2022-08-01T07:00:00Z
What recipes using food from your garden do you enjoy?
What do you grow just for the sake of replacing some non-food item that you normally buy?
Who wants to join me in growing what we need?
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Julia D
I had some version of this ā Potato stuffed fried squash blossoms last night. Very delicious. Fried Squash Blossoms Stuffed with Potato | Idaho Potato Commission
Anna M
wow the seasoning on that is wild!
Christopher W
I like to imagine that in five years Iāll be able to produce all my own Calories on my garden. I hope thatās not a too-aggressive goal and itāll depend somewhat on how long it takes my apples and hazels to start producing. Iām starting to feel like if I ramped up my bed-space I could easily enough produce more corn, potatoes, beans, sunchokes, and tomatoes than I need.
Preservation is an issue for tomatoes, and presumably other stuff that I donāt know well yet ā canning is so labor intensive that itās a real bottleneck. I might build a big solar dehydrator to get around that.
Right now weāre really just eating salad and herbs out of the garden.
I dried a bunch of overgrown zucchini last year, maybe three gallons of cubes, but I didnāt peel them and the chunks with peel remain leathery no matter what I do. Iāll either cure them and save like winter squash this year or peel before drying.
Joseph Lofthouse
Like Anna, I make tomato sauce by dehydrating the tomatoes/sauce in the oven. Then I donāt have to watch the sauce, I just let it cook for a day or so, until itās thick enough. Iāve been bottling food my whole life, so it seems easy. It also helps that I have acquired the proper equipment. Great knives, cutting boards, colanders, bowls, heavy bottomed pans, juicers, spoons, measuring toos, etc.
Anna M
I think about this a lot. What grows well where I live and produces in my small space is primarily leafy greens, potatoes, squash. Sunchokes are also easy. Iām working on how to orient more meals around these crops vs easy calories I usually buy (bread, pasta, rice). And trying to grow more dry beans.
We eat a lot of salads with potatoes, green beans, whatever odds and ends are in the garden. Iāve started growing corn the last few years, and polenta and cornbread are getting into my diet more. Posole type stews are great uses of corn, squash, tomatillos.
One favorite easy meal is a pureed soup of sunchoke, potato, and leek. Just chop them all up, boil until tender, salt and puree. Delicious and creamy, without any dairy. Filling too. Iāll also throw in fennel or cauliflower if I have it.
Mark R
That sounds a lot like I make soups. With potatoes for example I just cut some into chunks and boil until mushy. I might throw in some carrot and celery and for sure onion or garlic. When itās all mushy enough I just squash and mix it up with an old-fashioned potato masher. Then I put in little chunks of potato and maybe more onion that just cooks until tender.
With asparagus I cook and mush up the stalks and put the tips in later, same with broccol-ish. I might throw in some cream and or chicken broth in any of these, just depends on the mood.
Mostly my recipes are completely dependent on whatever I happen to have handy at the time. I also like a big skillet of onions, a little bit browned and dehydrated in olive oil and dropped in a pot of chicken broth.
Oh crap, forgot the thyme, almost everything needs a little thyme. Or maybe sweet marjoram, or rosemary, or winter savory. If roasted tomatoes are involved a bit of basil might be called for, or some dried pepper flakes.
Ray S
We already grow all our leafy greens and, most years, all our potatoes. For the potatoes, Iām keen to try from true seed. I managed to collect some last season.
Year by year we are increasing our dry legumes in both range and quantity. This season we are ramping up broad beans and cowpeas. We have already ramped up common beans, so from this year on weāll be growing all we need of those. We are trialling others like dried peas, lentils and chickpeas The latter have been very difficult as we have some bug that absolutely loves them. For the last two years or so we have harvested fewer chickpeas than were sown!
We grow more zucchini than any sane person would want!
Pumpkins (winter squash to the NHers) we have grown plenty of in the past and have now started down the landrace path. Weāll concentrate on maximas initially. Love the flavour.
This year we will be trialling corn (not sweet) and quinoa. Weāve not had great success with either in the past but a landrace approach may change that. Fingers crossed.
