recipes

Unfinished business

| Green Card Gardener

The beets in my garden are knee-high. But before I could even think of what I would make with them, I had to use up the frozen beet greens from last fall. Given the effort that I put into growing, harvesting, trimming, washing, drying, chopping and freezing them, there was absolutely no question, these had to go first! Besides, being wasteful while people who don’t have a garden complain that beet greens are not always available would made me feel really guilty.

I have made Risotto with Beet Greens so frequently these past months that I needed to give that one a break. So I tried different side dishes. Marissa Grace’s Pink Greens on Food52 were my husband’s favorite. I liked them but I would also put these Beet Greens with Sesame on the top of my list. Not covering them and adding lime juice juice helped them maintain their green color.

There will be so many new fresh beet greens coming my way that I will certainly make both dishes again.

Beet Greens with Sesame

1 tablespoon raw sesame seeds

2 teaspoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

2 pounds trimmed beet greens, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon lime juice

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1. Lightly toast the sesame seeds in a non-greased pan. Set aside.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute until soft. Add the beet greens and the ginger and cook until wilted, stirring often. Do not cover.

3. When the beet greens have collapsed, add the lime juice. Season with salt and pepper. Pour off some of the pink liquid and transfer greens to a serving bowl. Drizzle with sesame oil and sprinkle with the toasted sesame seeds. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Makes 4 servings

Are you jellin’?

| Green Card Gardener


When I first moved to the United States, I loaded up on all types of baking and cooking ingredients on each visit to my native Germany. Meanwhile I have found decent substitutes for most items, except one: jelling sugar.

In Germany, jelling sugar comes in three variations of fruit-to-sugar ratio, depending on the sweetness of the fruit and personal taste: 1:1, 2:1 and 3:1. It’s a natural product, made from pectin in apples and citrus fruit. And, it comes ready-mixed, or as a jelling powder concentrate to which you add sugar (lightweight and therefore perfect for airline travel). Some online stores specializing in German foods have it but when I inquired at Dr. Oetker USA, I was told they don’t carry it. Too bad, because there is really nothing like it in the US. Many American recipes call for twice as much sugar as fruit.

So don’t hesitate if you can get your hands on imported jelling sugar. Alternatively, you can use pectin products for less sugar or no sugar recipes, to obtain an jam or jelly that actually tastes like the fruit, not just sugary.

This was the first year I had enough blossoms on my elderberry bushes to dare snipping some off for elderflower jelly. The heavenly scent alone is worth making it. In the past few days I have spotted wild elderberry blooming along the roadside. As long as it’s not in a polluted area, and the plants have not been sprayed with any pesticides, you can use those. To make sure you are really harvesting elderflowers, check out some elderberry images, for example on the website of the Missouri Botanical Garden, which has an excellent plant database.

I might go forage elderflowers myself to try some other elderflower recipes.

Elderflower Jelly

8 cups clear apple juice without artificial coloring or additional sugar

15 to 20 elderberry flowerheads

1 package fruit pectin for less or no sugar recipes

4 cups sugar

You also need:

A canning pot, or a very large stockpot

10 half-pint canning jars

8 bands

8 new (unused) lids

1. Shake the elderflowers to remove any bugs. Remove all the stems.

2. Immerse the flowers in a large bowl filled with cold water. Swish around and place in a colander. Repeat this process once or twice. If there are still tiny insects on the flowers, don’t worry. The juice will be strained and cooked.

3. Place the flowers in a large plastic container with a lid. Pour the apple juice over it. Push down; the flowers should be fully immersed in juice. Cover and refrigerate for 48 hours.

4. Pour the liquid through a fine sieve. Repeat the process. You may also line the sieve with a piece of damp cheesecloth if you are really worried about bugs.

5. Follow the package directions for your pectin product. When the mixture boils, remove any foam with a ladle or a large spoon.

7. Pour the hot jelly in sterilized jars through a canning funnel. Wipe the rim with a damp piece of paper towel to remove any drips and wipe dry with paper towel. Place the lids and the bands on the jars and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

9. Let cool and set for 24 hours without moving the jars. If processed properly, the jelly will keep for 1 year or more.

Makes 10 half-pint jars

Short-order pickles

| Green Card Gardener

All of the radishes in the garden had to go because I needed the space. It was a large bunch, more than we could eat right away, yet just enough for a small jar of pickled radishes. My initial idea was to make something like Egyptian torshi, bright pink turnips and beets in brine, but then I settled for a sweat-and-sour pickling liquid.

