Lettuce soup

It's the Fourth of July  and we still have so much lettuce left in the garden, despite eating it every day and giving away bunches and bunches.   Can't freeze lettuce but I can make a delicious lettuce soup.  Also use some of the lovely peas from the garden.  

  
First sauteed up some onion and garlic scapes in olive oil.  

Added chopped lettuce and some spinach and mixed for a few minutes, and then added chicken broth and cooked gently for 15 minutes.  Cooled slightly and pureed in a blender.   Added some hot pepper vinegar.  Sprinkled with dill and garlic chives.  Voila!  

Salad Days

Early June.  Summer came early this year, but it's always a big rush after the last frost-free date to get the major part of the garden planted.  Here in Ithaca, New York, Memorial Day weekend is a safe bet.  But already we can enjoy the fruits of early spring planting.  We're even still enjoying overwintered greens.  This was a particularly good year for over-wintering greens, between the relatively mild temperatures and the decent snow cover.  We had also covered the little spinaches, radicchio, and lettuces with leaves in the late fall.  The radicchio did spectacularly well, as did a few lettuces:

In early April, the new salad crops were sown, and now they are thick.  It didn't hurt that April and May were the rainiest in history.  We hoe up raised beds with paths between, and sow the lettuce thickly.  Shades out a lot of the weeds!  Here we have (from the top) Red Deer Tongue, Tropicana (or was it Barbados?), and Nancy lettuce. 

In the mornings, I thin the beds, while at the same time picking for the table.  The key is to feel around the base of the plants, and pick out whole plants, rather than just leaves.  Even on a busy day, the plants can be thrown in bowl of water, roots first, and sit around as a lettuce bouquet all day, before being washed and packaged up in the evening (except for what's eaten that day of course.)

mixed harvest

Late blight (potato blight) hit the tomatoes bad this year, as it did all around the region, thanks to our local big box stores which buy tomato plants from the south, and the people who bought their plants from them, and then the virus spread through the air. My tomatoes were started from seed, and only caught the virus late in the season, unlike some friends out in Trumansburg and Lodi who lost pretty much everything. I was able to salvage parts of a lot of the bigger tomatoes. The damaged parts had to be cut out, and the rest could be used. The smallest cherry tomatoes did the best – Ildis and Jelly Beans. Also the Principe Borghese showed very little damage and had a good crop. Usually I use them mostly for the tomato preserves and dried tomatoes, but this year they pinched-hit for all fresh uses along with the little cherries. One Rutgers plant survived surprisingly well – at least it was Rutgers according to my records, but the fruits were on the small side, a little bigger and rounder than the Principe. I should save some seeds from that plant! We've still been covering it up at night along with a few other things since frost has threatened at night. So still been eating some tomatoes about every day; just have a lot fewer jars on the shelves. Tomatillos did not seem affected so do have a lot of salsa verde. More to make tonight.

Have a great crop of kale and collards this year, thanks to early planting for a change. So I've had it all summer, but now I really am appreciating them, as there's little else. The dinosaur or Tuscan kale is most susceptible to the cold, so I'm cooking, eating, and freezing a lot of that now before frost gets really hard. It's always surprising to pick a few lower leaves from each plant, and then strip the skinny leaves from the stem and slice them and there is actually a big pot of greens. These don't cook down to a tiny volume like spinach, but hold their texture, and consequently put up with more cooking.

The serviceberry tree is entering is entering its glory time.

veggie burgers

More than ever I'm working on using things up and cooking more efficiently – minimal waste of food and ultimately effort. My mom's penchant for having the refrigerator fairly empty so that she can see everything, is finally rubbing off on me. It's a challenge to please my mother, my daughter, Steve, and myself. Rachel is a vegetarian. Mom and Steve and convicted carnivores. I'm somewhere between, preferring meat as a condiment rather than a main course.

I've pretty much mastered burritos. Now I'm working on veggie burgers. Steve and my mom prefer the real thing. I like the real thing only if it's barbecued. I've tried a few veggie burger recipes – like the lentil walnut burger from The Moosewood Cookbook. When they came out with The New Moosewood Cookbook, I noticed that the lentil burger recipe had changed! I liked the original but the new one is good too. Recently I wanted to incorporate tofu in a veggie burger so searched online for such a recipe and the mushroom tofu veggie burger from the Harvard School of Public Health recipe looked pretty good, so I used it with modifications. The nuts should be finely ground so that they hold together better.

