Today... & Rethinking Winter Veggies
Rethinking Winter Veggies:
Here are two questioning comments I hear often around changing the diet to a whole food and seasonally based one:
- There are no vegetables that grow in Northern NY in the winter time. I have to purchase kale, cucumbers, tomatoes, and other vegetables that are grown in Florida and California. Otherwise, what would I eat?
- OK, so I am getting to know the local vegetables that are available in late fall and winter but what do I do with them?
My root veggie picture,
inspiring me from the kitchen wall!
A list of winter storage vegetables available in Northern NY:
- cabbage: red and green
- winter, hard squash (there are many varieties)
- beets
- carrots
- turnips
- rutabaga
- celeriac
- radish
- salsify
- burdock parsley root
- parsnip
- potato
- onion
- garlic
Farms and stores to purchase local (winter) vegetables in Northern NY: (I am certain this is not an all-inclusive list; investigate and find a farmer who grows good food near you!)
CSA Farms for Winter Veggies: (Again, not an all-inclusive list BUT to find more, go to www.gardenshare.com, Gardenshare's Local Food Guide and find a farmer near you who offers what you are looking for.)
OK, now for the cooking part. I am not going to put recipes here. I am more in favor of people learning to improvise in the kitchen: grab what you have and be creative based upon time honored methods of cooking and seasoning. Trust me, it is easy. Take a deep breath and just relax and let the cooking flow!
- Mashed potatoes are yummy! Try any of these root veggies in the mashed version, adding milk and butter. Try several root veggies steamed up and mashed together. Hint: When you steam, simmer, or boil the root veggie: use the least amount of water necessary and simmer gently. Maybe an inch of water in the pot, depending on the pot size and the amount of veggies. (Do not "rolling boil" them to death; it kills the flavor and the nutrients. As you boil off the nutrients you are boiling away the flavor!) Pour the "simmer" water off into a coffee mug and drink it. There will be just a little bit of water left by conservatively adding water and simmering gently.
- Roast any or all of the root veggies. Chop into bite size chunks, coat with your favorite oil sturdy enough to handle the oven heat, and roast for 35-45 minutes. Stir every 10 to 15 minutes and stab with a fork after 30 to test for tenderness. You want to create crunchy, cooked veggies, not mushy veggies.
- Soups, stews, stir fries are always good options.
- Squash, well... it is squash, roast it up. Steam them if you are short on time. Oven roasting can take 1 hour or more, steaming takes 20 minutes. A butternut squash, raw, grates up nicely into a winter veggie slaw. Just add chucks of apples, maybe a few raisins, and an olive oil - apple cider vinegar dressing seasoned with cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and nutmeg.
- Cabbage is yummy in soups, stews, and stir fries. Saute' a pan of onions, potatoes, and cabbage and serve with your favorite protein.
- Make cabbage and grated root veggie slaws. (If you click that link back there, you will get one recipe from me! But... it is one I have given you many times!) This is my nightly favorite to add a "raw" salad to the winter meal fare: good fiber, good nutrients, and good enzymes from raw foods!
The above slaw is grated: red and green cabbage, celeriac, purple and orange carrots, and a Braeburn apple. The apple was so juicy I only added a bit of olive oil, a dash of cinnamon, and called it "dressed!"
Please Remove Shoes & Negative Attitudes
I painted this door sign years ago. I have glued and removed it from a couple of front doors. I was inspired to create it because of a bumper sticker: "Mean People Suck." I also related that sentiment to negative people and their energy.
This past Saturday I watched the documentary film Symphony of the Soil. I was reminded of the beautiful method of how soil rebuilds itself when we care for it in natural ways, recreating nature's gardening methods.
Another message that was clear to me: how farming with chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides is much like fraternizing with negative people - soil / soul sucking!
These chemical means of farming literally suck the life out of the soil. Chemicals slowly and insidiously kill off the soil microbes, fungi, earth worms, and various other life forms that are essential to healthy soil and life on this planet. Chemically farmed soil becomes dry, pale, lifeless, and infertile. Food grown in this soil is nutrient deficient like the very soil it was grown in.
Negative people and negative energy (i.e. watching, listening, or reading the news) do the same to us. These things slowly and insidiously suck the life from our body, mind, and soul. Negative energy in our life is a real force that leeches the nutrients from our every body cell just as chemical farming leeches nutrients from the soil.
Chemical farming is a stress to the soil, to all biological life, and to this planet. (All are one and the same.)
Negative people and negative energy stress our physical body, our emotional/mental being, and our soul. Negative energy activates the stress response. This response eats up nutrients from our body cells. This is one reason why stressed people get sickly looking (pale like the stressed soil), age faster, and contract more acute illnesses (colds, the flu, etc.) and go on to develop more chronic lifestyle diseases than relaxed, peaceful people.
Touch each other's lives, and your own, gently! Northern Sun T-Shirt!
POSITIVE Action to take:
Surround yourself with warm, loving, positive energetic people
AND
Be a warm, loving, positive energy person!
See and inspire the good in everyone, including you!
Whole food RECIPE: Tourlou Greek Mix-Mix (made with local ingredients!)
This is positively delicious!
- 5-6 medium ripe tomatoes (Richard Paolillo's & Vanessa Bittner's Old Market Farm)
- 1 medium eggplant (Kent Family Growers)
- 2 medium red potatoes (Keim Amish Farmer)
- 1 large red pepper (Keim)
- 1 large red onion (Birdsfoot Farm)
- 4-5 good size cloves of garlic (Birdsfoot Farm)
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/2 cup olive oil (I used 1/4 cup olive oil and 1/4 cup of Kriemhild Dairy's pasture raised butter)
- dash of nutmeg and thyme, I am a heavy handed dasher! I would say a good full tsp. of thyme and slightly less than a tsp. of nutmeg
- unrefined sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste after cooking
The finished Tourlou, Mix-Mix, with chickpeas.
- Cut veggies into bite size chunks and mix together well (except garlic)
- Spread out in the bottom of two 8 x 13 baking pans
- add oil, butter, bay leaves, nutmeg, and thyme and mix together
- Bake at 350 F for 1 hour, set timer for every 20 minutes and mix-mix away adding water to not "fry" the veggies! This makes for a juicy creamy mix-mix!
- If veggies not tender enough after 1 hour, give them a few minutes more
- When finished cooking add the garlic via garlic pressing into the mix of veggies
- Serve and add salt / pepper to taste
- Serve with chick peas added to the mix or chunks of chicken
- A side of whole grain pita bread, warm of course, is nice
- Perhaps a 'lil Greek goat's milk feta too!
Hints:
- This dish can be eaten hot or cooled. Traditional Greek serving is when cooled allowing the flavors to meld.
- I have used zucchini, yellow squash, buttercup & butternut squash, sweet potatoes... The eggplant, tomatoes, and onion are required... after that, add veggies to your delight. The more you make, meaning the fuller the baking dishes are, use more tomatoes to add to the creamy goodness.
- Another serving suggestion: To get a raw veggie salad in with this yummy dish serve with a Fall cabbage-root veggie slaw OR sauerkraut.
Enjoy!
