Day 6 - Home made food

We are back home from our short trip to see family and are enjoying a day with home made foods and a healthy organic breakfast. Today I will be baking some organic cookies and will try to bake another organic bread. After I had a good talk with my mother-in-law about the science of baking I am no longer surprised that nobody in the family would touch my home-made bread. I didn't include gluten and instead of the three cups of whole wheat flour I substituted buckwheat for one of the three cups. In addition to that I added grains and flax seeds and I learned from the conversation that any additional ingredient not listed in the recipe changes the consistency of the bread dramatically. 

Organic breakfast (free range chicken eggs, red peppers, zucchini, spinach)

Today is a good day to remove all the weeds out of my vegetable/fruit garden and spread the little seedlings so they can grow strong and provide food to the family. Last year we were swimming in zucchinis and I want to swim in it again. :) This year we doubled our space and vegetables. Here is what I am planting this year:

• Parsley                          
• Cilantro
• Green Peas
• Peppers (all kinds)
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Tomatoes
• Arugula
• Watermelon
• Strawberry
• Basil
• Raspberry
• Onions
• Squash
• Eggplant
• Kohlrabi
• Brocolli
• Chives
• Asparagus 

 
  I still have parsley left over from last year and it is doing great, I don't know how it survived the winter but it did. I have already frozen tons of it and now I am planning to dry the rest. I have also dried dill left from last year. Some of the plants are doing better than others. The winner this year is green peas. Those very capable plants have been growing and growing for the past weeks despite the crappy weather we are experiencing.

  My tomato plant is somewhat sad, cucumbers are pretty saggy and asparagus is shy. Kohlrabi is going really good. Here is a photo of my kohlrabi. Not familiar with kohlrabi? Check it out here. What can one make with Kohlrabi? The options are endless...raw, fried, cooked...Here are some recipes I collected over the past, even though I prefer Kohlrabi fresh and raw, I will be experimenting with diff. recipes this year.
Click here for recipes.

I am especially excited that my cilantro and arugula are doing well. Last year my cilantro didn't come out at all. Our family uses cilantro for Tabouli, Couscous, Salsa, Tacos and other things. We used to buy cilantro a lot because we love Indian food and cilantro is often found in Indian kitchens. The entire plant and the seeds are properly named coriander, while the leaves alone are cilantro. I found out that cilantro isn't around long, especially in warm weather. To keep the leaves coming, you can sow seeds every two weeks for a continuous cilantro crop. I will try that! 



 And here are my green peas. I can't wait for them to grow. I remember picking pods and popping the fresh peas straight into my mouth as a child. Today I like to use them for my salads and even Amelie likes eating them. Peas are one of the world's oldest crops. For centuries, peas were popular but during the Roman Empire, peas declined in their popularity because the Romans suddenly assumed that they were poisonous and had to be dried before eating.
Here is some nutritious facts about peas: 


FOR 1/2 CUP OF COOKED SNAP PEAS:
Calories: 34
Dietary Fiber: 1.4 grams
Protein: 2.6 grams
Carbohydrates: 5.6 grams
Vitamin C: 38.3 mg
Iron: 1.6 mg
Potassium: 192 mg
Magnesium: 21 mg 


 I am hoping that gardening is going to bring us a lot of organic and healthy food throughout the summer and possibly all the way to early fall, this will save us money and support our healthy lifestyle.  

WISDOM OF THE DAY

 What are heirloom seeds and how can they provide us with a wider variety of produce?

Heirloom seeds grow heirloom plants, also called heirloom varieties or heirloom vegetables. Heirloom plants were cultivated throughout human history, but are not used in mass factory production. Industrialized agriculture is concerned above all with making a bottom line, so they have chosen to breed only very specialized varieties of crops. The varieties are chosen for their hardiness and productivity. As a result, industrial agriculture companies only breed several varieties of apples - and you never get to taste those other 10,000 varieties.

One fairly common image of heirloom vegetables many people are probably familiar with is the colorful corn you see on Thanksgiving. These are heirloom varieties of corn. You won't find heirloom corn at major grocery stores, but nonetheless it is edible - some very small grocery stores (in Amish communities, for instance) even sell heirloom popcorn.