Now that I have an idea now of the various possible ingredients, I figure I can improvise and throw various things together in a rough balance of ideas of taste and the right consistency (and what is on hand!). In my first attempt I started with some tofu, which I had previously shredded and marinated and sauteed. Added cooked lentils and bulghur, finely chopped walnuts, and a couple eggs. Threw in a little hot sacue and of course salt and pepper. At the end added a bit of cornmeal as it seemed a bit wet.

Forgot the mushrooms! Rachel just put them on top. Buen idee!

A few nights a week there's more greens to cook up, since the salads can't keep up with the quantity. Last night cooked up lambsquarters, swiss chard, and spinach: LSS. I try to label the greens accordingly when I put little containers in the freezer, so that I can remember whether they were DGM (dandelion garlic mustard) or BGM (bacon garlic mustard), for instance.

salad days

I must hard-boil some more eggs tonight for Steve's salads. This has been a great year for salads already. Spinach, swiss chard, and radicchio overwintered under the leaves. As the last summer's spinach is practically gone, now the spinach seeded in March is coming on strong with big fat dark geen leaves. One of the best spinach crops I've ever had.

Lately been eating a lot of violet leaves (I forgot to pick the flowers when they were good); there's some young lettuce thinnings to add to the mix. The lambsquarters are just starting to be big enough to bother picking and adding to the salads.

When I see garlic mustard in the yard, that goes into the mix too. I try to pull it out every year, but there's always some that still pops up here and there. I'm surprised not to have heard from Betsy Darlington this year about garlic mustard pulls in the woods.

garden activity

Facing reality, I brought the large brighly flowering geraniums, as well as the noble evergreen rosemary plant into the potting shed and cut them all back. The geraniums are simple and clear to cut. Look at the branches and save the bright green new stems; go for the darkened old brown stems and cut them down to the base, in the process mercilessly cutting off flowers right and left. The plant looks rather small, but green and healthy at the end; by spring it will be rebounding strong and beautiful. I'm never quite sure where to cut the rosemary - I've heard to cut them back by one-third, so I kind of trim it all around after taking out a a few particularly straggly branches from the base. Also brought in a Penny Lane viola that bloomed sweetly in the speckled shade off the patio all spring and summer and again has a couple of sprightly blossoms.

Working on the garden clean-up gradually. Early in the month was another great sunny day for it, so it was a wonderful excuse to linger. Took down another trellis-netting. This one had been for the tomatillos. The vines shrivelled to dry brown leaves and slippery rotten stems here and there, but there were still some solid tomatillos to harvest. Despite the light frosts we had they're still good for salsa verde. The trellis-netting is always a bit of a pain to reuse, but I try. There was also twine to untie as Steve had tied up some of the abundant side branches. Sure I could cut the knots with a knife, but then I couldn't save the short pieces, and besides, I can get totally mesmerized untying a knot. I’ve been drawn to that activity since a child, untangling my aunt Sis’ rosary beads during church. At that time, it distracted me from the boredom of church. Untangling the trellis netting gave me a chance to be still and look up once in a while and see the bees visiting the four-petaled yellow wild arugula flowers which are the only bright color around, and time slows down. And then a little pale yellow butterfly drifted by and I followed its meandering path with my eyes until it landed in the grass. I walked over to see where it alighted and found a dandelion flower tight in the low grass, previously inconspicuous. Later when working in the potting shed, I saw four dead ones of this same kind of butterfly on the windowsill. On one side the wing is more white with a yellow border and two black smudgy spots. Maybe it's a sulphur butterfly - I'm not sure.

Towards the middle of the month, it turned much colder and has stayed that way. But even though the winter has come early, with an early snow coating the ground at Six Mile Creek, still getting some fresh greens every morning that I’m willing to venture out. The snow has still been covering the east bed where there’s some arugula, lettuce and radicchio, and I figure hopefully that I can let that go as the snow might be insulating it a bit, and I pick the other barer plants on the west side where they get a bit more sun due to the configuration of the trees. Still picking garden cress, lettuce, mustard, swiss chard, spinach, arugula, radicchio, sorrel, and winter cress, as well as sideshoots on the two Dividend broccoli plants which were set out in June. The late-planted broccoli got too late a start and is only just putting out small heads. Eventually I’ll have to face reality and pick the small immature heads before they freeze into mush.

