Edible Tulip

Spring Backyard Harvest: Asparagus, Rhubarb, Mint and What To Do With Each of Them

One of the awesome things about sifting through all the mulch in a garden that you don't know is the treasures that lie in wait for you. We moved to this big old century former-baptist-manse house last August. The lawn couldn't really be called a lawn. It was dried up dying patches of flailing grass sort of fighting for survival amidst a desert of dirt. The gardens had been so unkempt for so many years and the grass was knee high in the back yard and it was the thick of August when the crickets never shut up and the weeds twist and shout in a last rhapsody and everything is tall and wild and overgrown and tangled. The air was sweet with pollen and overgrowth. I let everything go and be just as it was thinking next spring I'll tackle this insanity. August is the only month in Ontario that I ever feel like I'm living in the jungle.

So I was out with my bare hands the past few days digging away straws of old growth from last season, trying to decipher the weeds from the goods before madness takes over and they become one. There were your usual suspects out front: tulips (but PINK? why pink?), a few varieties of daffodils (baby ones, yellow ones, mixed yellow and white ones...), hyacinthes (well, I love these cut and in a glass jar fresh from the flower market, but in a garden I think they just look phony), and tall irises are blooming alongside the driveway. So as I bent and I dug and I pulled away the sheathe of winter armour, I found a few surprises: mint (it really has to be the most hardy herb ever - growing out of the asphalt in the driveway?), rhubarb, and asparagus.

So, well I love rhubarb, and I ate it raw as a kid, I don't know what to do with it. It seems so fussy. Although, that said, I do know that to prepare a simple stew of rhubarb takes only the following tasks: wash the stalks and chop them into short lengths, add to a heavy based pan with sugar (linked recipe has details), and cook, over low heat, stirring constantly. Let me know how it goes. My mother came by today to walk the dogs together so we pulled out stalks and she'll stew it with apples and serve it over vanilla icecream. The tanginess of rhubarb, I admit, is absolutely impossible to match. Here is a recipe for stewed rhubarb from the very early days of my blog, my golly, back in 2004. Funnily enough, or not, back then, I was ALSO living in a cabin in the country and I was also marveling at the wonders of an unknown garden coming into being before my own eyes. If only I knew then what I know now about how that fateful summer would play out. I am however pleased beyond reason that for all the dips and turns and after four long years of office work in Toronto I somehow found my way back up north, right back in the same transcendental valley, alongside a waterway that connects me back to that very place 365 days times 4.75. So this plot may be a new rhubarb altogether but it's brought me full circle.

I was a bit shocked to see TWO (yes, only two, but I see more coming through the earth) thick and ready stalks of asparagus pulling through the earth and reaching high. They, like anything really, taste best when eaten the day they are snapped off their root. If you happen to have a bunch of thick fresh asparagus spears then by all means cook them quickly, in a large frying pan of water brought to the boil. They will change colour, to a deep green, fairly quickly. Test repeatedly until you like their doneness. Serve with a brown butter, a scattering of roasted chopped hazelnuts or a strong mustardy hollandaise. If you are serving grilled fish, then cook your asparagus last and simply toss with a very garlicky vinaigrette. Side with some buttered/chived baby potatoes. Here I wrote about the history of asparagus and included a recipe for Salsa Verde which is I had forgotten delicious served over top steaming asparagus spears.

Clearly mint really romps. It's climbed the side of the house and it's growing in the driveway in any crevice the pavement cracks open to allow air and sunlight. I have loved being able to pluck a few sprigs for lunch but it's also delicious added to yogurt, garlic and a seeded chopped cucumber to side with grilled chicken. If you're not that into cooking then mint goes with a trillion spring cocktails. If you're crafty, I'm not particularly, but this is easy enough, then freeze mint leaves in ice cube trays with water and add to cool summer drinks. And in this recipe from many years back I wrote about tossing mint with fresh strawberries and a bit of lemon juice and sugar. Strawberries are, of course, not yet in season in Ontario. Heck, we're not even in the heart of spring yet, but mint would also be excellent with a just ripe mango and some feta cheese and a drizzle of lime juice.

Honibe Honey Drop - It's Totally the Bee's Knees!

Over a year ago, I received an email from a man from Prince Edward Island named John Rowe. For those of you out there who believe there is nothing left to invent, well, John is a perfect example of a man who looks at dilemmas in life and finds solutions to them. In this case, hats off to John, for finding a creative resolution to an everyday frustration for people around the world: messy, sticky honey. On fingers. On toes. Dripped across the counter top. Leaked from a small jar in a knapsac. Honey crystals caked to the bottom of the dispenser. On and on. The beauty of honey lies in its earthy, velvety, aromatic sweetness that is all wild flowers and morning dew and feel good-y. But it's messy and sticky and so John, who runs a family business out of Montague, Prince Edward Island called Island Abbey Foods, hunted around for a solid honey product but could not find one that didn't have any additives or binding products (such as the dreaded but sadly ubiquitous corn syrup) and so he INVENTED it.

Let me introduce you to the Honibe Honey Drop. It is 100% natural honey. And it comes in plain honey or honey and lemon. It comes in a hexagonal single serving (like the sugar cube, it's 1 teaspoon worth of sweetness). They come in boxed packages of 20 with each one individually wrapped in foil that you can push the honey drop through like a lozenge. Perfect to toss a few into your purse. Ever had a sugar pack erode or tear in the bottom of your purse? You get my drift.