As for herbs and spices, we never seem to be short of either parsley or chervil (both self-seed readily). We usually have our own coriander seeds but that got missed somehow last year so weāll start again this year. We usually have enough chilli plants to dry some for cooking and itās a crop Iām planning to convert to a landrace starting this coming season - all sown direct.
We have the usual perennial herbs in abundance - bay laurel, fennel, french tarragon, marjoram, mint, oregano, peppermint, rosemary, sage plus the not so common winter savory.
Anyone know of a good temperate climate pepper substitute?
Edit: Fermenting should get an honourable mention. Excellent way of preserving quite a number of things: cabbage, chillies, unripe tomatoes for example.
Anna M
last year I finally got the pickling cucumbers and dill to be ready at the same time! I love a fermented dill pickle.
Iām interested in your experience with legumes. Broad beans grow extraordinarily well where I live, but I donāt have much skill at cooking them. I love lentils and chickpeas, but have not grown them.
Ray S
My interest in broad beans is as a dry legume. Unless Iām making ful medames, a middle eastern dish, I sprout the beans to make removing the outer skin easier. Then add to soups, stews etc or make a spiced purĆ©e.
The tops of the plants make an acceptable green leafy veg for cooking though this is of minor interest to me.
Mark R
I donāt really have much as far as recipes. I like green beans just cooked with a bit of onion and maybe a little bacon thrown in and dry beans as soups. Actually, though Iāve discovered that dry beans can be good cooked as side dish, rather than soup and they have similar flavor as green beans.
I like thinks like summer squash and okra fried or grilled, a lot of beans are also good grilled, carrots are amazing on the grill. Cowpeas are used about the same as beans, as lima beans are too except you canāt eat the pods on limas.
Sweet potatoes are great just baked dry and whole or as fries. The less sweet ones are good used about the same as potatoes except they cook a bit faster and even the less sweet ones still have a good bit of sugar so have to be careful if frying them.
I went a little backwards with my corn. I want to learn to make my own cornbread (without adding wheat flour) or maybe corn chips, or polenta, or hominy but donāt really know how yet. I focused first with developing a landrace that matures quickly and resists the worms that attack as itās maturing. I didnāt expect much selection for that this year because I planted early, and it should have matured before they arrived, but they are a month and a half early this year.
Then there is all the fresh greens type stuff and onions and garlic and bunches of herbs including the winter savory mentioned before. And an abundance of peppers which we dry and mix with variations of the herbs, onions and garlic.
Canning and preserving is a bit of a pain so Iāve tried to focus on things that just keep on their own or dried. Sweet potatoes keep easily for a full year just protected from light in a warm place. I found some WW2 era recipes for fruit that takes lots less effort and sugar. Basically, just remove the seeds, add a little sugar and hot bath it. Comes out kind of weird looking but tastes great.
Iām also looking into some kind of solar dryer for some things. I dehybredized some commercial blight resistant tomatoes a few years ago. They were awful, tasteless things fresh, but I noticed sometimes they tended to just dry on their own if left on the vine and they tasted great like that, so Iāve been growing them ever since.
Also, for fruits I want to learn how to make booze. I found an old Europe technique I want to try. Basically, the same as described before except instead of canning you remove the seeds and throw it in a bucket to rot, then squeeze out the juice and distill it. Sounds wonderful, especially for peaches or plums.
Anna M
I make lightly alcoholic brews with fruit, honey, and herbs. I highly recommend Pascal Bauderās book: The Wildcrafting Brewer - Chelsea Green Publishing
He encourages a spirit of experimentation rather than recipe following, which I think suits us landrace gardener types (or at least me). Every experiment Iāve tried has been pretty good so far, some exceptional.
Masha Z
Nuts and mushrooms expand the possibilities quite a bit (as does raising chickens and rabbits). Our hazelnuts are just beginning to produce but weāre lucky to have several mature hickory trees on the property, which make the most delicious nuts, though not every year. Shiitakes are easy to grow on logs, winecaps are easy to grow on straw. As for recipes - my goal every year (until my husband became allergic to nightshades) was to grow a full ratatouille. I didnāt always get everything ripening at the same time, but it was great when it worked.