I pick almost every morning now – as much as I can before my fingers freeze. The leaves are small now but still so healthy. All the little bits add up – it’s amazing. If I don’t get them now they might be gone tomorrow or next week. Pretty soon my only fresh greens will be the alfalfa sprouts I sprouted myself or something I buy at the store.

Steve planted the garlic a couple weeks ago and I planted a few shallot bulbs a few days ago. He covered the garlic with leaves, but they're now sprouting through the leaves! I clipped the tops and chopped them into salads etc.

pickles

Summer is still lingering on despite the evidence of school buses and college tuition bills. There is some hope for the fall garden: sprouts of mustard and arugula are strong - starting to eat thinnings. Radicchio transplants are also putting out some growth but it will be a little while yet before they can shoulder the bulk of a salad. Lettuce and spinach are quite small but coming up so long as I remember to water religiously during the hot dry days we've been having. The cooler nights are forgiving. All the abundant greens of spring are long gone. The masses of dandelions and garlic mustard, which I had packed into little jars and into the freezer back in April have since been found and eaten, as summer greens became sparse.

The best green this year to carry through the summer, when lettuce has already bolted, is Swiss chard. It's pleasant when cooked like any other green, and the young leaves can passably substitute for lettuce, when lettuce is scarce. In past years, I grew the venerable old Fordhook variety. Since I don't grow that much at a time, that seed packet lasted over several years in the refrigerator. When I ran out this year, I decided to try for some visual excitement and obtained Charlotte and Sea Foam chard from Pinetree Seeds. Charlotte is a red-ribbed variety and Sea Foam is a lighter bright almost limey shade of green. Grown together they make a striking contrast. Sowed in April, they are still going strong in September. Sea Foam is crinkly and more delicate so more suited to salad. But either one can be used for either cooking or eating raw.

Canning has been going on steadily since the first batch of pickles in early August. Bread-and-butter pickles, dill pickles, salsa, tomato juice, plums, chutneys. Although my favorite is dill pickles, most of my family favors the sweet bread-and-butter pickles, so I make a lot of them for gift-giving. Ever since I discovered the recipe in Putting Food By, I've never bothered to try a different one for the sweet pickles since everyone loves them. Actually the authors of Putting Food By credit Isabelle Downey's Food Preservation in Alabama for the source of the recipe. My old Bantam paperback edition of Putting Food By has gotten pretty tattered and falling apart over the years, so my daughter recently found a higher quality trade paperback edition of the book from the Stephen Greene Press in a used bookstore. But lo! It doesn't have the best recipe ever for bread-and-butter pickles, so I will reproduce it here before it turns to dust:

Bread-and-Butter Pickles

• 6 lbs medium cucumber
• 1 1/2 cups sliced onion
• 2 large garlic cloves, left whole
• 1/3 cup salt
• 2 trays ice cubes or crushed ice
• 4 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 1/2 tsp celery seed
• 2 T mustard seed
• 3 cups white vinegar

Slice unpeeled washed cucumbers into 1/4" slices . Add to large bowl, along with sliced onions, garlic and salt. Cover with ice; mix well and let sit at least three hours. (When I leave it up to 24 hours, I put in in the refrigerator.)

Drain off the liquid and remove the garlic. Combine sugar, spices and vinegar and heat just to a boil. Add the cucumber and onions; simmer 10 minutes. Pack loosley in clean, hot pint jars, leaving 1/2" of headroom. Adjust lids; process in a boiling-water bath for 10 minutes. Makes 7 pints.

late May

One of the delights of early spring is finding unexpected edibles in the garden. Each year, at least if the winter is not too severe (and it has not been so lately), some vegetable plants, normally considered annuals, survive over the winter and put out new growth in spring. It's not predictable, although I often try to over-winter things, like spinach, by covering them with leaves in the fall, I'm not always successful. I've had good luck on occasion with the spinach in the past, but not reliably. Last fall we haphazardly covered a lot of things with the abundance of leaves - including spinach, lettuce, and some kale which was still small in the fall. This spring no spinach survived, but a bunch of radicchio plants surprised me with new growth since uncovered in March. I've been picking leaves regularly in the past weeks. Several little kale plants also survived the winter to grow again, and I will keep an eye on them to see if they get big enough to pick before flowering. They were planted on the late side last year and never got too big. The radicchio and kale had both been started indoors last June and transplanted into the garden in July.