This is a „short-order pickle“ – one that should be eaten within a couple of days. The radishes do get wrinkly but that’s just looks. A word of caution: the smell is quite strong, although not much stronger than a good ripe cheese. The two of them taste good together, too.

Pickled Sweet-and-Sour Radishes

1 large bunch radishes (12 if big, 20 if small)

½ cup white wine vinegar

¾ cup sugar

1½ teaspoons salt

3 teaspoons pickling spice

1. Remove the leaves, root end and root hairs from the radishes. Brush under cold water and dry.

2. Leave the radishes whole if very small, or half/quarter them depending on size. I prefer cutting them to make sure they don’t contain any worms.

3. Pack in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Place the jar on a folded damp kitchen towel (that prevents it from cracking when you add the hot liquid).

4. In a small pot, bring vinegar, sugar, salt and pickling spice to a boil, scraping down the sides and stirring, until the sugar is fully dissolved. Pour the hot liquid with the spices over the radishes. They should be fully immersed; add more vinegar and sugar in the same ratio if needed. Let cool, then close the jar tightly. Refrigerate for a day before eating.

Know no shame, or: Anything for strawberries

| Green Card Gardener

Even after ten years in the country, I am squeamish as can be about anything furry – dead, alive, or in-between. Once our dog killed a groundhog in front of the garage door and it remained there until my husband returned from a trip to his parents a couple of days later. My mother-in-law, on one of my hysterical phone calls, recommended to cover it with an old towel, then load it onto a shovel, but just approaching the thing sent me screaming.

When it comes to protecting the new strawberry patch, however, I seem to be turning into a fearless, indelicate roughneck. The new commercial repellent I spread around the patch about a week ago seems to be working. But when I was weeding down there the other day and saw our dog lift his leg a few times around the patch, I had an idea. I had read somewhere that fermented human urine works as a critter repellent. Since we won’t be eating strawberries from the patch until next summer, and urine is sterile anyway, why not collect our own organic repellent? I sprinkled an old lemonade bottle full of donations around the perimeter of the patch twice this week. No rabbit damage so far!

But the next worry is already lurking around the corner. When I bought strawberries from our neighbor yesterday, he complained about half of his patch being affected by fungus because he had sprayed only once this season. Of course, now I am wondering what else will I have to battle after the rabbit plague, especially because I want to grow the strawberries organically, like the rest of the garden.

Enough kvetching, let’s get to the bright side of strawberries. Thanks to the healthy half of our neighbor’s strawberry patch, I was able to make another strawberry cake. It had to be something really easy and quick with the ingredients I had in the house, which was low-fat ricotta, but certainly whole-milk ricotta will make an even better, creamier filling.

Strawberry-Ricotta Roulade with Pistachios

Sponge cake:

2 eggs + 1 egg white

½ cup sugar

¾ cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

Filling:

¼ cup shelled pistachios

12 ounces strawberries

10 ounces ricotta

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

½ cup confectioner’s sugar, more for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line the bottom of a 16 x 11-inch jellyroll pan with parchment. Grease the parchment and the sides of the pan.

2. Beat the eggs and the egg white until light and fluffy.

3. Mix the flour with the baking powder and the salt and sift into the eggs. Fold it into the eggs lightly but thoroughly until no more flour pockets remain.

4. Pour the dough into the jellyroll pan and smoothen it with a spatula.

5. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, or until golden and springy to the touch.

6. Lift the parchment with the sponge cake onto the kitchen counter or a baking sheet and cover immediately with a clean dry kitchen towel. Let cool.

7. Lightly toast the pistachios. Cool, then chop and set aside.

8. Beat the ricotta with the vanilla extract and the confectioner’s sugar until smooth and creamy.

9. Wash, hull and slice the strawberries.

10. Flip the parchment with the sponge cake over and place it on a large baking sheet lined with the kitchen towel or with parchment. Carefully remove the parchment from the baking of the sponge cake.

11. Spread the ricotta evenly over the sponge cake, leaving about ½ inch uncovered on the long sides. Spread the sliced strawberries on top and sprinkle with the pistachios.

12. Using the towel as a lifter, roll up the cake from the long side. Place the roulade with the seam-side down on a serving platter. If you are making this just en famille, and not for fancy presentation, or if you don’t. have a platter long enough, cut it in half to fit, (that’s what I did). Chill for 1 hour. Dust with confectioner’s sugar before serving.