Kale Soup

I learned about kale soup from Jim and Robbins Hail at Bear Creek Farm. Since kale is good for us - lots of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, etc., they had been trying to eat more. I've only recently come to like kale and this recipe is outstanding, I think. It freezes well, too, just leave out the milk or cream and add it after you thaw out the soup.

Kale Soup

Half a paper grocery sack full of fresh kale leaves
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 medium yellow onion, sliced or diced
1 cup half and half
2 cups whole or reduced fat milk
Chicken broth
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 teaspoons Tabasco or favorite hot sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil

1 - Heat the olive oil in a small pan. Add the onion and garlic and saute until just barely tender. Set aside.

2 - Fill a medium to large stockpot about half full of water and bring to a boil. Add the kale leaves and simmer for about 10 minutes. Drain, reserving some of the water.

3 - Working in batches, puree the kale, garlic and onion, along with some of the reserved water until smooth. Pour back into the stockpot.

4 - Add 4 cups chicken broth, along with the milk and half and half. Bring to a slow simmer.
5 - Add the hot sauce and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with a bit of real cream, or just as it is. This makes a delicious soup for winter or summer. This makes about a half gallon of soup.

For my Kale Casserole recipe, click here.

Elderberry Recipes

Elderberry Syrup
1 1/2 cups freshly-picked berries (or substitute 3/4 cup dried organic berries)
3 1/4 cups water
1 1/4 cups honey - raw, local honey if available
1 3-inch cinnamon stick
3-4 whole cloves
1 large piece candied ginger (or substitute 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger)

1 - Combine everything but the honey and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and slowly simmer for about 25 minutes.
2 - Using a potato masher, crush the berries and set aside to cool for several hours.
3 - Strain, discarding solids, then add the honey and mix to dissolve.
This makes approximately 4 cups of syrup and can be stored in the refrigerator for about 8 weeks. This can also be frozen in ice cube trays for longer storage and taken out as needed.

Elderberry tincture from the store is made with alcohol, which is the accepted method of preserving most tinctures. You can also make a non-alcohol based tincture using this recipe.

Elderberry Tincture with Glycerin
Vegetable glycerin is available at many health foods stores.

1 cup vegetable glycerin
1 cup water
1/2 pound dried elderberries

1 - Place the dried elderberries in a quart glass jar and pour the glycerin over the berries. Place a lid on the jar and keep it in a cool, dark place such as the pantry for 6 weeks. Gently shake the jar daily to keep the berries from settling.
2 - Strain the mixture through a colander or cheesecloth, squeezing out all of the liquid from the berries. This can be stored in the pantry in an air-tight container, or in the refrigerator, for 5-6 months. It makes about 2 cups. Most people use 4 teaspoons daily at the first signs of cold or flu.

Sources
Plants:
Pense Nursery
Mountainburg, AR
pensefarms@centurytel.net
pensenursery.net; (479) 369-2494

Elderberry Varieties from Cuttings:
River Hills Harvest,
Hartville, MO
Terry Durham (573) 999-3034
riverhillsharvest.com

Dried elderberries:
Mountain Rose Herbs; mountainroseherbs.com
Horizon Herbs; horizonherbs.com

Elder Cream Organic Skin Salve
Evening Shade Farm, Osceola, MO
Cindy Parker: (417) 282-6985
eveningshadefarms.com

Rosemary Chocolate Chip Cookies

The kids gave me a personalized stool, with Renee's Seed packets on top.

If you've been following my blog, you know I'm a fan of kids garden projects, and I've been working with one in particular, the Health, Wellness and Environmental Studies Elementary Gardens, in Jonesboro, Arkansas. If you use the Search button on this blog, and look under "school garden," you will find previous stories and photos. (You can help this school by visiting my website and clicking on the button, "Buy Seeds, Help Kids.") Renee Shepherd at Reneesgarden.com is generously donating 25 cents of every dollar you spend buying seed, to this remarkable school. Click here for details, or from my home page of my website. This week I drove to the school for the honor of doing 2 classes with the kids, one with the  4th grade, one with the 5th grade. (You can also follow the school on FaceBook, just look for HWES school on FB search; they'd appreciate it if you "Like" them).

Boys making tortilla chips with chili powder.

The goal was to teach the kids how to use some of the herbs from their school garden. They'd picked rosemary for the cookies, chives and mint for the salsa, and one of their hens had provided eggs. The tortilla chips are simple: spray tortillas with a tiny bit of oil, sprinkle with chili powder, cut in strips and bake until crisp.

Ingredients from the school garden.