Then there are the re-seeders. I've already mentioned the dill which has been re-appearing for years without benefit of re-seeding (June). Sprouting pockets of feathery growth in numerous spots around the garden, dill consequently ends up cut and scattered over all kinds of dishes. I'm getting in the habit of picking a bunch up by the in the mornings and sticking them in water like a small bouquet to keep fresh for using later in the day. The little plants go into a shot glass and as they get bigger and bigger they move up to a quart jar. There's a ridiculous abundance now, but it's always a challenge to still have enough around by the time the cucumbers are ready for pickling.

Deepening my love affair with arugula, I started some wild arugula (Rucola selvatica) seed a few years ago. A little more bitter than domesticated arugula, it's still a great wake-up call for the taste buds alone or mixed in with other greens. In the last couple of years I haven't needed to seed it again, as it has re-seeded thickly in some spots, and is scattered just about everywhere else in small bunches or single plants. It's slow to grow when first seeded, but after a while it seems almost invasive. Garlic chives is another delicious treat in spring and early summer, which has been spreading a little too promiscuously. This year I'm being more aggressive about picking the garlic chives and wild arugula, so as to make more use of them and make more room for other things! The garlic chives are solidly rooted and so I go around with a hand shovel and pull out bunches of plants to thin them out. Often I bring them into the house and put them in a big bowl with a little water in it to keep them fresh for a day or two while cutting off the tops and using them here and there. Other times I clip the tops off right in the garden after digging out the roots, carrying the compost bucket (to throw the roots) and scissors, along with the harvest basket.

It's amazing how many foods can absorb a quantity of garlic chives, especially stews and soups. Since it's good as an ingredient in pesto, sometimes I make a pesto with it as the major ingredient, and then later in the summer, when basil is available, the pestos can be mixed together.

The wild arugula can be cooked up like dandelions, garlic mustard and other greens, and saved in small containers in the freezer for use throughout the year. From early spring til late fall, it's one kind of leafy greens after the other. They each have their special qualities, but when there is an abundance they often get mixed up together in the pot as cooked greens. Dandelions and wild arugula are on the bitter side so they benefit from more liquid in the cooking. Garlic mustard can be awfully chewy, but if chopped fine or even pureed after cooking, it makes a fine deeply flavored sauce. Radicchio is already wonderful raw - a deep smoky taste, so only makes it into the cooked greens at times of most abundance when we can't use all of it fresh. Mustard greens can vary as for their sharpness of taste. In recent years I've been growing Tendergreen mustard (from Gurney's seeds) which is a milder and prolific form. After sowing seeds in early April, thinnings are ready to eat in a month and by early June plants are starting to send up flowers and it's time to pick them all.

Thanks to Golden Temple Vegetarian Cookbook, here's a lovely recipe for mung bean-mustard greens soup:

Cook 1/2 cup mung beans with a few bunches chopped mustard greens and plenty of water. Puree after it's cooked.

When that's almost done, sautee onion, garlic, and gingeroot. Add a teaspoon or two caraway seeds and curry powder (or garam masala), salt and pepper. Add the pureed beans and greens and heat slowly.

A surprise this spring was shallots. It shouldn't have been a surprise if I had been paying attention. I planted seeds for them last spring and didn't get around to harvesting them until so late that I didn't find them all. If I was thinking I might have done what I did by accident anyway, as people often plant shallots in fall for next year's harvest, just as we do with garlic. So we've been eating some of them as green onions, and now I'm going to let the rest mature into shallot bulbs, and maybe will plant a few in the fall! They are sending up a lot of shoots with seed tops, so I'm picking those for fresh-eating and to divert the energy back into the bulbs.

