Skip to main content

Answers to a few of your questions, Part One

I've had so much interest about the garden and I thought it might be good to answer a few basic questions.

 1) Why grow from seed, isn't it just easier to buy the plants from your local nursery? YES, it certainly is easier, but here are a few things to consider. If you buy your plants, you have far less choice in which varieties to grow and you really don't know from where your plants have come. Finally, if you are trying to grow 100% organic and non GMO, you need to grow from seed.

 2) Where do you get your seeds? There are some really good sites and you can order many seed catalogs, but I personally like Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Mansfield MO. They actually have three locations, one in Petaluma CA and another in Wethersfield CT. Their catalog is great and really well organized, or you can order online at www.rareseeds.com



3) What are you growing and why? I like to try a broad variety of vegetables and I have decided on the following mix.

 Tomatoes: I grow three types of tomatoes, ones for cooking, ones for slicing and ones to just pop in your mouth.
  • Costoluto Genovese- Perfect tomato for slicing but also good for preserving and sauce.
  • Amish Paste - Perfect for sauces, plum shaped.
  • San Marzano - Classic Italian plum tomato for sauces. High producer, and tends to run, so needs to be staked securely.
  • Sweet Carneros Pink - Lots of intense tomato taste. Perfect eating tomato.
  • Isis Candy Cherry - Great cherry tomato with lots of stripes and colors.
  • Fox Cherry - A large cherry variety with huge taste.


 Beans: I love my beans, so I've settled on beans which can be shelled and also beans which can be cooked in their pod.
  • Dragon Tongue Bean - This is a beautiful plant and produces amazing multi colored beans which are best lightly steamed or blanched and served simply. Great bean flavor.
  • Henderson's Black Valentine - This is a old time green pole bean which is easy to grow and a heavy producer.
  • Henderson's Bush Lima - This is the perfect "butter bean", made for shelling and cooking.
  • Improved Maestro Peas - These are traditional English style green peas. They don't like the heat, so get them in early. Pick when young for pea pods or let mature for proper green peas. There is nothing much better than fresh peas made into a risotto or just cooked lightly and served with butter, salt and a little black pepper.
  • Laxton's Progress #9 - A green pea variety that just sounded good, and you can never have too many peas, as the season is so short.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Norfolk Style Seafood

This is such a good recipe and so simple to make. The story behind this recipe is interesting. When I was a young boy, we used to go to a seafood restaurant in Washington DC called O'Donnell's. They had wonderful food, and most importantly, they had Buck.


Buck was a gentle giant at 6' 2" and was always talking to me about his recipe. He had invented this style of cooking seafood and had even developed special pans which could be used over open flame and then it could be delivered to the tables still sizzling. He was rightfully very proud of this. 


After being there quite a few times, Buck shared his recipe with me and told me to keep it a secret. Since this was over 40 years ago, I guess I can reveal it now. 


Ingredients

1/2 lb Shrimp, Jumbo Lump Crab or Langoustines, raw and shelled
2 Tbsp Butter
2 cloves Garlic, chopped
Dash of Old Bay Seasoning
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
Few dashes of Tabasco
Splash of White Wine
Salt and Black Pepper


Heat your pan until fairly hot, then add butter an…
1 comment
Read more

Oven Roasted Salmon

This has to be one of the easiest and best tasting recipes I have. I developed it so I could always pull together a healthy dinner in a few minutes and then have beautiful cold salmon leftovers for the next day.

All you need is a nice piece of fresh salmon and a few basic spices. The real key is to get the oven very hot, so it sears the outside of the salmon and locks in the juices.



Ingredients 

2 lb filet of Fresh Salmon, skin on is best, but not essential.
Celery Salt
Dill Weed
Roasted Garlic Powder
Freshly ground Black Pepper
1 Tbsp Butter
Parchment Paper

Preheat your oven to 550F. Take your parchment paper and put it onto a 1/2 sheet baking pan and lay your salmon onto the paper.



Melt your butter and brush it onto the salmon filet. Sprinkle on your spices to taste and bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the salmon. Remove and allow it to rest for 3 minutes before serving. It goes well with the seafood rice pilaf I featured in an earlier post.



Note: All of these spices can be…
Post a Comment
Read more

Vegetarian Sichuan Dry Sautéed Green Beans - Gan Bian Si Ji Dou

I can honestly say that this is my favorite Sichuan dish, second only to MaPo Tofu. I’ve eaten it many times, but had never made it. Well, that has changed. This was really incredible.


I found so many different recipes, but sort of merged a Fuchsia Dunlop recipe and a Wok of Life recipe to create this vegetarian version, which replaces the standard ground pork with Shiitake mushrooms. I’m very happy with how it turned out.


Ingredients

1 pound Green Beans, trimmed.
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 Tbsp Ginger, minced
3 cloves Garlic, minced
1 tsp Sichuan Peppercorns, crushed
2 Tien Tsin Chilis, crushed
2 ounces dried Shiitake Mushrooms, soaked in hot water and chopped.
1 Tbsp Shaoxing wine
1 Tbsp light soy sauce
1/2 Tbsp dark soy sauce
1 drop of Liquid Smoke
1/4 teaspoon sugar
Dash of Toasted Sesame Oil

You will want to prepare everything up front, because the cooking time is very quick. 





Start your wok and pour your oil in the wok. Once it is up to temperature, add your green beans and cook them for 6 to 7 minut…
Post a Comment
Read more