I can't talk without using my hands and we were discussing something really important but I don't remember what it was. While the kids worked on snipping and cutting and prepping, I mixed the cookie dough. Our cookies for the day were Rosemary-Orange Chocolate Chip.

You may not realize it but children's taste buds aren't fully developed like adults, so the taste of something like rosemary isn't something kids are drawn to. Kids primarily can taste sweet, sour, salty and bitter until they're in their teens or later. But if you introduce them to a flavor like rosemary, with another flavor with it - chocolate for instance, it is more pleasant for their tastes. So each of the children tasted a chocolate chip with a rosemary leaf

That's Melinda Smith, below, who teaches, organizes and oversees the garden, writes grants and everything else to keep the garden going and teachers involved.

Melinda demonstrating the safe use of knives.

These girls squeezed lots of lime juice for the Green Grape Salsa.

Once we had all the ingredients - green seedless grapes, lime juice, poblano pepper, mint, chives and diced green onion, I whirred it up in my handy little salsa maker.

The tortilla chips came out of the oven in time for the kids to all taste the Green Grape Salsa (from my book, Salsas, from Apple to Zucchini). Almost every child liked the salsa (and we made enough to take to the Craighead County Master Gardeners where I spoke that evening).

A favorable review from one of the 5th graders.

Recipe for Rosemary-Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks (1/2 cup) butter, softened
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
Grated peel from 1 orange

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
1 - Mix flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl and set aside
2 - Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large mixer bowl until creamy.
3 - Add eggs and beat.
4 - Add flour mixture, stirring well.
5 - Stir in chocolate pieces, rosemary and orange peel.
6 - Drop by rounded tablespoon onto baking sheets.
7 - Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Rosemary-Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies ready to bake.

It's fascinating to see kids excited about learning. This is a remarkable school, with some of the most creative and amazing teachers. Every trip I make to the school, 12 hours round trip, I come back saying if school had been that way when I was a kid, I would have loved school!

Great helpers, it was a fun day.

Winter Soups

Crescent Dragonwagon

My longtime friend, Crescent Dragonwagon, author of dozens of children's books, cookbooks, novels, poetry and fiction, as well as one of the best vegetarian cookbooks ever written, had a souper-habit. Put simply, the crockpot in her kitchen always had soup cooking. Every day she'd add something new and every evening, she'd have a cup of soup along whatever food she had fixed and for whomever was in the house for dinner. The soup was always on;  I've eaten her "perpetual soup" many times and it was always delicious. With cold weather in the making, or having already arrived in many parts of the world, it's time to make soup. One of Crescent's soups that she used to serve at her Dairy Hollow House Restaurant, was the curried pumpkin bisque. You can find the original recipe in her book, Soup and Bread, but here's my own Crescent-inspired version.

Her recipe calls for nearly all the ingredients to be cooked in one big soup pot, onions with peelings on, etc., then strained through a colander. She used chopped-up, whole pumpkin, seeds, peel and all. Same with apples, no need to see or core them. My version, listed below, is based on whatever I have on hand at the time and a little different method.

I chop the ingredients rather than cooking them whole or in large chunks. It just appeals to my sense of organization and order. I saute the chopped ingredients in a bit of olive oil until they are tender.

If I don't have pumpkin on hand, I use butternut or a similar squash. Cut in chunks, peeling left on and seed removed, it microwaves in about 6 or 7 minutes. Once it cools, the peel is easy to, well, peel off.
Here's the recipe. I've made it so many times I should go back to Crescent's Soup and Bread book to see if it still resembles the original.

Curried Squash Soup

This is a really tasty winter soup and you can vary the ingredients according to what's in the pantry. Rather than chopping everything individually, I put all the raw ingredients in a food processor and chop them. Occasionally I put some canned pumpkin in the mix, other times I use different squash or a combination of the two.

1 butternut squash, stem and seed removed, cut in chunks, microwaved until soft
1 large sweet potato, microwaved, peeled
4 apples, cored but not peeled, chopped
1 medium yellow onion, quartered
1 large carrot, cut in pieces
1 large baking potato, scrubbed, peeling left on, diced
4 cloves garlic, peeled of course, crushed
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups chicken broth, or vegetarian broth instead
2 cups water
4 cups apple juice (or frozen apple cider if you can find it)
1-2 tablespoons curry powder
Salt and pepper to taste

1 - Microwave the squash and sweet potato and set aside to cool; peel and discard peelings.
2 - Working in batches, chop the raw ingredients in a food processor.
3 - Add the olive oil to a stockpot and heat. Add the chopped onion, apples, carrot, garlic and potato, stirring often and simmer until almost tender. Add 2 cups water and continue cooking until vegetables are completely tender. Add additional water as it cooks, if needed.
4 - Working in batches, process the chopped vegetables, sweet potato and squash in a blender, and puree until the soup in nice and smooth.
5 - Pour that back into the stockpot and add the chicken broth and apple juice, including the salt and pepper and curry powder. Simmer for a few minutes and taste the soup. If the first tablespoon of curry powder wasn't quite enough, add more but not so much it overpowers the soup. It's ready to serve. You can add a bit of half and half or cream if you wish but this is a surprisingly creamy soup without anything extra. This makes enough for about 8 or 10 average soup bowl servings.