I had started epazote by seed a few years back and to my delight it re-seeded itself in subsequent years, so that I started to depend on it. It's good to throw in epazote leaves with the black beans. Besides adding authentic flavor, it is purported to neutralize the flatulent effect of eating the beans. Alas it stopped coming back last year, so I had to start seeds again. C'est la vie! But they didn't germinate! Then I discovered they were growing thickly in the pot where I had been growing cilantro, which was now dying off. In fact they're showing up in several potted plants that are using my recycled potting soil. What luck! Now I just have to rememer to use them when cooking black beans. The fragrance clears the head.

Dandelion harvest

Earlier in April I searched carefully for a bunch of young dandelions. Last week, as May loomed, they were everywhere and huge - the dagger leaves spraying out from the center of each plant like spokes on a wheel. On Saturday there was more time and I pounced, quickly filling up the wire basket.. It was a cool and misty morning. Today most of those I found have started blossoming, and now everybody notices them. The best quality has passed. Nevertheless I make one more harvest.

It's best to pick them in the morning when they are freshest - isn't that the best time to pick anything? But there is often not time then to clean them all, and certainly I'm not ready to cookup the whole batch. Excess dirt is shaken off each plant before being thrown into the wire basket. Then usually, I throw them all into a bowl or bucket of water. On the misty morning the air and bit of soil which still stuck to the roots were still damp, so I just left the basket sit on the back stoop. A light rain arrived mid-morning, providing a first rinsing. So they stayed fresh all day until I got time to deal with them.

When it comes time to chop off the roots, I throw the leaves into clean water for a second rinsing, and the bowl of muddy water gets thrown directly outside under the crabapple tree so as not to clog the drain. A third rinsing in clear water removes the last of the dirt and the transformation from the ragged-looking plant begins. As the long jagged green leaves separate in the cleaing, milky white stems are revealed with a shimmering purple center line. The bigger plants are tougher than the young ones we ate a couple weeks ago, and there is less succulent white stem, so they require a little more moisture and more time in cooking. And don't expect to eat a big bowl of dandelion greens. They're more of a spring tonic. Earthy dense flavored, a little goes a long way: they complement well other foods such as the pot roast made last night with barbecue sauce and then sweet potatoes. I package the extra abundance into glass jars or recycled plastic containers of a cup or less in size. They crowd easily into the freezer and are a welcome addition to many dishes in future months.

The old wisdom has it that when daffodils bloom that is the time to plant onions, as well as other early plants as potatoes and asparagus. Today I actually did get the sweet onions ito the ground while the daffodils are still blooming. The onions, which I had started in late February, looked puny but healthy. At first I went for those with dry soil to transplant, but found the little soil balls would fall apart, so then I watered lightly all the dry ones and went for the moister ones. That worked well as the soil held together for the transition into the new hole, newly sprinkled with compost. Several seeds had been sown into each unit, so some units had more than one plant. I did not divide them up at this time, figuring I could thin them out for green onions down the road.

Besides garlic mustard and dandelions, right now I'm also able to pick wild arugula and bits of corn salad, which both have returned from previous years. I've still re-sown regular arugula, which has a slightly milder taste than the wild, but I'm addicted to both. No longer need to re-sow the wild: Arugula selvatica, as it has established itself now!

This morning there was a residual chill from the cold night. I had to get outdoors into the sun and warmed up by finding a sunny spot in the garden in need of weeding. On hands and knees, the warmed soil felt good. It hasn't rained for days.

There is still time...

The garden is in high gear. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and beans are now coming on seriously. Vacations beckon but home garden demands. Weeding, watering, and most important of all at this time of year: harvesting begins in earnest. And if you like flowers, a few minutes of deadheading each week makes the difference to keep the flowers blooming and the dead at bay: fall is soon enough for dried brown flowerheads. No time to take a vacation, but going out into the garden, if regularly enough, is escape enough. But I went anyway. The family draws even harder on your heart than the plants. And it is good to get away from home to another place once in a while and shed the usual and simplify; but who will take care of the garden?

Every year something does well, and something fails. The humiliation of high August with its assault of insects, weeds, heat, and drought; and the seductive call of the lake and the pool. There are never enough cucumbers that follow the promise of the early plants, for all the pickles that we would like to give as gifts at Christmas. Watering by hand never matches the gift of water from the sky.

The sound of cicadas stops time when it rises up in the afternoon, swelling into the evening into the chorus of the crickets: the music that evokes deep silence--a percussion ensemble totally absorbed in mono-tony, yet it rises and falls and suddenly stops. Are new ones joining in?

