edible oddities

there are a few things growing in my garden that are a little out of the ordinary, foodwise. there are certainly many people who know more about edible flowers than me, but for those who have never eaten a flower before, they make very pretty garnishes for salads and such. my favorite edible flower is the nasturtium. they have relatively large, brightly coloured fancy flowers, and aesthetically pleasing round leaves. both are edible. they taste sort of peppery/hot, a bit like a radish.


(the one on the right is the nasturtium flower! the other flower is a marigold. i'm actually not sure if those are edible or not).

the other edible oddity that i am growing this year is radish pods. i find that my radishes often bolt (go to seed too early) when the weather is hot and dry. i used to just pull them out, write them off, and start over when that happened. then i discovered that radish seed pods are edible! when mine started to bolt this spring, i left them in the ground to do their thing. they are now producing tons of pods. i like them, almost more than radish roots, because you can simply pluck them and eat them; they taste almost the same as their belowground counterparts. no need to pull up, remove greens, or clean dirt off. the tips are a little fibrous so i usually trim them a bit, and they get quite tall/gangly so you have to watch to make sure they don't shade out any of your other plants, but other than that, they're quite neat!

what to do with windfall apples: applesauce!

the apple tree in my backyard produces a huge crop every summer. i thought maybe this summer i'd get a break, since last year we had so many. but no! i've been watching the apples ripen for the past week or two, waiting for them to get to the perfect stage of ripeness. i was determined to get to them before they started falling off on the ground, as has happened in past years. then i missed a couple of days due to being so busy, and when i checked up on them, sure enough, i discovered that the apple windfall has begun!

these are the apples i rescued this afternoon from the ground surrounding the tree. it is a small fraction of the total number of apples the tree has produced, which are yet to be dealt with:



what do i do with blemished apples such as these that have been bruised from falling onto the ground? make APPLESAUCE! it's relatively simple to do, converts them to a form which is easy to preserve over the winter, and the apples need not be perfect or even that nice.

i'm lucky enough to have inherited an old-fashioned applesauce strainer:



first, i wash the apples in the sink. then i cut the apples into halves or quarters, removing the seeds, stems, bruises, and other ugly bits (i leave the skins on -- i think i could probably leave the seeds in too, as the strainer's holes are small enough to keep them out of the sauce, but i believe they add a slight bitter taste to the finished product). i cook up the apples in a pot on the stove with juuuuust enough water to keep them from sticking to the bottom:



once they're good and mushy, into the strainer they go! i mash them through with the large wooden pestle:



my captivated audience watches in wonder:



and finally, the finished product! these particular apples are sweet enough that they do not require any added sugar. some people put a bit of cinnamon into their sauce but i don't bother.



i usually just freeze the applesauce in whatever suitable-sized containers i have lying around. i also freeze a fair bit of sauce in ice cube trays, similar to the way i do my pesto. this is especially convenient for baking; applesauce makes a great vegan egg substitute in baking, especially cakes, contributing extra moisture, fluffiness, and a bit of binding action. two or three cubes are approximately equivalent to the mass of one egg. it's also quite common to can applesauce, but this is something i haven't yet gotten around to trying, as canning things is a lot more work than just freezing them.

basil/baby spinach pesto

i made a small batch of basil/baby spinach pesto tonight. made from 100% local ingredients!

my pesto "recipe" (i don't actually measure any of the ingredients for pesto, just blend to taste):

1 handful basil (i had a handful of baby spinach from thinning my garden, so i threw that in too)
3 garlic cloves
1/4 cup hemp seed oil
3 tbsp hemp seeds

the result:



i like to freeze things like pesto in ice cube trays. once frozen, i remove them and put them in a container or reusable plastic ziplock bag. then, when i want to prepare something that requires pesto as an ingredient, i can take out exactly the right quantity with no fuss.