Category Archives: Vegetables

Vegetables

Fried Green Tomatoes

3 Comments

A green tomatoAt this time of year we usually have about a dozen unripe tomatoes in their cages in the backyard.  Their days outdoors are numbered: this week saw the season’s first frost warning.  I could pick the green orbs and let them sit on the kitchen counter.  They do ripen, eventually, but this isn’t a very dignified existence for a tomato.  Instead, they can be sliced, breaded, and fried.

Green tomatoes are firm, slightly mealy, and tart.  Actually the flesh of the green tomato tastes like cardboard; it’s the jelly that holds the seeds that has all the sour, vegetal flavour.  Frying tenderizes them, and breading tempers their acidity.  Once they’re cooked the tomato looses its ghost-green colour and takes the … Continue reading.

Stock and Soup, Vegetables

Corn Chowder

4 Comments

We’ve been getting some great corn from Tipi Creek over the past few weeks. Then the ever-resourceful Judy came across a farmer who was about to till under an entire field of corn. Needless to say, many an ear has been husked and devoured in the past while.

Corn on the cob is one of my favourite things to eat in late summer – especially grilled so that some of the kernels are black, and of course slathered with butter – but with this much corn around, I’ve been trying some other classic preparations.

 

Flavourful Broth from Leftover Corn Cobs

With all due reverence to corn on the cob, I often find myself cutting off the kernels: it’s a … Continue reading.

Vegetables

Creamed Corn is Magic

2 Comments

Until recently, the only creamed corn I was familiar with was the runny gruel that came in a can.  I don’t remember ever eating it as a child, and actually the only reason I’m even familiar with it is because “canned creamed corn” is used to describe one of the aromas that a corked bottle of wine can have.  I bought a can just so I could have a whiff and understand what my gastronomy instructor was talking about.

Despite a bad first impression, last week I made some from fresh corn and found it sweet, velvety, and agreeable.

If you have a chinois, which is a very fine-meshed wire strainer, you can simply cut the kernels from the cob … Continue reading.

Halloween, Vegetables

Eating a Jack-o-Lantern

Leave a comment

Jack-o-LanternsThis is weird, I know, but most years, on All Saints Day, I eat my jack-o-lantern.  I usually carve the night before Halloween, then keep the pumpkin in the fridge overnight.  In Edmonton, Halloween is typically a chilly evening – sometimes there’s even snow – so setting the pumpkin outside for a few hours, I still feel perfectly comfortable eating it.

I should mention that the pumpkins we carve are from Tipi Creek CSA, so they taste fantastic.  Sometimes I carve other types of squash.  At left is a butternut squash jack-o-lantern.  I can’t attest to the eating-quality of the massive carving pumpkins sold at supermarkets.

So, after the trick-or-treaters have stopped calling, I take my jack-o-lantern off the step, … Continue reading.

Vegetables

Sunflowers: A Failed Experiment

3 Comments

Sunflower headsWhen I was little I watched cartoons on Saturday mornings.

At one o’clock custody of the television passed to my mother, who watched Victory Garden, an American public television show that tours some of America’s greatest gardens.

I hated this show.

Now that I’m all growed up, I rather like it.  A couple years ago I was watching Victory Garden when they interviewed a chef from Boston who used sunflowers like artichokes.  I filed this idea in the deeper recesses of my brain until this summer, when I came into some sunflowers from Tipi Creek.

I pulled out the flower petals, then started cutting away the dark brown seed heads until I had something that looked sort of kind of … Continue reading.

Tipi Creek CSA, Vegetables

Harvest Day at Tipi Creek 2011

1 Comment

September 24 was the last harvest day at Tipi Creek CSA for 2011.  We look forward to this every year.  Our Thanksgiving dinner is planned largely around what we take home that day.

Of the three years we have been members of the Tipi Creek CSA, this was the least productive.  You’ll remember that May through July was cold, wet, and dreary.  While this was mitigated to some extent by the sheer variety of vegetables grown, overall we ended up with a lot less produce than in previous years.  That being said, with August and September being hot and sunny, we still had a fantastic final harvest day.

Here’s more information on Tipi Creek:

… Continue reading.
Vegetables

Vegetable Off-Cuts

Leave a comment

Carrot tops and parsleyOne of the benefits of getting vegetables from a CSA, farmers’ market, or backyard garden, is that you often get the entire plant.

As with animals, there are parts of certain vegetables that are usually thrown out.  The most common examples are the green leaves of vegetables that are grown for their roots or stalks.  These greens deteriorate quickly after picking, so they’re cut off before the vegetables are shipped to the supermarket.

Of course, not all vegetable off-cuts can be eaten.  Some are poisonous (the leaves of the nightshade family, including potato and tomato), and I find that some that do make their way to the farmers’ market are of dubious eating quality.

Let’s start with the good ones.  … Continue reading.

Vegetables

Rhubarb Leaves: A Thought Experiment

4 Comments

Rhubarb leaves, considered poisonousBefore I say anything else, please, please, please don’t eat rhubarb leaves.  They’re considered poisonous.

That being said, I have a theory that I’m working out.  I’m wondering if there is a way to prepare rhubarb leaves so that they aren’t poisonous.

I started thinking about this after reading about taro.  Taro root is a tuber native to India, but common in the cuisines of the Caribbean, South America, Polynesia, and much of Asia.

Taro, both the tuber and the leaves, contain a large amount of calcium oxalate.  When eaten raw they burn your mouth and throat, but boiling them dissolves the oxalates and renders them safe to eat.

Rhubarb leaves also contain a large amount of oxalate, and according … Continue reading.

Mushrooms

High Season for Mushrooms

Leave a comment

We’ve been enjoying a lot of mushrooms of late.  There have been two Alberta Mycological Society events in the past month that have had us eating and contemplating mushrooms non-stop.

First was the AMS Expo, the City of Champignons at the Devonian Botanical Gardens.  Chad and Thea dreamed up a fantastic soup and mushroom tasting plate that Lisa and I helped them cook and serve.

Then on the Labour Day weekend we headed out to Hinton for the AMS Great Alberta Foray.  Above left are some of the edible vareties found that weekend.

Thank you to the AMS for enriching our culinary life and letting us explore the Alberta countryside, turning over logs and hopping over streams in pursuit … Continue reading.

Preserves, Vegetables

Rhubarb Onion Jam

1 Comment

The fond: the essential flavour of rhubarb onion jamI’ve had recipes for rhubarb relish passed to me from both my family and Lisa’s.  Though one is from Ontario and the other from Alberta, they are uncannily similar: one part chopped rhubarb and one part chopped onion, stewed together with cinnamon, clove, and other “pumpkin pie” spices.

This has been my default rhubarb sauce to accompany meat and hearty bread for the past couple years, but I have to admit it’s not a show-stopper.  I’ve been trying to elevate this recipe, and a friend of mine recently found the way.  His discovery of rhubarb onion jam was one of those rare times when something in the kitchen goes horribly wrong, but the food turns out better than if all … Continue reading.