Part of our Foraging and Urban Homesteading Video Series, we show you how to forage for foods in your backyard. This foraging video is about the Staghorn Sumac and the tea or sumac-ade you can make from the seedhead of a sumac tree.
Staghorn Sumac
I remembered this drink you can make from a report I did in 6th grade, it was a cookbook of sorts of Native American foods, I think my teacher was underwhelmed by report I did, but this must have had an influence on me, in some subtle way.
In addition to the tea you can make from foraged sumac, the sumac seed pods are used in middle eastern cooking. The seeds are ground and used as a spice powder, added to dishes such as hummus and salads. neat!
According to Wikipedia, the center stem of the sumac was also used by native americans as pipe stems. Sumac also had medicinal uses in Medieval times.
Sumacs grow along forest and field edges, fence rows and the sides of the road. They are called a pioneer plant, they are one of the first bush plants to grow where a field is turning into a forest, or where the soil has been disturbed.
Their leaves are an easy way to identify the plant, especially in the fall, as they have a great red-yellow color to them.
Be sure to know the difference between Staghorn Sumac and Poison Sumac. The names of the plants are similar, but the plants do look quite a bit different. Staghorn sumac has a very unique upright seed head, usually red in color. Poison Sumac looks much more like poison ivy, and its seeds hang downward.
Poison Sumac looks like Poison Ivy – USDA photo
What can you add to our knowledge of Staghorn Sumac and foraging? Let us know below:
Henry adds perspective, a huge oak tree in Prospect Park
We rode out Hurricane Sandy in Brooklyn and came out unscathed. Many of our neighbors weren’t so lucky. Those in lower lying areas near the bay got flooded. Here are a few photos from Park Slope Brooklyn
Tree crushes cars on President St
Brooklyn’s version of Hurricane Sandy PreparationThe Labs after a walk
The latest project in my head is to make and cure home made sausage. I signed up for a how to make sausage class at The Brooklyn Kitchen taught by Ben Turley, an owner of The Meat Hook who shares space with The Brooklyn Kitchen to learn phase one: how to make fresh sausage at home.
I’ve never taken a cooking class before, and was kinda ambivalent the day of the class, but I knew it would be good when I showed up at the classroom and was handed a cold beer by Valerie, who assisted Ben with the class.
Valerie offers advice on chopping herbs
Rather than one of those cooking classes where you just sit there and watch; we were going to learn how to make sausage by making sausage, guided by Valerie and Ben.
Ben first gave a short talk, and what stuck in my head was his goal of transparency in the food they sell, and their recipes. The sausages were to make were two types of sausage they sell at the Meat Hook, and we had in our hands the actual recipes they use to make them.
Eric mixes spices into sausage meat
The common wisdom is when many chefs publish their recipe for a signature dish in a magazine, they leave out crucial details. Ben didn’t leave out any details. He laid out exactly how to make good tasting sausage.
The key to making homemade sausage is the ratio of salt and spices to fat and protein, and Ben wrote it all out for us in grams. How cool is that?
We then broke into two teams and prepared two different sausages, while Valerie and Ben offered suggestions and guidance.
A few key things I learned about making sausage:
Pork Shoulder is best, with 30% fat to 70% protein ratio.
Have the butcher grind the meat for you with a 3/16 diameter grind
Mixing the meat and spices-salt together to the right consistency
Cook a small piece of the mixed sausage before stuffing it into casings, do a taste test.
Refrigerate sausage overnight before cooking, don’t stuff and cook right away.
To make sure the meat and ingredients have been mixed properly, and the salt has been kneaded into the meat, make a thin patty of the sausage meat, put it in your palm, and turn your palm upside down. Then count to 5. If the patty is still stuck to your upside down palm when you get to 5, the meat is mixed properly.
Each person got to take home two sausages from the class project. The next day they tasted amazing.
Living each day to its fullest is hard. I think a better way of looking at this is one put forward by John Sexton in an interview with Bill Moyers, the idea to make each day as transcendent as possible.
You have to make sure that you live every day as a transcendent day to the fullest of your ability, because you never know when you’re going to have a chance to live it again.
This is kinda related to ‘being in the moment’ of everyday life. When i walk the Labs in the park or the woods, I sometimes have to stop my brain from thinking too much and just realize how neat it is to be on a walk with the pups.
