Happy Dandy Lions forced in the living room, glad to have been invited into the warmth. Little do they know though that I had a cruel plan to put them into last night’s quiche!
Quiche is one of some 20 generic dishes I’ve evolved over the years for using perennial veg as there are no recipes for the veggies I grow. As always, we use coarse whole grain flour (organic emmer wheat and svedje rye flour). We also used forced Allium senescens onions and leeks and swiss chard from cold storage in the cellar as well as garlic and rehydrated winter chantarelles. Super tasty and healthy!
People are always asking me for recipes. I rarely follow recipes as my ingredients vary so much and I just use what I have available. However, I do follow a number of basic, mostly lacto-vegetarian recipes which I’ve evolved to my liking over the years. For instance, last night I used a) Pea shoots (erteskudd), harvested about 25cm high (before they get too coarse to use; I don’t cut them right down to the soil as they will then resprout once or twice before giving up; to do this, they must be grown in a bucket or similar in deep soil); the peas were a mixture of about twenty home grown varieties, including several heirlooms such as Norwegian Jærert and Ringeriksert). b) Swiss chard / mangold (it’s been too cold for this to regrow in the cellar where it’s planted in soil) c) Chicory “Catalogna gigante di Chioggia” (sikkori) (this had resprouted in the cellar from the roots) d) Leeks / purre (also stored in soil in the cellar) e) Yacon (sliced tubers) f) Scorzonera / scorsonnerot (sliced tubers) g) Oca (oka) (Oxalis tuberosa) h) Garlic / hvitløk i) Chili / chili j) Bulb onions / kepaløk k) golpar (ground seed of various Heracleum species; bjørnekjeks / Tromsøpalme) The roots are stir-fried first (in olive oil), then the onions are added and at the end the greens for 5-10 minutes, finally mixing in chili, salt and pepper. Served either over whole grain spelt pasta or mixed as a risotto (I use barley normally for a barlotto) with strong cheese or parmesan.
Pea shoots
Pea shoots
From bottom: swiss chard, chicory, leeks, pea shoots
Stir-fry
The roots are stir-fried first (in olive oil), then the onions are added and at the end the greens for 5-10 minutes, finally mixing in chili, salt and pepper. Served either over whole grain spelt pasta or mixed as a risotto with strong cheese or parmesan.
A gallery of pictures of tubers and roots which were harvested in December when I had a blog-free month!
Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) harvest on 24th December 2020; I still have two varieties, a red and a yellow, grown in pots and then brought inside to tuberise (I usually grow under lights, but this year without lights I got a similar yield).
Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) harvest on 24th December 2020; I still have two varieties, a red and a yellow, grown in pots and then brought inside to tuberise (I usually grow under lights, but this year without lights I got a similar yield).
It was warm enough to sit outside yesterday and “prick out” (i.e., transplant into bigger pots) all the spring onions and leeks I’d sown a week ago inside. Neither Allium cepa, Allium fistulosum nor Allium ampeloprasum (porrum) need cold treatment to germinate unlike many other Alliums. Of the 40 varieties I sowed, about 28 germinated (some of the seed was a few years old). I’m still searching for a spring onion that is hardy enough to sow in late summer here so that I can harvest in early summer. The best bet is one of the cultivars of Allium fistulosum used for spring onions, but most of the modern varieties, mostly bred in Japan, have lost the hardiness of the species (from Siberia).
Many years ago, I ordered a delicious chicory pizza in Venice. Even though I found chicory quite bitter, in a pizza the bitterness was much reduced and it was delicious. My other pizza moment was in an Indian run pizza restaurant in Suva, Fiji when I ate a veggie pizza with cilantro and chili! From that time, its been everything goes in my pizzas!
With masses of dandelion shoots in the cellar yesterday, we made a dandelion, leek, garlic and chili 100% wholegrain sourdough pizza….and, guess what, it was DELICIOUS!
Nothing compared to the monsters that can be grown in the UK, but this is just about the largest parsnip (pastinakk) I’ve harvested here. This is both due to our short, cool summers, but also my shady garden contributes to lower yields. Yesterday, I hacked my way through the frozen soil with an iron bar to harvest my parsnips and despite the cold autumn the yield was surprisingly good, very satisfying work!! Back in the 80s and 90s, the only people I knew growing this here were ex-pat Brits. For us, christmas wouldn’t be christmas without roasted parsnip! Despite lower yields, it is still definitely worth growing parsnips here, just grow them more densely to increase the yield (similarly, I always grow leeks 3 together as the cool short season limits the size of them). Only two years ago, the national gardening club wrote: “Parsnip is a root vegetable that is not well known, but it has many common features with hamburg parsley. The yellow-white root is both strong and sweet in taste and can be used in several different dishes, especially in ratatouille it does well!” Another vegetable that there isn’t any tradition of growing here, despite the ease of growing it is broad bean (bondebønne), traditionally animal feed.
Great to be home again to nutritious vegetarian food! Presenting this week’s two dishes, each lasting two days: dried broad bean falafels (with golpar spice) and a mixed cellar veggie wholegrain sourdough pizza with masses of forced dandelions and perennial kale shoots!
Broad bean falafels with potato and Begonia heracleifolia flowers
Swiss chard from the cellar (the light coloured leaves have started to grow in the dark), ocas, ullucos, Allium fistulosum, leek, dried tomato, garlic, bay leaves and buckwheat shoots
…for a stir-fry with chili and golpar spice (from Heracleum maximum seed)
Buckwheat (bokhvete) sprouts on the window sill (from seed collected in Hurdal)
Buckwheat (bokhvete) sprouts on the window sill (from seed collected in Hurdal)
Mustard sprouts (also from Hurdal), for some reason only germinated along the edges of the pot!
I like to cook on the wood burning stove in winter…here’s a scene from the preparation of last night’s home grown veggie curry with Basella, Swiss chard, the two leeks I managed to dig up from the frozen ground, onion, garlic, dried chantarelles and winter chantarelles, apple, chili, coriander, golpar (Heracleum persicum spice) served with onion bhaji and rye (svedjerug) “rice”…it doesn’t get much better
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
