Meatless Monday

This morning when I was in the garden, I noticed the pumpkin blossoms blooming (below).

It was just this past weekend that I commented on a series of pictures of harvested squash and their blossoms posted by my Facebook friend, British actress and author, Carol Drinkwater.

Carol and her husband have an olive farm above Nice, in the dry Mediterranean climate of the south of France. There they grow olives--which produce award-winning olive oil--farm bees, and harvest produce from their vegetable garden.

The growing season is obviously longer in the south of France since the pictures Carol posted of the squash from her garden reveal large, ready-to-eat squash, versus the just-budding pumpkin growing in the Colorado garden I'm care-taking.

Pumpkins, which are actually a gourd-like squash, produce the same edible yellow flowers as the zucchini, a summer squash.

Last August, when house sitting another property, an urban farm with a huge vegetable garden, I wrote about preparing squash blossoms for a series of garden-to-table vegetarian side dishes.

Seeing Carol's pictures this weekend on Facebook, and then noting the pumpkin blossoms in the garden this morning, I thought I'd reprint a variation on my recipe for stuffed squash blossoms for this week's Meatless Monday all-vegetarian meal idea.

Lining the platter of cooked blossoms (pic at top) are nasturtium leaves and their flowers.

To the left are nasturtiums growing in the garden.

Both the nasturtium leaves and the flowers are edible and they're easy to grow, even in a window box! (Or find them at your local farmer's market.)

The leaves have a delicate peppery flavor, and the flowers look amazing tossed into a simple green salad because of their bright orange, yellowy-red color (pic at very top).

(The pink flowers in the pic just above are not nasturtium flowers.)

Stuffed Squash Blossoms with Nasturtium Leaf Salad
1) If you have access to a vegetable garden, that's probably the most likely place you'll find squash blossoms (or your local farmer's market). Pick blossoms which are open and healthy looking.
2) In the kitchen, gently cut the stamen out from inside the blossom.
3) Wash blossom of dirt and little bugs. (You can of course leave the bugs in the blossom; they'll add to the mineral and protein content of this vegetarian dish!) Set blossoms aside.
4) Into a bowl crumble about a cup or so of cornbread. If you made my DuckEgg cornbread, use stale leftovers. Or you could use stale bread crumbs or leftover cooked rice.
5) To the bowl, add your choice of grated vegetable, such as carrot or zucchini, perhaps some green onion, and some fresh herbs i.e. basil and oregano, or sage and thyme, or parsley and cilantro -- a mix of your favorite herbs.
6) Add one large or two small eggs to the mix, stirring gently so the stuffing binds. If mixture is sloppy, add more grain or crumbs.
Note: As you can see in the pic at top, my stuffing was too wet and so it oozed out of the blossoms. To avoid this, make sure your stuffing is firm, one large, rather than two small eggs, may be plenty.
7) You might also like to add your choice of grated cheese, i.e. Parmesan.
8) Take a small teaspoon of stuffing and place it into the center of each blossom. As you stuff each blossom, curl the end so that the blossom is sealed; now place it on a baking tray and moisten with a little olive oil.
9) Place baking tray of stuffed blossoms into heated 350-degree oven for about 10-15 mins. Keep and eye on the blossoms, you don't want them to overcook, but you do want the stuffing to set.

To Serve: Decorate a serving platter with nasturtium leaves and nasturtium flowers. Using an egg spatula, gently arrange the hot, stuffed blossoms in the center of the platter.

To a bowl of Garlic Dressed Salad Greens add a couple handfuls of nasturtium leaves and a handful of the edible flowers, toss, and serve salad alongside your platter of stuffed squash blossoms.

What Are You Eating?

The July issue of O Magazine features a 10-page spread titled "What Are You Eating."

Within those 10 pages are the preferred diets of 10 individuals.

Ranging from a fruitarian to an all-day grazer of junk food, from a carnivore who prefers to hunt and kill his own meat to an omnivore with an appetite for just about anything, the diets are extreme.

The article is worth reading for the shock factor. Apparently some people eat what they eat quite happily and for valid personal reasons -- like the guy who lives on bread, steak and cereal because nothing else tastes good to him!

Whether the 10 (and others like them) are healthy eating what they're eating is highly questionable, but that's another article.

When I finished reading "What Are You Eating," I realized Market to Mouth probably looks and reads as though I'm one of those people who are, quote, "making it hard to feel good about eating anymore ... that subset of -arian, -vores, and -ists who eat not just thoughtfully but righteously."

I confess to being very thoughtful about the food I buy, cook and eat (or this past month, the food I pick from the garden to cook and eat). Though hopefully, I'm not righteous about it; I certainly wouldn't want to make readers feel guilty about what they're eating or not eating.

Being a thoughtful and conscious consumer of locally grown and produced whole, unprocessed food reaps dividends; the most obvious is the benefit to one's health, and then the benefit to the economic and sustainable health of one's community.

For these reasons, I feel very good about consuming and eating thoughtfully and with a conscience.

With that in mind, today's thoughtful meal idea comes, once again, from the garden to the table.

However, it's not exactly a meal, but rather a delicious side of unusual edibles: snap-pea greens and garlic scapes, both of which I've included in a number of posts in recent weeks.

In fact, it was this past Meatless Monday that I posted a recipe for pasta with Garlic Scape Pesto garnished with pea greens (pic to left).

I still have some of the pesto in the fridge and I've been using it to dress salads, and as a paste on crackers with cheese and olives.

Garlic scapes (pic below) have a strong garlic - onion flavor when raw, but gently sauteed or roasted in the oven tossed in a little oil, they're not as pungent.