This somehow works better as operating instructions for daily life. Living life to is fullest can be exhausting, always running around to all sorts of stuff for the sake of doing it.
But even today, I ran out of time before I ran out of stuff I need to do. I looked at the clock and it was 4:30 already, and I barely got done what I wanted to.
Is that OK? It has to be or you’ll be cranky all the time.
What do you do? How to live in the moment? Share with us below:
Well, I’m still working my way through that big jar of tamarind paste and really enjoying the journey. A dish that’s a hit in my household is one I’ve been making for a couple years now and was inspired by the overabundance of poblano peppers we had at the farm. We always had a surplus, in part because they are easy to grow organically but also because it seems like people don’t really know what to do with them. If you’ve never had poblano peppers before, I urge you to give them a try. They are considered a hot pepper but have a mild, pleasant heat that pairs beautifully with eggs, and they’re a great fit for stuffing.
This recipe is one that originally began by following Pham Fatale’s mirchi ka salan recipe but that I’ve adapted and simplified over time, so much that I’m avoiding calling this mirchi ka salan for fear of being called out by an Indian food expert. It may not be authentic, but it’s loaded with the flavors of Indian spices. Speaking of which, don’t let the long ingredient list deter you from giving it a try – I’ll bet you have some jars of spices just waiting to be put to good use.
We usually eat this Indian poblano dish over plain rice but sometimes switch it up by adding boiled, cubed potatoes to the sauce instead.
Spicy Indian Poblano Peppers
Ingredients
• 1 tbsp tamarind paste
• 1 tbsp honey
• 3/4 c water, divided use
• coconut oil (or neutral oil)
• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• large pinch of salt
• 2-inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 tsp cumin seed
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1-2 tsp chili pepper flakes (or omit, depending on your heat preference)
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 8 poblano peppers, chopped into bite-size pieces
• 1/2 c peanuts, finely ground in a food processor or spice grinder
• 1/2 c shredded coconut
• 1/2 c plain yogurt
Cooking Directions
1. In a small bowl, mix together the tamarind paste, honey, and ¼ c of the water. Set aside.
2. Place a large pan over medium-high heat and add enough oil to coat the bottom. Add the onion, garlic, salt, and spices and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.
3. Add the peppers and cook another 5 minutes, or until they are just tender. If at any point things are looking too dry, add a tablespoon or two of water or oil.
4. Add the peanuts, coconut, and remaining ½ c water, reduce heat to medium-low, and let simmer for 5-10 minutes or until the mixture is a thick, cohesive sauce.
5. Stir in the tamarind-honey mixture and cook another minute.
6. Remove from heat and stir in the yogurt.
This is another of a series of articles about how to cook in a dutch oven, dutch oven recipes, and how to season cast iron and dutch ovens by Gary House, of Cooking-Outdoors.com. A big thank-you to Gary for contributing this.
The key to successful outdoor Dutch oven cooking, is knowing how many charcoal briquettes are required to produce a certain temperature inside of your Dutch oven while it is cooking.
The secret to this knowledge is understanding charcoal briquettes.
Types of charcoal
Types of Charcoal
Charcoal briquettes produce more uniform heat than campfire coals or Lump charcoal, making your Dutch oven temperature easier to control. Brand-name briquettes have more consistent quality than bargain brands. They are consistent in size— about 2 inches square — which is important for predictable heat. Start with charcoal briquettes if you just beginning and experiment with live campfire coals as you progress.
How many briquettes do you need?
This is the basic foundation of Dutch oven cooking, once you know this, everything else falls into place. Take your Dutch oven’s diameter in inches and double it.
• 8 inch Dutch oven = 16 briquettes
• 10 inch = 20 briquettes
• 12 inch = 24 briquettes
• And so on.
The total calculation is the number of standard-size charcoal briquettes you will need to heat your Dutch oven to approximately 325 degrees F for one hour.
It is that simple.
Controlling temperature
Most Dutch oven beginners are familiar with cooking on a stove at home, cooking with bottom heat only and that can cause confusion when cooking outdoors with a Dutch oven.
Because heat rises, briquettes heat the bottom of a Dutch oven more quickly and directly than the top. The top rim of the lid draws the heat downwards, you will need to divide your briquettes between the top and bottom for even heating. Commonly referred to as the three up method and is effective on 8, 10 and 12-inch diameter Dutch ovens; larger size Dutch ovens may require more briquettes.
