My grandson with his first cucumber crop. My most favorite use for cucumbers is skinned and thrown in a blender with limeade frozen concentrate substituting mint tea for the required water ~ optional alcohol of your choice. When I worked at a local garden center I noticed older men would come in looking for burpless cucumber …
Tuesday eating from your yard tip~ ground cherries, not to be confused with Japanese/Chinese lantern plants, which are not edible. Ground cherry plants and flowers are not a garden show stopper, but the tan papery husk hides a little amber ball of custardy goodness inside! Euell Gibbons talks about finding ground cherries while in Hawaii. …
Tuesday eating from your yard tip~Okra is eaten in most warm regions of the world ~ all those people can’t be misguided in their love of okra. I was first introduced to okra by some friends from Ghana with it cooked in spicy tomato gravy served over rice. Then I tried tempura okra and what …
Elderberry heads collapse when they are ready to harvest. Elderberries (Sambucus canadensis) are not a berry you pick and pop in your mouth. While birds can eat elderberry off the bush, it is best for us humans to remove the seed and heat it up a bit before eating them. Elderberries are ready to harvest when …
Eating from your yard tip~what better time to eat garlic than when most folks are wearing masks and social distancing. Garlic has long been celebrated for its many medicinal and culinary attributes! Garlic was one of the ingredients in the legendary thieves vinegar. The story goes that during the black plague four thieves robbed those …
Eating from your yard tip ~ Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) crushed in your hand and left in a pitcher of water overnight in the refrigerator makes a lovely “mother’s little helper” infused waters to calm and brighten the mood of both mother and child. In the days of old the catholic monasteries created closely held …
Eating from your yard tip~Anise hyssop helps us deal with the heat and recover from heat stroke. Not only is anise hyssop an effective expectorant it also lifts the spirits when horrible heart breaking things have happened. All this making anise hyssop the ideal herb to use for 2020. The anise hyssop leaves and flowers …
Eating from your yard tip ~ just step outside and odds are good you will find wood sorrel growing. Gladys Jeurink, a respected gardener in my town (Lincoln, NE), advised me to leave the wood sorrel in my garden because the rabbits prefer it over other plants, so they will leave the other plants alone. …
Eating from your yard tip~I had used calendula primarily for skin care, but Jessie Nielsen Krikac introduced me to eating calendula. She mixed cream cheese with 3 T honey and calendula petals~beautiful heaven in a spread. Turns out I was late to the party. Calendula has been used for over three centuries to amp up …
Eating from your yard tip~Purslane has more omega 3 than any other leafy green. Look no further than the crack in your sidewalk to find purslane thriving. While many Americans view purslane as a lowly weed, purslane is eaten all over the world. It is baked in bread, pickled and added to soups, stews, a …
Eating from your yard tip ~ I had used lavender to induce sleep, relieve headaches and for it’s anti~bacterial properties, but the first time I remember eating lavender was a lavender chocolate truffle. When I asked about how it was made she referred to lavender flower, but English is tricky and I was born blonde …
Eating from your yard tip~There are few things I love more than garlic. Garlic scapes prime our taste buds for July’s garlic harvest. The scapes are the seed head forming above the garlic plant. By cutting off the scape all the energy is directed back to creating the most fabulous garlic bulb. Scapes even come …
Eating from your yard tip~Rose was the herb of the year in 2012. The Herb Society invited the Rose Society to talk about roses. It quickly became apparent that while Rose Society people strive to grow the perfect rose, Herb Society folks are more interested in how you eat a rose, which baffled the speaker. …
Eating from your yard tip~if you have any open dirt you most likely have lamb’s quarters. Consider it a free gift to fill your tummy. The cooked leaves and soaked seeds are edible. The young leaves are tender, but like all of us get tougher with age, so pick them when they are below 8 …
Tuesday eating from your yard tip~kitchen sage (Salvia officinalis) is one of many sages and one of my top five favorite herbs. I have kept the medicinal separate from the culinary in these posts, but with sage the history is too intertwined. There was a medieval staying ~why should a man die, while sage grows …
Tuesday eating from your yard tip: Onion chive flowers, in my humble opinion, are the the most yummy of all edible flowers. The beautiful purple flowers have a slight onion flavor. Once you detach the little bulblets from the base of the chive flower they are both visually and a palette pleasing addition to your …
Tuesday eating from your yard tip~violet leaves and flowers are edible and high in Vitamin C & A. I add violet leaves and flowers to my lunch salad. The flowers make a lovely edible garnish on fruit salads, soups, desserts, drinks or frozen in ice cubes. Before commercial food coloring, dark purple violet flowers were …
Tuesday eating from your yard ~ dandelion flowers are the most abundant in the spring. Collecting enough dandelion flowers and removing the petals in large enough quantities to make dandelion wine or syrup takes some time~making the current pandemic lockdown the ideal time. My most favorite use of dandelion flowers is to make dandelion syrup. …
Tuesday eating from your yard tip~stinging nettles are finally emerging to the relief of many who have heard Kay Young’s stories of Germans during the war saying they would have starved to death had it not been for the stinging nettles. As we are locked down because of the Covid~19 pandemic, it is reassuring to …
Spring is the prime time to eat dandelion leaves, as the season progresses the leaves are still edible, but they become more bitter. Dandelion leaves are one of the most nutritious green vegetables with vitamin A and C, magnesium, potassium, calcium and iron etc etc. Reaching back to last week’s Tuesday Eating from your Yard …
Onion chives are one of my top five herbs. Both the leaves and flowers are edible. The flowers especially have a subtle onion flavor making them both visually and pallet pleasing. My friend Chong Knievel said that in Korea they eat chives in the spring to clean their blood. With that in mind first thing …
Tuesday eating from your yard tip~Dandelions are a treasure trove of potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, vitamin A,C,K and B6. The flowers, leaves and roots are edible. The green parts are bitter, but the yellow of the flower is not. I throw several young dandelion leaves in my daily salad. The bitter of the leaves stimulates …