Not only is John an entrepeneur who thinks on his feet from the red shores of PEI but he's a solid Maritimer with good values. I don't know him personally. In fact, I've never spoken to him, but while looking at the Honibe website, I can see that his company, a honey business, donates 1% of their annual revenue to environmental organizations. Before the economy even took a nose dive, PEI potato farmers were complaining about not being able to give away their potatoes, having to send them on ships across the ocean to Russia, or burying them in open fields. Life is never easy for a small business owner, let alone one who works in the agricultural sector. Thank you to people like John who look at the world through such generous lenses.

Honibe has just announced a distribution agreement with Tree of Life, a Canadian organic and natural food distribution company.

Chimichurri and Its Many Uses

Given the name, I thought it was some kind of smoked mole sauce. But no, apparently it's a common condiment in Argentina, as ever present as ketchup is on American kitchen tables. The true recipe calls for a blend of olive oil, vinegar, finely chopped parsley and oregano, onion and garlic, and a seasoning of salt, cayenne ande black pepper. It adds a refreshing zing to grilled meats. Now I'm definitely a condiment kind of girl: chili sauce with scrambled eggs, hot red pepper jelly with grilled chicken, dipping sauces for meats, tart Indian pickles for rice dishes, sweet thai red chilis for stir fries, you get the point. Chimichurri is my new favourite. It's slightly sassy and poetic in a subtle but lasting way. The sauce I made came out of Gourmet Magazine's June 2008 edition:

serves 4

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1 Tbsp water

1 Tbsp minced garlic

1 Tbsp minced shallot (I used green onion which is what I had on hand)

1 tsp hot red pepper flakes

1/4 cup finely chopped flat leaf parsley

Whisk together the oil, lemon juice, water, garlic, shallot/onion, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir in parsley. Let stand for 20 minutes.

Suggested uses: We drizzled it in clumps over grilled halibut one night and then I used the leftovers the following night and added it to my whole wheat fettucine con olio e aglio. I gently cooked garlic in olive oil in a sauce pan and set aside. When I was almost ready to serve, I tossed in a few Tbsps of the chimichurri and cooked it over a medium high heat for about 3 minutes, until it was hot but not cooking or boiling.

I know there's a dusty Argentinian roadside tavern somewhere in the wilds of Patagonia where a weathered Senor is drinking a cold beer at a bar lined with little steel bowls full of Chimichurri.

Forbes Wild Foods

This is a photo from a life passed. Not the fungi's life, mine! I lived in a fairly musky fairly dark cabin on a stretch of land that lined a river and backed into a cedar forest. In early spring and early fall, when the moisture was high and the sun wasn't in the sky long enough to shed light on all that was dormant.

Forbes Wildfoods reminds me of the spring and fall seasons. They are a Canadian company who forages for the every morsel they use in their products. They stress sustainable practices, they utilize local (often aboriginal, mostly rural) folks to seek out rare wild foods, plants, roots and seeds. And what they pick they replenish through propogation. Their food is 'organic' without the new-agey price attached. It's natural most of all.

Examples of their products:

Balsam jelly (this is a jelly made from the juice from Balsam needles taken from fir trees - it's yummy with lamb in lieu of that old standard mint jelly and has a refreshing distinctive fir tree tanginess)

Saskatoon Berries (these come from the Prairies and are sweet like an august blueberry)

Spruce Tips (literally these are the tips off the new shoots from spruce trees - used like capers, they can be chopped up and used in a sauce for fish)

Wild Mushroom Mustard (the ultimate mustard for a grilled chicken sandwich with french chaumes cheese... and arugula or alfalfa sprouts... ummm....)

Cedar Jelly (similar to the balsam jelly but this is made from the juice of the cedar branches. All I can say is that it tastes like what cedar smells like. Utterly delicious used with salmon.)

Ox-Eye Daisy Capers (prepared like capers in a vineger, they are lovely buds . Add to salads with cheese.)

Milkweed Pods (these are still pods at their most tender, small and flavourful. Put out on an hors d'oeuvres spread with olives, cheese, daikon radish, and smoked trout.)

Also try the wild grape jelly (from river grapes not concord grapes - excellent with cream cheese or peanut butter!) and the Birch Syrup (instead of Maple syrup, this is very sweet, and a bit spicy and excellent as a kick first thing in the morning).

Forbes is under-publicized. It's local, original, true to itself, eloquent, small-scale, and brave. Check out their website and order some products for Thanksgiving or Christmas. They make excellent and inventive hostess gifts.

Messing with Mustard

If there is anyone who knows anything about messing with mustard it would be Anton Kozlik. He began making mustard in Northern Ontario in 1948 and since then his mustard empire has grown to encompass over 50 different varieties and they are sold in fine food shops around the province as well as having their own stall at the St. Lawrence Market in downtown Toronto. I was smitten years ago when I passed the stall -- the shelves are lined high with the trademark jars with black lids and black and white labels. They always have platters of fried back bacon and pretzels to swirl into the little petri dishes of mustard samples. On any given day you might be able to contemplate how to utilize balsamic fig & date mustard in your daily eating habits or think about slathering some amazing maple mustard on a piece of sourdough layered with melting Balderson old cheddar or basting a piece of salmon with the lime and honey mustard or perhaps enjoying pretzels at home dipped into the Triple C mustard (three kinds of mustard seeds soaked in Canadian Club!) while having a cocktail after work.

Canada produces 90% of the world's mustard. And while mustard has certainly come along way since French's yellow bottles lined most of our grocery shelves I'm always impressed when an immigrant to our country has the light bulb of a brilliant idea on how to utilize something that is so abundantly available (mustard seed) in our own land. Way to go Anton! You've certainly added some zing to my pantry.