The leaves, shoots and flowers of the snap peas are sweet and tender and taste just like raw snap peas.

Find scapes and snap-pea greens at your local farmer's market and then toss washed and coarsely chopped scapes into a skillet with butter and saute until just soft.

Toss washed snap pea greens over the scapes, gently stir for a minute or until the leaves wilt slightly. Season to taste.

To Serve: Spoon wilted greens into a serving bowl. Add a dollop of sour cream. Eat as a side with pasta or baked potato and or as accompaniment to fish or poultry.

Marionberry Rhubarb with CashewNut Cream

Last Friday I mentioned a friend had arrived for a visit. And with her, she brought a bag of goodies including a jar of Oregon marionberry spread.

As it turned out, I didn't open the spread while she was here. Instead, this morning I plucked some stems of green rhubarb from the garden, stewed them, adding the marionberry spread to create a beautiful, ruby-red compote for breakfast.

The green variety of rhubarb stays green upon cooking, in fact, a rather unappetizing green so the addition of the dark burgundy berry spread added desirable color.

While at Whole Foods a few days ago, I noticed locally grown, organic red rhubarb in the produce section. At $6.99 lb it was priced high -- a luxury item for most.

I haven't compared that price to our local farmer's market, but if you're looking for rhubarb, that might be a more budget-friendly option.

The marionberry spread had no added sugar and like the rhubarb it's tart (though the green variety of rhubarb is actually a bit sweeter than the red varietal).

Rather than add sugar to my compote, I tossed in chunks of apple for sweetness and topped the lot with cashew nut cream and swirls of honey.

Marionberry Rhubarb with CashewNut Cream
1) Wash and peel 4 stalks of rhubarb. When I peel the stalks, I just remove the most fibrous sinews. If you remove all the outer fiber from the stalks, there's not much left, so go easy with the peeling.
2) Chop rhubarb into chunks, toss into a pot, and add just enough water to cover the rhubarb.
3) Simmer over low heat for about 10 mins.
4) Add either a cup of your favorite fresh or frozen summer berries, i.e. blueberries, raspberries, strawberries or a heaped tablespoon of a dark fruit, sugarless spread. Stir the fruit or spread through the rhubarb until it's well blended.
5) Remove pot from the stove and add chopped chunks of apple.

CashewNut Cream
1) Toss a large handful of raw cashew nuts into a blender. Add hot filtered water, just enough to cover the nuts.
2) Blend the nuts and water until creamy. Add more water if you'd prefer a smoother cream.
3) Taste test. If you like the flavor as is, great, and if you'd prefer an enhanced flavor consider adding a dash of vanilla or some cinnamon or a slug of maple syrup.
Note: Simply by adding water and blending, cashew nuts turn incredibly creamy. Other nuts don't blend to the same smooth consistency, but don't let that stop you swapping out cashew nuts for say, pecans or almonds.

To Serve: Ladle a portion of the fruit compote into a bowl. Top with a heaped spoonful of the cashew nut cream and swirls of honey or maple syrup.

If you're eating this for breakfast, as I did, and you'd prefer a heartier start to your day, spoon the fruit compote, nut cream and honey over a bowl of hot oatmeal and finish it with some whole, raw cashews.

Meatless Monday

One thing that happens when you have access to a garden filled with a selection of spring greens, herbs, and onions is innovation in the kitchen.

Though the garden I'm tending while house sitting doesn't have basil growing, it does have parsley, spinach (and lots of other leafy greens) plus a selection of onions, including garlic.

The garlic, busily forming underground into the bulb we recognize, is also sprouting long green shoots above ground. These green shoots grow into curly tendrils that look quite exotic (see slide show below).

And what I discovered via a Facebook friend is that those exotic-looking tendrils are called garlic scapes and they're delicious cooked or eaten raw in say, a pesto.

The scape's flavor is a cross between garlic and the purple spring onions I posted about last Friday.

Because I find raw garlic highly pungent, when I blended the scapes into the pesto sauce I made yesterday, I added equal portions of both spinach and parsley.

Whenever I make traditional pesto with basil, garlic, Parmesan and nuts, I toss in a handful of parsley. The chlorophyll in the parsley helps counteract the heat of the garlic and it balances out the highly aromatic basil.

And having made a batch of garlic scape pesto, naturally it lent itself to a Meatless Monday pasta dish!

If you want to try your hand at today's meatless meal, and you don't have garlic scapes in your veggie garden, look for them at your local farmer's market.

Follow the slide show and method recipe below to make:

Pasta with Garlic Scape Pesto

1) Wash about 4-6 scapes, and a small handful each of spinach and parsley. Drain.
2) Put scapes and greens into a blender with about 3/4 of a cup of olive oil.
3) Pulse until the oil and greens and blended, then add several tablespoons of grated Parmesan and pulse again.
4) Taste test. Add salt and pepper if you wish, and a splash of lemon or lime juice.
Optional: Rather than salt the pesto, you could add a squirt of anchovy paste or even several anchovy fillets and a bit of the oil from the tin.
5) Boil your choice of pasta. Drain, and then run colander under the hot water tap and flush out starchy water. Return pasta pot the stove, stir for a minute over low heat to dry pasta.
6) Away from the hot plate, stir pesto through pasta.

To Serve: Pour pesto pasta into a large serving bowl. Decorate the top with black olives. I garnished the edge of the bowl with snap-pea greens and the white, edible flowers attached to the greens.

With the pasta, I served a large garden salad, the one I posted last week, though I omitted the garlic from the dressing since the garlic scapes in the pesto was sufficient garlic for one meal.