As for storage - freezing is a whole lot easier than canning. Itās worth investing in a storage freezer. I agree with cooking down the tomatoes first, they take up less room and it brings out the flavor.
All that said, I canāt imagine reaching 85% except for vegetables and herbs (and maybe, someday, fruit).
Julia D
We are eating so many potatoes right now: had a raw potato shake for breakfast (with berries and yogurt, I make these for my husband who has gut issues and this helps), some kind of potato salad or roasted potatoes for lunch (leftovers), and last night I learned how to make potato dumplings. And then potato dumplings with plum filling for dessert, with plum/apple syrup. So far itās been three years of me being a potato freak and we havenāt gotten tired of them, thank goodness. But I do need all the colors-- that makes a big difference having red, pink, purple, yellow and white as diversity.
Iām trying to eat more beans, so bean dips, bean soups, but this is an area I really need to work on. If I could just love beans, growing all my food would be easy.
I make a lot of āgreen saucesā. Sometimes an herbal chimmichhurri type that is a condiment. Sometimes with orach/spinach/kale thatās like a side to roasted potatoes. Itās an easy/tasty way to get your greens without having to deal with them for every meal.
Looking forward to having dry corn and making tacos/tortillas/papusas. I think this will so important to give us a break from just potatoes for carbs. I got a tortilla press and Iām going to try nixtamalizing next few days. Hopefully this isnāt counting my chickens before they hatch, weāre having a really cold summer!
And a coffee substituteā¦ Does anyone grow their own coffee alternative drink?
Mark R
Chicory grows wild and abundantly here but I have never tried it for coffee, maybe I should. If itās good, it would certainly be much cheaper.
Iām trying to learn to like dandelion greens but mostly grow or allow them to grow as a free food source in the event itās needed. They have a wide range of phenotypes, mostly in the shape of the leavers and Iāve noticed those with less and more rounded lobes taste the best. The flower buds, when just a tiny bit of yellow starts to show are quite good. I like them in the garden because I think the long tap roots bring up nutrients from down deep. Iāve never tried them for a coffee substitute.
Anna M
not homegrown, but Iāve been drinking this stuff and itās quite good: Dandy Blend Coffee Alternative Beverage | Dandy Blend - Dandy Blend
contains both chicory and dandelion, very coffee like but no caffeine.
have you tried bay nuts Julia?
Cheryl M
Yes I make up a roasted chicory, dandelion, burdock, barley and ginger mix. I love coffee but unfortunately it doesnāt love me. This mix is a lovely coffee like malty substitute without the sleepless nights that coffee induces 
Thomas P
I grow luffas for sponges on this trelis (and gourds, margose, and so onā¦). First year outside, and actually some told me it would be better in a greenhouse in order to help the fruits matureā¦ we shall see 
apart from sponges made from liffas Julia you may try gourds to make recipients. it seems to be more cold tolerant, and they are a few varieties you can it too (notably Cucuzzi, Kriakolokia, etc.)
sorry : not ārecipientsā (very bad franglish^^), I meant containers. gourds are used for that. They thrive in my garden, it is so impressive. Iāve trelissed them for this first year of cultivation, I will try all without trelissing next yearā¦
Gregg M
David Holmgrenās āRetrosuburbiaā makes the point that itās quite difficult to supply all your household needs yourself. You need to specialise in too many areas, and economies of scale come in to play. However trading within your suburb makes it more possible. Let one person be the apiarist, another the rat catcher, another the basketmaker etc. Some partition of food growing is probably also a good idea. Someone with a better back should grow my sweet potatoes
Julia D
Working on thatā¦ Iām lucky to live in a good place for that type of thing. Iām going to focus on growing plant based calories-- potatoes, squash, corn, beans, tomatoes and greens, with a few random things mixed in. Then trade my calorie crops and locally coastal/cold adapted seeds for things like milk, eggs and treats. I estimate Iām eating about 50% of calories from my field, and once I can reliably grow dry beans and corn, and do better on canning tomatoes, it could be 75%. I have to learn to be a better cook because certainly this cuisine could get boring if I donāt get more creative. And it would help to going to the store really hard somehow. One big game changer was when my husband got diagnosed with leaky gut, then gave up all grains and dairy. That meant no bread around, which made things a lot easier for me.