As an example:
• To heat an 8-inch Dutch oven to 325 degrees, you need 5 coals on the bottom and 11 coals on top. Sixteen coals total.
• To heat a 10-inch oven, you need 7 briquettes on the bottom and 13 on top. Twenty coals total.
• To heat a 12-incher, you need 9 briquettes on the bottom and 15 on top. Twenty-four coals total.
These guidelines will get you close enough that, with practice, you can understand exactly what works for your Dutch oven.
Briquette placement
Top ring & bottom ring placement
Using the circle method of coal placement, place your bottom coals in a single circle aligned with the legs of your Dutch oven closer to the outside of the Dutch oven bottom, referencing the lip of the Dutch oven lid place your coals evenly around the perimeter.
Variables
If your recipe calls for temperatures higher or lower than 325 degrees, make adjustments by adding or subtracting 2 briquettes. Two briquettes equal approximately 25 degrees. Add these to the top of the Dutch oven, unless you need more heat on the bottom.
How long do briquettes last?
Today’s charcoal briquettes last about 45 – 50 minutes. When recipes call for longer cooking times, start fresh replacement briquettes at 40 minutes. They will be ready to add to your Dutch oven when the original coals start losing their heat. Replace approximately 60% of the coals each 45 – 50 minutes of cook time.
Compensation for weather conditions will be required. On cold days, add a couple of more coals on the top and on a hot day remove a coal or two. Wind will play a significant roll in temperature control, it is best to shelter your Dutch oven from the wind with a windscreen if possible.
Following these basic concepts will insure your first adventures in Dutch oven cooking are a success. After practicing a few recipes, temperature control will become second nature and you will no longer need to count as you become more proficient.
Here is one of my favorite beginner recipes, the same one I use in my Dutch oven classes.
Blackberry cobbler
Blackberry Cobbler
Ingredients
For the cake mix:
1 stick butter
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tbs baking powder
1tsp salt
1 1/2 cups milk
For the berries:
4 cups fresh or frozen blackberries or 2 bags frozen (thawed)
½ cup sugar
1 ½ tsp fresh grated lemon zest
¼ cup water
1 tsp cinnamon
10 or 12” Dutch oven (20 or 24 briquettes)
Start your briquettes using the formula above to determine the quantity.
Rinse your fresh blackberries and drain, place them in a bowl with your sugar, lemon zest, water and cinnamon; mix well and set aside.
When your briquettes are ready, place the bottom circle of briquettes down and set your Dutch oven with the lid on top of the briquettes, then add the remaining briquettes to the lid to pre-heat your Dutch oven.
Now you can mix your cobbler batter. In separate bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; stir to mix. Add milk and beat until batter is smooth.
Remove the Dutch oven lid, take one stick of butter and place in hot Dutch oven, stir until melted. Add your Blackberry mixture to the melted butter and pour your cobbler batter over the top
(A different variation of this would be to take your batter and pour that in first place your blackberries on top.)
Bitten by the urban foraging bug, I’m always looking at plants and trees in New York City now. There’s lots of food around if you look. On the way to the subway in Park Slope is a Horse Chestnut Tree, and every year the sidewalk is littered with the empty chestnut shells – the squirrels have gotten most of the nuts.
The nuts are called conkers, which were used to play a game in the UK called conkers as well. The nuts are considered slightly poisonous, though deer eat them.
The beekeeper and tree nerd in me was wondering whether horse chestnuts were self pollinated or needed a second chestnut tree for pollination, and whether they were insect pollinated or wind pollinated. According to wikipedia the trees are pollinated by birds and insects, and I found a second horse chestnut tree around the corner from this tree. neat.
“Raw Horse Chestnut seed, leaf, bark and flower are toxic due to the presence of esculin and should not be ingested.” says Wikipedia. There are a number of medicinal uses for some of the compounds found in the Horse Chestnut conker, which doesn’t surprise me for this cool looking plant.
Horse Chestnut in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY
What interesting nut trees have you found in your area? Let us know below:
Pollen is the topic of this post. In this image you can see quite a bit of it in the comb. It is of various colors and what I’ve seen them bringing in, at least the day of this hive inspection, is yellow. In fact, if you look closely at this picture you’ll see a couple of bees with what looks like little yellow corn kernels on them. This yellow substance is pollen and it is held in the pollen baskets on their legs.