Just get out there when you can. Be outside however you can. Enjoy the sweat. Soon enough the walls and the heating system will close in. The pink sky through the haze above West Hill draws me out onto the porch. Cars have died down in the west end, thankfully. The insects almost drown them out when you're outside the house.

It's not too easy to think of fall crops now, but you'll be happy later if you did. It's probably too late now to start broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, collards, and brussel's sprouts. They probably needed to be started by mid-June to get fall crops, though you can never tell what the weather will be like, especially with global warming. We go by experiences in the past--averages and extremes. Carrots should've been sown by mid-July, but no regrets! There is still time to direct seed lettuce, spinach, arugula, cilantro!, mustard greens, chinese cabbage, tat soi, pac choi, and probably a host of others. The rewards will be ample. Diligent watering keeps them going during the hot spells. If you're good and the winter is mild like last year, you can pick the biggest leaves of spinach and lettuce in the fall and then cover the little plants with dry leaves for the winter. In spring, brush off the leaves, and find precious early salads for weeks that predate those sown in March or April.

Salsa time. Peppers are coming on slow, but one little hot purple pepper, ripening to red, is ready and hot enough to carry the salsas. I managed to overwinter Pretty in Purple in a pot over the winter in a south-facing window. A find from Johnny's Selected Seeds, a wonderful seed company from Albion, Maine. It used to be my favorite seed company before discovering the less glossy, more economical, but just as devoted Pinetree Garden Seeds from New Gloucester, Maine. Their seed packets are smaller, but plenty for the home gardener.

The tomatoes are lush. Hybrid Early Girls ripened first, and then the Sweet Million cherry tomatoes. But now the heirloom tomatoes are kicking in with incomparable flavor--Pruden's Purple (I'd sure like to know who Pruden was--is all I know is that this is delicious, a dusky pink and considered to be an early Brandywine) and Golden Queen (this one is from the Amish introduced in 1882). Brandywine, another Amish tomato, has not yet totally ripened. Hardly a meal goes by without some manifestation of tomatoes.

Oh, the kids are hungry or thirsty! They are running downstairs. What will they find in the kitchen? The kids are old enough to poke around and find something good. Rachel is well-rehearsed in what is available, and since she entered her teens, she has shown more interest in good nutrition.

I was just enjoying some sun tea;--very refreshing-made with a little English Breakfast tea for a little kick, and for flavor, herbs from the garden, dried--bee balm, peppermint, catnip, maybe some thyme flowers? Each time I make it it is a little different--I follow my nose and throw in what smells harmonious.

Another garlic mustard pull

Another garlic mustard pull at the Biodiversity Preserve today, and another beautiful day despite (or maybe because of) the dramatic clouds building up and erupting into rolling thunder as we were leaving. We had two smaller groups today, but our group made considerable progress clearing out a lovely wooded area full of wildflowers -- white foam flower, bishops cap, dark-pink flowered geraniums, jack-in-the-pulpit, and blue cohosh -- right near a beaver dam in the Cayuga Inlet. Betsy called it the "Sugar Cup" and said they have been working on that area at least every second year for the past eight years, and the efforts are obviously paying off as the clumps were much fewer than in the past. So that was particularly satisfying to wander around and pick every garlic mustard in sight until after a while we could no longer find any.This time I brought along a garlic mustard appetizer to introduce everyone to its flavor. I modified Jane Brody's "Spinach and cheese squares" recipe from The Good Food Book. Instead of the 10 oz frozen spinach spinach, I used almost that much garlic mustard which I had previously cooked as above (2nd delicious idea). The addition of garlic chives is excellent too, if you have it available.

* 2 eggs
* 6 T whole wheat pastry flour
* 8 oz cooked garlic mustard
* 2 T chopped garlic chives
* 16 oz (2 cups) cottage cheese
* 2 cups grated cheddar cheese
* 1/2 tsp black pepper to taste
* 1/8 tsp cayenne to taste
* pinch nutmeg
* 3 T wheat germ

Pre-heat the oven to 350. Whip up the eggs and stir in the flour til well-mixed. Add the rest of the ingredients (except wheat germ) and mix well. Turn on to greased 13" by 9" pan. Sprinkle with wheat germ. Bake 45 minutes or so. Let cool in pan 10 minutes before cutting into squares.

