The greens that went into last night’s wholegrain spelt quiche are listed below the picture! CELLAR: Dystaenia takesimana shoots; Forced hogweed (bjørnekjeks) shoots (Heracleum spp.); Forced Taraxacum (dandelion / løvetann); nederst til høyre: Witloof chicory (sikkori); øverst til høyre: swiss chard (mangold) GARDEN: Various hybrid onions (Allium senescens x nutans) and Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde)
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.
I’ve been self-sufficient in fresh vegetables year round and have blogged and lectured about how I can do this even in winter without a greenhouse, without a freezer and without using additional energy apart from my own manual labour :) The most important factor allowing me to do this is the cold cellar under the house where I can store vegetables cold and frost free. None of the common winter leafy green vegetables further south in Europe – kales (grønnkål), chards (mangold) and leek (purre) – can be reliably overwintered outside here, although winters are getting milder. For example, swiss chard is killed by the first hard frosts which due to our northern location last all day (little direct solar warming at this time of year). Usually I’m taken by surprise by hard frosts in early November and there’s a panic digging up vegetables and I often have to use an iron bar to get through the ice layer. Not so this year. Thanks to corona and a very mild first part of November, I’ve had more time for the harvest. Last week I lifted the swedes and turnips and yesterday the parsnips, jerusalem artichokes and carrots. Today, I moved all the swiss chards, celery and chicories (sikkori) to large buckets, planted in soil, ready to move quickly inside later in the week if necessary as colder weather is forecast. In the past I’ve stored these winter vegetables in hand made wooden crates filled with soil. However, after 20 or so winters, they’re no longer usable and I hadn’t got round to making new ones, so I will store in these large plastic buckets, which had been purchased to plant the Allium collection, now with a permanent home at the Ringve botanical garden. I’ve also been digging up perennial vegetables for winter forcing. This includes various onions – Allium senescens, Allium flavescens, Allium angulosum and Allium cernuum. In addition, I’ve dug a udo (Aralia cordata) root and also a few ostrich ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris) and Hosta “Frances Williams” (sieboldiana). Finally, I’ve been digging large amounts of my most important winter vegetable, dandelion! (see my 2018 harvest here: https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=20124) 19th November: the next morning it snowed (see the video at the bottom)!
Harvested swiss chards including the Lucullus type and perpetual spinach (all Beta vulgaris var cicla):
Chards with celeries at the beginning:
Udo (Aralia cordata)
Udo (Aralia cordata)
Ostrich ferns
Ostrich ferns
Hosta sieboldiana “Frances Williams”: I dug up the whole plant, added compost and thinned it
Hosta sieboldiana “Frances Williams”: I dug up the whole plant, added compost and thinned it
Allium senescens (or hybrid), one of the rhizomatous Alliums
Allium senescens (or hybrid), one of the rhizomatous Alliums
Allium cernuum (nodding onion / prærieløk)
Allium cernuum (nodding onion / prærieløk); I cut off the green tops which will be used in the kitchen.
Allium flavescens (or a hybrid) from Kazakhstan is also rhizomatous
Allium flavescens (or a hybrid) from Kazakhstan is also rhizomatous
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 contributed this quiche for the Thanksgiving dinner in Hurdal, you might be able to see the word “Takk” (Thanks) written in seeds; T – alpine bistort / harerug bulbils (brown) and AKK – dark poppy seeds; with 100% coarse whole grain emmer wheat / naked barley / rye pastry, with swiss chard, chicory, spring onions, onion, garlic, chantarelle, chili, blue cheese, 5 tomatoes, Begonia and common mallow flowers +++
100% coarse organic rye and emmer pie crust (flour and butter) kneeded into the pie dish (not rolled out), then a layer of blue cheese, then mixed vegetables and the rest of yesterday’s chantarelles, hedgehog fungi and Russula….and then filled with egg/milk/oregano mix and finished off with Mallow flowers which retain some of their colour at the end!
Greens: Allium fistulosum (spring onions), swiss chard, ground elder, nettle
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
Last night’s dinner: risotto made with rye and barley grain instead of rice with wild and cultivated vegetables and wild fungi:
Parsley, coriander, golpar (Heracleum maximum seed spice), 3 types of pea, baby carrots and broad beans, red mitsuba, 3 types of chicory, common sow thistle (Sonchus), saffron milk caps (matriske), hedgehog fungus (piggsopp), chanterelle (kantarell), Russula spp. , garlic, chili, nettle (variegated), swiss chard (mangold) and Allium nutans…
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Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
CELLAR: Dystaenia takesimana shoots; Forced hogweed (bjørnekjeks) shoots (Heracleum spp.); Forced Taraxacum (dandelion / løvetann); nederst til høyre: Witloof chicory (sikkori); øverst til høyre: swiss chard (mangold)