Bees, like humans, require protein to survive and pollen provides that protein. The honeybees mix this with some nectar and produce something we call “bee bread” which is fed to the larva. Without this source of protein, the bees won’t develop. Some beekeepers will provide “pollen patties” to their hives. This is a man-made substitute for pollen which they will, apparently, use like pollen. I have not had any experience with pollen patties at this point.
Pollen is a little bundle of cells covered in a protective coating. The cells include vegetative ones and also a couple of reproductive ones. Pollen is the sperm of the plant and is a necessary component for reproduction. Plants which utilize pollinators like honeybees produce pollen which sticks easily to these pollinators and is carried from the anther to the stigma, thus reproduction in the plant. That’s really the main reason plants have flowers – to reproduce.
Bees, flies and other pollinators live in symbiotic harmony with flowering plants. These plants produce lots of pollen and some of it gets moved from the anther to stigma, helping to ensure reproduction in the plant. The plant relies upon these pollinators. The plants, in return, provide the protein needed for the bee to reproduce.
Matt (twitter @MattInTheGarden) likes pickled cucumbers but not pickled beets. He thinks matrix math is cool. Matt wishes there were less lawyers and more scientists in the world. He knows there are some serious steering issues with Fred Flintstone’s car that nobody else seems to care about… oh yeah, folks… chuckle away at that stone-age humor. Haha very funny. Matt’s not amused by Hanna-Barbera’s lack of knowledge about vehicles and engineering, let alone physics.
Here I’ve got a photo from my recent hive inspection of hive #2. As you can see, the bees don’t all look alike. Oh, sure they have wings and are about the same size but their coloration varies. Along the bottom of that frame in the middle you can see some very yellow-orange bodied honeybees and some that are black/dark gray and a dull grayish yellow. In fact there is quite a variety of coloration and banding on this frame.
Why is that?
Mostly this is due to genetic variation among these honeybees. The queen mates with many different drones and so there is almost certainly going to be a bit of a “melting pot” in the hive. Over in hive #1, I had an Italian honeybee queen and most of the initial workers in that hive looked like Italian bees. But as the hive has grown, there has been a bit more variety in the bees in that hive, but certainly not as much as in hive #2, which my beekeeping mentor, Lindi, called “mutt bees” – I suspect the queen in that hive is some cross. Mix the genes of this queen with a variety of drones and the genetic diversity increases.
Genetic diversity in a hive is a good thing.
If all the bees in a hive were genetically identical – clones if you will – their particular genetic makeup might make them less hardy in adverse weather conditions, maybe it would make them more prone to succumbing to disease. You get the idea. The hive thrives by having a diverse population. The idea behind natural selection is that those traits which are advantageous for survival given the current situation will give the bees having those traits a leg up on those that don’t have those traits. So in a hive where the population is heterogenous, some might succumb to a disease or perhaps mites while others may be less inclined to be affected by that disease or the mite infestation. If the queen is one of those survivors or some of her drones are among those with superior genetics, the result will be that those traits will have an opportunity to be passed on via sperm and egg. The queen that doesn’t make it, or the drones that don’t make it won’t pass their traits along, of course.
This doesn’t, of course, mean that these honeybees are moving toward perfection… their population is just affected by their genetic makeup and the world around them. What affected population N and caused certain members of population N to die off might not affect population N+M. In fact, it is possible that population N+M might be affected by something to which those from population N that died were better suited to survive. Interesting, huh? Well, at least to me. The point is that the world is a dynamic place and selection doesn’t always mean improvement. When the conditions change, populations have to adapt or they won’t survive. Genetic diversity provides better odds that the population will survive.
Matt (twitter @MattInTheGarden) would like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony but he’d be happy if the folks that can’t carry a tune would just hush it already. Seriously folks, you’re killing him with your off-key renditions of “Call Me Maybe”. Matt loves to play backgammon, go, and chess. He stinks at two of the three of those – guess which? His favorite Partridge was Laurie, of course.
Propolis – that sticky, gooey substance that honeybees make from plant resins – is strong stuff. Anyone who has tried to separate one super from the one below it can testify to the holding power of propolis. As I’ve written before, bees use this to fill in small cracks and seal up anything needing to be sealed up.