Below is another of my favorite soups I like to make in winter. When I spoke at the Frankenmuth (Michigan) Herb Society a few years back, they asked me for some of my recipes for their luncheon. This is one that was on that menu.

Ginger-Orange Carrot Soup, with a cracker from my Homemade Crackers book.

Ginger-Orange Carrot Soup

2 tablespoons butter
1 large onion, chopped
5 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon honey
1 1/2 pounds small baby carrots (or if using larger carrots, peeled and cut up)
1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoons dry rice
1-2 teaspoons freshly-grated ginger
Grated zest of 1 orange
1 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 cup (or slightly more) heavy whipping cream or half and half

1 - In skillet saute the onion in butter.
2 - Transfer the saute to a soup pot with the 5 cups of chicken stock, honey, baby carrots, tomato paste and rice. Bring to a boil and turn down to simmer and cook, covered for about 30 minutes or until rice is tender.
3 - Transfer soup to a food processor and puree with the orange zest, ginger, cream and salt and pepper to taste. Puree well, this is meant to be a very smooth soup. Return the soup to a pot to keep it warm until serving but don’t let it boil. Taste and adjust seasonings. If too thick, add more chicken broth. The recipe serves 6 as a side dish soup with salad, served in small coffee cups.

You might like serving either of these soups with some homemade crackers from my book, Homemade Crackers Using Herbs.

Pickled Peppers for Winter

Peppers of all kinds can be pickled.

Before we had the first hard frost here on the farm, I pulled up all of my pepper plants and brought them into an unheated room. The peppers continue ripening, drawing strength from the plants, and I can collect the peppers as I need them. 

Hot sauces and pickled peppers.

I’ve been working for several months on a new book about making hot sauce, including how to can and freeze homemade hot sauces. I’ve been testing the recipes for several weeks and the kitchen counter is stacked with little jars of varying kinds of sauces. I’ve also been playing around with pickled pepper recipes and if you still have peppers, try this recipe and tell me your opinion of the flavor. I think it’s pretty good. I like to mix sweet and hot peppers for this and these pickled peppers are good on sandwiches of all kinds.

Pickled peppers, the flavor improves with age.

Pickled Peppers 

(hot or sweet peppers, either one)

About 30 jalapeno peppers, stem removed and peppers slit open on one side

2 cups distilled white vinegar

2 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon celery seed

1 teaspoon whole yellow mustard seed

1/4 teaspoon turmeric 

1/3 cup sugar

*Pickle Crisp (available at Wal-Mart, and makes crisper pickles)

1 - Combine all ingredients (except peppers) and heat the liquid in a non-corrosive sauce pan (stainless steel, glass or enamel, not aluminum nor cast iron). When the mixture begins to boil, lower the heat and add the peppers then continue simmering for about 5 minutes.

2 - Pack the peppers tightly into sterile, hot, glass jars. Pour in liquid and leave 1/2 inch headspace. Add 1/8 teaspoon *Pepper Crisp to each jar. Wipe jar rims with damp cloth and screw on new jar lids to finger-tight, then lower into boiling water, with enough water to cover the tops of the jars by an inch.

3 - Start timing when the pan of hot water begins boiling. Process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Remove and cool on a towel on the kitchen counter for the jars to continue sealing. Don’t re-tighten or bother the lids as it will break the seal and cause the pickles to spoil. This makes 4 pints.

Click here to visit my website for my books and products.  Our special blend of Chili Seasoning is on special this month. 

Click here to see our specials. You won't find it fresher, or more tasty anywhere, and 1 pound for $12 is a great price!

Avocado Banana Bread

Fresh, ripe avocado

Do you ever look at the avocados at the grocery store and think - cake? Neither do I, but somehow I got on the newsletter list for the California Avocado Council (their job is to promote California avocados by developing recipes). Occasionally I try one of their recipes and this one just sounded so strange that it had to be good. Here's their recipe, but of course I can't follow a recipe exactly and always wind up tinkering with it as I go. Here's my revised recipe (I added coconut and pecans and an extra egg). It's actually more like banana bread than it is cake.

