottage cheese tubs work well because they hold about 4 cups of cut rhubarb (and many recipes call for 4 cups of cut rhubarb!)  Be sure to label the container or bag with "rhubarb" and the date.  Frozen rhubarb keeps for 1 year in the freezer. 

 Frozen rhubarb is a little more watery than fresh, so you may need to eliminate or reduce the amount of water in recipes for baked items if you use frozen rhubarb.


Rhubarb is a healthy vegetable which contains fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, potassium and calcium.  It is fairly acidic or "sour" so many recipes call for the addition of sugar or honey.  You can add other fruits such as peaches, strawberries or blueberries when making a sauce, pie or cake with rhubarb, and then you will not need as much sugar.


Did you know that you can eat rhubarb raw?  It is a great addition to a salad!  Try mixing salad greens, chopped celery, chopped rhubarb, goat cheese or feta cheese and sunflower nuts or walnuts with a simple honey-mustard vinaigrette for an adventurous salad.

Do you have some favorite rhubarb recipes to share?  Simply email them to office@allpeoplesgathering.org or put them right into the comment section.  We will post a Rhubarb Recipe Blog featuring the best recipes!

Rhubarb Basics submitted by Linda Muth