Apparently, they needed to seal this frame in its box very well. Between a bunch of burr comb and an abundance of propolis, this frame simply would not come out. As you can see, the nails and glue failed before the propolis did. I honestly didn’t expect that to be the case. I was very careful when building these frames and if you look closely, you can see that some wood tore away on this frame… maybe it was just weak wood.
I two-tooled the frame out after pushing my hive tools down between the frames a couple of times. I’ll probably swap that out in the spring and I tapped it back together and noted which one it is.
Matt (twitter @MattInTheGarden) doesn’t like those cutesy flower-topped pens that businesses use to discourage folks from taking them. He doesn’t understand why people like eating liver at all. There are much better things to eat in life. His favorite stooge is Moe because he is grumpy and has a smart looking haircut. Just kidding… he’s not that grumpy. Matt is one of the nine people in North America that listened to AM radio last week. If you haven’t listened to AM in awhile… it hasn’t improved.
This little sucker (literally) is one of the many pests which can affect the health and well being of a hive. Varoa is a mite which latches onto the honeybee and sucks the hemolymph from the bee. You can think of hemolymph as being like our own blood though it doesn’t serve exactly the same purpose in the bee as blood does in humans. For one thing, bees don’t need to have oxygen circulated throughout their bodies because they respirate (breathe) directly through the spiracles on their sides. Another type of mite, the tracheal mite, sets up home inside the bee’s trachea and block the airways. You can’t see those with your naked eye.
There’s a Varoa mite prominently displayed right in the center of the picture behind that center bee’s eyes. If you closely under the left wing of the second bee from the left on the bottom, you can see another Varoa mite. Without my reading glasses (yes, I’m getting old and my eyesight stinks) I can’t see these mites, so I generally need to rely upon examining the pictures I take when inspecting my hive. I saw other Varoa mites in other pictures but not a lot of them. I will be treating for these in the next week using powdered sugar. Essentially you dust the bees with it and it helps to dislodge some of the mites as part of the process. The bees don’t mind the powered sugar but it does actually result in some of the mites falling off.
Varoa reduces the life of a honeybee and so it is important to treat for these pests to keep them in check. Hives will have them – in fact most every hive is going to have Varoa mites. But the presence of these mites doesn’t mean that your hive is doomed. A simple method for checking them is to treat with powered sugar and stick a slide-in card in your screened bottom board. The mites will fall off – at least many will – and you can count them to gauge how your hive is doing. It would be nearly impossible to prevent Varoa since bees don’t live in a closed system – they are out and about and likely to pick up Varoa and bring it back to the hive. Our job as beekeepers is to treat for and keep account of the Varoa population rather than attempt to eliminate them – that’s not going to happen. Varoa poses no direct threat to humans or animals as far as I know. It doesn’t affect the honey either. It is simply a pest that affects the life of the bee directly.
Matt (twitter @MattInTheGarden) is not a fan of seersucker suits, NASCAR or zydeco music. He prefers sausage over bacon and bacon over Canadian bacon. His favorite pizza topping is black olives, at least today. Matt thinks right now is a great time for a nap.
It doesn’t happen often, but this is what you prepare for, the unexpected. The one time you don’t prepare is when it will happen.
When painting rooms, I am obsessive about covering every square inch of floor with either paint tarps or red rosin contractor paper. It pays off in a number of ways, we spend almost no time cleaning paint roller splatter off the floor, any plaster or sheetrock repair dust is easily cleaned up, and if one of us happens to step into a drop of paint that has happened onto a tarp, we don’t get even more paint on the floor from walking all over with paint on our shoes. The tarps soak up the paint from the sole of the shoe.
Painting a brownstone last week one of the crew accidentally kicked over a gallon of paint, but because we had laid down heavy duty muslin paint tarps, the clean up was easy.
when painting, use a tarp!
We first scoop up as much paint as we can and put it back into a paint can. You might need to strain that paint if it has sanding debris in it picked up from the tarp. We roll the tarp up into itself and take it outside. We then sop up the rest with paper towels, and lay out the tarp to dry. Latex paint will dry slowly when its thick, but after it dries, you can use the tarp again.
If you are painting more than one room, consider buying muslin tarps instead of plastic tarps. Plastic is slippery to walk on, muslin paint tarps are much better and last for years. Be sure to write your name on your tarps, your friends will borrow them, and its a subtle way of reminding your friends whose tarps they are.
