Blog archive: March 2007

My friend Dion is from Indonesia, and he makes the most delicious Indonesian food imaginable. Here are some fabulous Tofu Dumplings that he’s just steamed.

For the filling, mash together some organic tofu, minced garlic and fresh chopped mushrooms, preferably some deliciously decadent shiitake. Then assemble the dumplings by simply getting a little square of raw pasta, spooning a dollop of filling in the middle, and then pinching the pasta to loosely seal it.

Pop them all into a bamboo steamer, put the lid on tightly, dangle above a pan of boiling water, and get ready for amazing dumplings within a few minutes.

Quick food that’s delicious, exciting and deeply nutritious.

You were all so forthcoming and knowledgable when I asked you to name the mystery vegetable a while ago. I’m still blown away that you named Crosnes, the little Chinese tuber that tastes a bit like artichokes and looks a lot like maggots. So I thought you might enjoy helping me again by identifying this cute little salad crop. This is a photo of a semi-succulent juicy red salad leaf that was adorning my grilled vegetable sandwich at a cafe in Santa Monica, California yesterday. My friend Greg Wendt is the chap waving the little leaves at you in hope that you can name this salad crop. If you can name it, I can recommend it by name. Which I’d like to do, as it was very very tasty…

I’m in a quandry. I love Superfoods. But I don’t love Superfoodmiles. Goji berries are so rich and delicious. Cacao nibs are full of sexy zest for life. Hawaiian spirulina is by far the purest and deepest green vegetable. I was a big fan of these foods a few years ago when they were radically new to the industrial world, and deeply needed. These emerging foods are full of nutrients so lacking in processed foods, and even many organic foods grown in denatured over-farmed soils. Peruvian maca is a potentially important addition to the diets of adults experiencing hormonal inbalances, and Brazilian Suma root takes care of practically everything else. Himalayan rose salt contains a fabulously wide spectrum of minerals, from which many Westerners like us are deficient. But these foods are being flown in from far, far away… It’s the balance of looking after our own interests and looking after the planet’s interests, which of course are the same thing.

The seeds are in! Long live the seeds! We toiled and dug and raked and ploughed the soil into the ground. Then we did it a bit more. And then, under a new moon in a night sky, we finally scattered the seeds into the ground before heading indoors for a nice hot cup of cocoa.

I love Andrew. He is the only person on the planet who has noticed that today is Pi Day. In Europe it isn’t Pi Day, because 14th March is always written 14/3. But here in America, today is 3.14

Think about it.

Andrew thought about it, and then announced that he would make any Pi that we want. Here he is in our kitchen busily make all of the following:

Apple Pi with a butter crust (for me!)
Pecan Pi
Snail Pi (which is a banana and coconut number that is Ashira’s favourite)
Lemon Meringue Pi
Pennsylvania Shoo Fly Pi
and
Boysenberry Pi

Leave a comment if you want any of these recipes…!

With all these seeds, what we need is some really rich soil. Et voila! Some soil so nutritious I’m tempted to eat it just as it is. This stuff contain organic humus (my favourite kind!), bat guano (otherwise known as bat poo), chicken manure (also known by another name), kelp meal (as in seaweed), worm castings (which I think are the little spirals left by worms), and mycorrhizae. It turns out that mycorrhizae are little funghi spores that live symbiotically with plant roots. What happens is, plant roots ooze nutrients that mycorrhizae need to live, and mycorrhizae make it much easier for plant roots to suck in nutrition and also moisture present in a good soil. Don’t you just love win-win situations??!

I’m so excited! We’re going to plant some organic food that even I have NEVER TASTED YET… Things like:

Golden Purslane, a succulent with gold-tinged leaves that you can eat raw or steamed.

Giant Red Celery, which apparently tastes pretty much the same as regular celery, but is bright red and huge!

Huazontle, a Mexican vegetable with flowers as well as leaves that you can eat like spinach.

Amaranth, which I’ve eaten as a grain, but have have yet to eat the deep purple flowers which look a bit like pampas grass.

The beautiful heirloom organic seeds arrived over the weekend and are ready to be planted in our special inner-city garden. We’ve just got to make a trip round to the local nursery to buy some more soil. Then a bit of soil tilling and compost mulching will be in order. Oh, and some more beds are needed, as we have So Many more kinds of plant to plant this season than ever before!

I’ll let you know when we go and get the soil…