Garlic Mustard - its time has come!

Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) has an image problem! Here is a wonderful useful plant that was introduced to the United States by European settlers who appreciated its flavor as well as well as its nutritional value (high in vitamins A and C). Plus they found it helpful controlling erosion, and even treating ulcers and gangrene! Eventually it escaped from cultivation on Long Island and became a pest from Maine to Oregon and into Canada. It's mostly a concern in forests where it exudes chemicals which disrupt the mychorrizal fungi that so many trees depend on. (Back in Europe there are plenty of insects who devour it, but not here. Even the deer don't like it, so they actually hasten its spread by eating its native competitors instead.) The paradox is that if garlic mustard were more popular then it would be less of a problem. Hence the campaign to use it while we try to eradicate from our forests. If leagues of people were heading out to the woods and fields every spring to pick crops of garlic mustard, then the problem of it taking over our woodlands would soon be over.


On Sunday I participated in a "Garlic Mustard Pull" at the Lindsay-Parson Biodiversity Preserve in West Danby, New York. This 450-acre preserve full of glacial hills and a mix of forest and meadow, ponds and stream, is not immune to the onslaught of garlic mustard, but fortunately its presence is so far limited to spots here and there. But that could change if no control measures are taken. It seems like a Herculean task when you look at the enormous numbers of plants in some patches. So the strategy, as Betsy Darlington, a delightful doyenne of nature activism in Ithaca, explained, is to first pick your area, where it is not so impossible and overwhelming. Our group went deep into the woods to a a spot filled with the enchantments of rolling terrain scattered with ferns in the underbrush, and a patch of mayapples, studded with white trilliums and other native plants. Betsy showed us a jack-in-the-pulpit (first time I recall seeing one), and it wasn't soon after that I discovered one for myself while pulling garlic mustard. Once the area is chosen, then we fanned out and went after the outliers - the upstarts that were on the march spreading outward from the patch.

The past few weeks have been the ideal time for pulling out the plants, as they start to get big, and up to the time that they begin to flower, but before they set seed. I only had a few plants in my yard, as I try to pull all of them every year, but I don't have to go far to find vast fields of them. Recently I filled several bags at the Fuertes bird sanctuary here in Ithaca, New York, and another day on the path along the water north of the Farmer's Market. Some delicious ideas:

* Young tender leaves can be torn up a bit and added to salads.
* Sautee garlic in olive oil or sesame oil or bacon grease; add chopped garlic mustard and other greens if available (garlic chives, spinach, arugula, lambsquarters, mustard greens, what-have-you); a little salt or soy sauce; add a bit of water or stock and cook gently. A dash of vinegar, balsamic or otherwise, may be in order. Taste and decide. This could be spread on toast, added to casseroles, eggs, quiche, stir-fries, etc.
* Garlic mustard pesto: crush garlic, slice up garlic mustard and also garlic chives if available, puree both in food processor with olive oil and walnuts (or pine nuts); add parmesan cheese. Start the water for pasta!
* Cream sauce: heat 1/4 cup oil and add 1/4 cup flour and cook; add hot milk. Separately cook finely chopped garlic mustard in a little sesame oil; and tamari or soy sauce. Add some of the sauce; puree in food processor and add back to the sauce. Add cheese as desired. Good on stuffed grape leaves for one.
* With leftover garlic mustard sauce, add a little yogurt, balsamic vinegar, and tamari and serve as a sauce for steamed asparagus.
* Make a sauce for roast beef. First the roast beef: make a slurry with crushed garlic and Worcestershire sauce, and make little inch slashes on the roast. Take a teaspoon to inject the slurry into the slashes, and slather the rest of the slurry all over the roast. Add some water to the bottom of the roast pan. Cover with aluminum for part of the cooking time so the outside doesn't burn. Bake at 325 til it reaches the desired internal temperature according to your meat thermometer. Make a cream sauce with the garlic mustard: Chop finely the garlic mustard and garlic chives, which are also in great abundance. Sautee in olive oil; add chicken stock or other liquid and cook gently. Make a cream sauce (as above) and add it all together along with drippings from the roast beef pan. This is so flavorful - cheese is unnecessary.