This year has been the year I’ve had to requeen 4 hives. Not sure why, but wanted to show one way how to requeen a beehive. This beehive was doing fine, I pulled some honey off the hive, and then checking it 3 weeks later there is barely any covered brood and no freshly laid eggs anywhere in the hive. You can see here in the first picture of the beehive, this frame is from the lower super, where there is usually brood, there aren’t any eggs on this frame. Luckily, I have a few other robust hives, and was able to get a queen from a nearby beekeeper.
Queens will slow down their egg laying in the fall, so you have to make sure the hive really is queenless, check most or all of the frames for brood.
Empty brood frames, not a good sign
Requeening this hive, I had to keep in mind its getting late in the year, and these bees will need a good population to get through the winter. I pulled two frames full of brood from a nearby healthy hive, knocked off most of the bees from those frames back into their hive, and got ready to open the queenless hive.
From the queenless hive, I took off the upper supers and then pulled two empty brood frames from the bottom super. I then put in the queenless hive the two frames of capped brood from the healthy donor hive, and then wedged in between those two frames the new queen in a queen cage.
Gently tap this frame over the donor hive to knock most of the bees off and back into their hive. Make sure the queen is not on these donor frames.Capped brood from the donor colony
The capped brood will hatch soon, and will help boost the population of the hive while the queen gets acclimated and starts laying. I think this hive will make it through the winter, we still have a few months to get it back in shape.
I feed all our hives a 2:1 sugar syrup solution with an essential oil mix added in ( get the honeybee essential oil recipe here ), with this hive i may start early on the feeding.
queenless hive ready to accept brood frames and queen cageCapped Brood Frames and Queen Cage inserted into queenless beehive.
Here are some beekeeping books I recommend:
What has your experience been with requeening? Let us know below:
What are the best flowers for honeybees? What kind of flowers do bees like? How do i attract honeybees to my garden?
Honeybee attractant flower – Asters
Being a beekeeper, I pay a lot of attention to what flowers honeybees are attracted to, and in the late summer and fall, the forest edges of my yard are full of Woodland Asters, and these flowers are full of honeybees. Woodland Asters bloom late, and keep their flowers quite a while into the cold days of fall. They are an edge of forest plant, they wont grow in direct sun, and are inconspicuous before they bloom, then all of a sudden, they are there in front of you. Full of honeybees too. Asters are one of the best plants for honeybees in the fall.
The flower world calls these White Wood Asters, my neighbors call them Woodland Asters, the experts call them Eurybia divaricata, which is a mouthful. The name Aster comes from Greece, meaning ‘star’. The name fits the flowers, these have white petals that shoot straight out with a yellow center. This particular aster is considered threatened in Canada, but it grows in pockets around my area. According to Wikipedia, it is common in the Appalachian Mountains.
Project Native, a cool group up in Massachusetts, sells several seed mixes that have different native asters, I’m thinking most of the asters are honeybee attractant plants – flowers.
Honeybees are all over the asters in our yard
If you have asters in your yard, but don’t see honeybees on them, just wait. Honeybees focus on a particular plant for a while, then move on to the next plant species that is ready for them. The honeybees in your area may be working another kind of flower, like Goldenrod, and when they are done with that, they’ll move on to the asters. Honeybees don’t hop from one aster to another goldenrod, they focus on one flower type, then shift to new plants.
What flowers do you see honeybees on in your yard? Let us know below:
Mike recently tweeted a challenge: Come up with a snack that would fix his crunchy-sweet-salty craving without going overboard on calories. When Monica suggested roasted chickpeas, I also got a hankering in need of quenching. So, I set out to recreate a recipe I used to make often. Why had I stopped? Well, somehow this particular snack slipped out of rotation, I guess. I’m always experimenting and there’s just not enough time (or room in my stomach) for all things tasty. Thanks Mike and Monica for resurrecting this treat back into my life!
Some tips for roasting chickpeas:
Cook your own chickpeas from dried beans. You can use canned but the texture won’t be nearly as satisfying.
Cool and dry the chickpeas. You want the beans to be really dry so that they crisp up well. If you cool them in an open container in the fridge they should lose enough moisture to avoid the labor of patting them down with a paper or dish towel.
Don’t be afraid to cook them a little longer than you think you should. You’re looking for a deeply golden color to reach optimum crunchiness.
Experiment with seasonings. You can add your favorite herbs or spices to the base recipe below. I love garam masala, red pepper flakes, or finely chopped rosemary.