Joseph Lofthouse
I have about three recipes for garden produce:
1- Forage and eat directly in the garden.
2- Anything that is delightful to eat when raw gets chopped and added to a mixed salad.
3- Anything that is delightful to eat cooked, is chopped and served as a main-dish or side dish. This might be a plain boiled vegetable, a stir-fry, a soup, a roast, or an omelette.
For long term storage, I pressure cook vegetables and meat. I pickle or lacto-ferment vegetables. I bottle fruits, or turn them into wine. I freeze sweet corn, and small amounts of things like onions, mushrooms, or peppers that are used to season meals. I turn tomatoes and tomatillos into sauces.
Mark R
Oā yes, I think stuff for seasoning is hugely important. We make all kinds of dried things for that purpose. Lots of different recipes or proportions but peppers in varying degrees of hot or sweet is generally the base with dried onions, garlic, tomatoes, celery, and whatever else is handy at the time often goes in. Sometimes I dry them over the fire similar to making jerky. Basically, smoked and dried rather than cooked.
Great big white lima beans cooked in tomato juice until tender, not mushy, with some fresh onion and smoked pepper flakes, yum, yum. Served hot over a pile of raw mustard greens and you have a meal with flavor.
Herbs of course are also critical. Most of my favorites, sage, thyme, oregano, winter savory, and rosemary are winter hardy, so I donāt do much with them other than harvest as needed. Sweet marjoram is also required, and it does well as a house plant.
Wojciech G
Iām gradually building self sufficiency. In season, it is very easy to have more than enough of leafy greens, fruits and other veggies. However, we need to prepare for winter storage. The first staple is potato, every year I plant 100 plants in order to harvest enough for us for the next winter.
Next is squash, both summer and winter. I am canning summer squash, I collect recipes and have a few proven ones, I keep recipe book on my laptop. Winter squashes store well, usually I have them until April-May.
Garlic, another staple. I plant 100 cloves every Autumn, usually get approx. 95 heads in Summer next year, a year worth supply.
Carrots, parsley, yacon.
Dry beans, another staple.
Herbs, both medicinal and for the kitchen.
Honey from my bees, fish in the pond. Mushrooms, dried and pickled.
Juices, jams, chutneys, wine, vinegar.
Also my big love - chilli (very) hot sauces, from my own chillies.
Still waiting for nut trees to bear nuts. As well as for many fruit trees that are still very young.
Kim W
We had kale, zucchini, stinging nettles, and a few herbs all summer, zone 9b and 10 Yuma AZ. We donāt by commercial lettuce or many other greens, had frozen tomato sauce and roasted peppers from the garden. Used our dehydrated basil, oregano, celery and more for seasoning and soups. We eat nearly 85 percent from the garden. Raise our eggs and beef and chickens.
Now that my potatoes have mostly sprouted (itās expensive to keep them cold enough for me, it basically never gets below freezing here so itās hard to have a cold enough storage area), I appreciate the value of my flour corn that will store until my next carbohydrate crop gets harvested (early potatoes).
@anna loaned me the excellent book Masa MASA Recipes Cookbook by Jorge Gaviria | Mexican Cookbook ā Masienda
And I didnāt read it thoroughly enough until this past weekend. It will make your tortillas sooo good, and give you so many ideas for ways to cook the masa. My last batch of tortillas were thin, pliable and delicious because I added more water to the dough. I cooked a pot of un-nixtamalized corn just so I would know the differences, Iām pressing that masa today so Iāll report back tomorrow.
Here are my niece and nephew shelling corn on NYE.
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We normally nixtamalize 1 lb of corn as a batch, but yesterday we made a double ā half for tortillas and half for chochoyotes which are one of my new favorite things (steamed and then served in a bean soup we got from Rick Baylessā old TV show). The Masa book is so good! And itās super fun to make masa from home-grown corn. My corn tastes a lot more pop-corny than the corns purchased from Masienda.