Bananas and avocado makes a moist loaf.

Avocado-Banana Cake

1/3 cup old-fashioned oats
1 cup flour (I used half whole wheat and half regular flour)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 ripe, fresh avocado
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup packed brown sugar (my diabetic version is 3/4 cup Stevia brown sugar, and 1/4 cup actual brown sugar)
2 large eggs
2 very ripe bananas
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I used pecans instead)
1/4 cup buttermilk (didn't have any so use 1/4 cup milk and 1 teaspoon white vinegar)
I added 1/2 cup coconut that wasn't in the original recipe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Line a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan with nonstick foil and lightly grease the bottom.
Combine dry ingredients (except for coconut), mixing and set aside.
Scoop the avocado into the food processor or mixing bowl.
Add the bananas, oil and brown sugar and blend until light and creamy.
Add the dry ingredients, mixing well, then add one egg at a time, mixing after each one.
Mix in the nuts and coconut and pour into prepared loaf pan.
Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.
This makes a very moist bread, good with cream cheese or as a low-calorie dessert or snack.

And for all who asked if the new puppy has a name yet, she is now Cricket. Molly is adjusting pretty well, mostly ignoring the new puppy.

Cricket, new addition to Long Creek Herb Farm

Pesto Bread, Freezing Pesto

Sweet basil

 

As the late summer days shorten and night temperatures cool, basil plants slow their growth. If you've kept your plants clipped back all summer, keeping them from going into flowering, then you likely have more basil than you can use. It's a good time to freeze some pesto for use during the winter.

Culinary herb bed where I grow 12 different varieties of basil.

It doesn't really matter which kinds of basil you use for pesto. I usually mix more than one variety, like sweet basil and lemon basil. Or Greek columnar and Thai basils. Purists use only sweet basil, but the important thing is to use whichever basil you have. Here's my recipe for freezing pesto.

 

Freezer Pesto

4 cups basil leaves, loosely packed
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons almonds or walnuts (you could use pine nuts, they're more expensive, but I like almonds better)
6 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt

Put everything into the food processor and blend ingredients until smooth. Scrape the edges to make sure everything has been processed.
Pour the mixture into ice cube trays, filling each section. Freeze for 24 hours, then pop out the cubes into Zip-Lock bags and keep frozen.

Now the trick. When you are ready to use pesto, combine it with half Romano, half Parmesan cheese, freshly grated if possible. Since those cheeses don't freeze well, the flavor of your pesto will stay much fresher if you don't put the cheese in the pesto before freezing.

The end of summer also means the roses are blooming vigorously. This pesto doesn't freeze as well as plain basil pesto, but use it on fresh-cooked tortellini with a few shrimp or mushrooms added.


Rose and Basil Pesto
Roses and basil taste great together!

2 cups fresh basil
1 cup fragrant *rose petals
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup pine nuts (I prefer walnuts)
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon food grade rose water
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice (don't substitute bottled juice) 
1 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
1/4 cup Romano cheese, freshly grated
Salt, optional

Peel and coarsely chop garlic, then add rose petals, basil, nuts and olive oil in food processor. Pulse blend until everything is well pulverized.
Add remaining ingredients and mix well. This can be stored for up to 4 days in the refrigerator.

*If you aren't sure what roses you can use, visit my YouTube video for tips on using roses in food.

Thai basil, in need of having the flowering spikes removed.

The other crop from the garden in excess this time of year are zucchinis. Here's a way to use up more basil with zucchinis to make zucchini pesto bread. Thai basil is good in this, but so is lemon basil or any kind you have on hand.

 Zucchini Pesto Bread

2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup fresh ricotta cheese
1/2 cup basil pesto

1 stick butter, melted, divided

3 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup grated zucchini

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan with butter.

Combine the eggs, ricotta, pesto, and 4 tablespoons of the melted butter in a mixing bowl, mixing well. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt, and stir to combine. Add the grated zucchini to the flour mixture and stir to coat the zucchini.

Combine the flour-zucchini mixture to the egg-cheese-pesto concoction, and mix well. This will be a fairly thick mixture so be sure to stir it together well.

Transfer the dough to the loaf pan and top with the remaining 4 tablespoons of melted butter. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean, about 55 minutes to 1 hour. Cool the bread in the loaf pan on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes before removing the loaf from the pan.

The Zucchini Pesto Bread can be sliced and used for grilled Provolone cheese sandwiches, or for any kind of sandwich bread. Top slices with very thin slices of tomatoes and grated Parmesan cheese toast under the broiler. This bread also freezes well.