Sweet and Salty Roasted Chickpeas
Ingredients
• 2 c cooked chickpeas
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tbsp kosher or sea salt
Cooking Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss the chickpeas with the brown sugar and olive oil and spread in a single layer on a baking sheet or in a baking dish.
2. Roast the chickpeas for 30-40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so, until golden brown and caramelized. Don’t be afraid to let them go “just a little longer”! Toss with the salt while hot.
Here’s a great way to get rid of slugs organically in your vegetable garden. This DIY slug trap was sent to us by Laurel who has slugs on her vegetable plants. Great way of practicing organic slug control.
I enjoy what you do, and love the dogs… Now that strawberries are ripening, there are always slugs. I have a trap that I like, and you might like it too. It’s easy.
Take an empty small coffee can to start. About 1/3 of the way down, drill 3 or 4 holes that measure 3/4 to 1 inch. Spray a little bit of oil on the inside.. Now, bury it, just to where the holes are. Then you pour about 1 inch of beer in the can and top it with the plastic lid.
Voila, a slug trap, with “no chemical or dyes”, just beer. Slugs like beer, they go in and down to eat, but have a hard time getting out because of the greased sides. Have the dirt come up to the hole so it’s easy for the slug to crawl through.
You are like a friend that comes into my house
DIY slug trap
How neat, super simple way to deal with slugs and you get to drink some beer too! Do you have a way to get rid of slugs? Let us know below:
Who doesn’t enjoy a hot a flaky, buttery scone with jam? This recipe uses orange essence to complement the tart flavor that the buttermilk lends to this British party. Much like a good southern biscuit, it’s important not to overwork this dough. It’s best eaten within a few hours after baking. Frankly I don’t know what they’re like the next day, there’s never anything left
Yield: about 12 to 14 biscuits (not sure, I keep eating the dough)
2 cups all purpose unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
1/2 cup dried currants or small golden raisins
1/2 cup melted butter
Orange Slurry: Mix these together and chill
2 tsp orange blossom water, or 1/2 tsp orange essence
3/4 buttermilk
1/4 cup ricotta cheese
In a large bowl whisk flour and dry ingredients together, except for currents. Add chilled butter cubes to bowl and coat them well with the flour mixture, use your hands to break up clumps. Then incorporate using a pastry cutter until the texture resembles gravel and sand. If you use a food processor, pulse until you get the gravel and sand texture. Add chilled orange slurry. With a rubber spatula add currents a tbsp at a time and mix to form a loose dough. Transfer dough to lightly floured board and knead a few times but do not over work. Refrigerate and let dough rest for 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 450°. On lightly floured surface roll dough into a circle that is 3/4″to 1″ in thickness. With a long knife or a pastry scraper divide into 8 pie-cut wedges. Note that cutting method is important. You must push straight down without a dragging the knite to create a clean edge. This type of edge allows the scone to rise on the cut side. Brush tops with melted butter and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until tops brown and scones have risen.
USING A BISCUIT CUTTER:
Roll out a large rectangle that is 3/4″ thick. Dust biscuit cutter with flour and push straight down into dough. Dust biscuit cutter after five cuts to maintain a clean edge. Cut biscuits closely, and separate from the outer areas minding the cut edges. Transfer to a cool ungreased baking sheet. Roll leftover dough into a sheet and punch more biscuits. Carefully brush tops with meted butter and bake. Note that round shaped cutters (fluted or straight) create a biscuit that rises straight up. Angular or long oval shapes tend to create a loaf shapes as the rising point is more at the center.
If you’re making a whole mess of scones keep the dough refrigerated until you’re ready to cut. You can make the dough in advance and freeze it for use later. Just let it thaw over night in the refrigerator and roll it out when you’re ready to cut and bake.
Just a short “bonus” video from Rick this morning on Easy Native Pollinators. He’s been guarding his dill and fennel patches in the front yard from the Perfectionistas’ in the neighborhood (and inside his own house) all season long. The result is this somewhat seedy but extremely prolific butterfly habitat, a Motel 6 for Monarch Butterflies headed for Mexico in successive waves new hatchlings.
Rick also covers up his innate laziness in not getting a spring garden planted in a side bed by showing off his stand of Buckwheat. It grew from seed to super pollinator attractor in less than 3
weeks.