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Did you separate the different types of corn, or prepare a mixed batch? Iām still trying to understand how the different types behave when nixtamalizing. My bloody butcher-ish corn (it has some other genetics mixed in but itās red and seems to behave much like the bloody butcher I started with) seems to take a lot more cooking time / maybe more cal than some other types
No I canāt answer this question! (Mine are mixed). Iām too gringa to venture in on this topic So Iām going to ask Inocencia and Marcos to talk more about this and there will be a whole cooking chapter.
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If itās hard for you to store potatoes through the winter in your climate, thatās an excellent reason to grow them from true seed! Obviously for landracing to suit your climate better, but also so that you donāt have to store tubers, except to make them last longer to eat them. (Grin.)
@clweeks Chrisopher W
For the dried zucchini with the leathery peel, try grinding it to a powder and using in soups.
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To reduce tomato canning, there are some Italian and Spanish varieties of tomatoes that produce ābranchesā of many tomatoes. These can be cut off the plant and hung on a hook on a wall. They can last for months.
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Reviving this thread as I think it is a great topic!
This yearās goal was to grow some easy storable calories. I had been forced to take a break from gardening due to having a baby and sone other life stuff, so this really is the first year back with a larger garden and not just one raised bed.
Part of that is growing and starting to adapt some polenta corn to my local area, winter squash, dry beans and just a few potatoes (due to space constraints in my rented lot) onions for flavor of course.
My hope is that corn for polenta, tortillas cornmeal etc and winter squash will just easily live on a shelf in the unheated basement. It is a walkout basement so not ideal for potatoes that need dark, plus I doubt it would be cool or humid enough.
I have this new plan on ripping out the Holly bushes and other useless prickly landscaping that came with the house and adding some bagged soil to that south facing area right by the house. It is in full shade in the summer due to the (imho also useless but pretty) Japanese cherry tree but once that tree drops its leaves there is plenty of winter sun as it faces south. With the type of winters we have been having, i am hoping i might be able to get Brussels sprouts, leeks and some greens to grow there through at least part of winter. Maybe I can even attempt some garlic as my rented township lot reverts back to the township in November so overwintering things are a no go.
Also to reply to your (long ago at the beginning of this thread) post abour turning fruit into alcohol by dsitilling @MarkReed my dad used to do that all the time! It was quite an easy process from what I remember, we would simply put all the dropped plums or apples or cherries into a big plastic barrel, put the lid on loosely, stir it with a stick every so often. And then when it was ready my dad could take it to a farmer that had a distilling license and he would turn the whole thing into beautiful clear fruit ābrandyā ( or kirsch from the cherries)
I have to remember to ask my Dad next time we talk as to how exactly that process works, like how to know when it is ready to get distilledā¦ but there wasnāt much work to be done with it from what I remember. When we had the big garden I was in the equivalent of middle school and highschool, so will check on that.
My dad grew up in Lithuania on a farm, and they would also make Vodka by letting potatoes turn sweet by putting them outside to freeze
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Lambsquarters-- one of my new staples! First the greens in everything. And now, inspired by the the recipes for [Huauzontle]. (Huauzontle, a pre-Hispanic delicacy that you must try - The Yucatan Times) weāve been eating the budding tops. Steamed and stir-fried, and I like it more because I assume itās higher protein but who knows.
What are you eating from your garden this week with high protein or fat?
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I donāt know about varieties, but maybe we could convince the Chenopodium Seed steward @MalcolmS to make a category for all the weedy lambsquarters from everywhere and then see what the diversity looks and tastes like. Mine is a little bitter, so Iām excited to taste the buds from the other relatives yet to mature.
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That might be interestingābut would there be the potential for introducing new super-weeds or running into some sort of legal problem? What is the status of the various chenopods? Magentaspreens are tremendously vigorous here (one of my plants is over seven feet tall, and bushy in proportion) and each plant produces tons of seeds; they seem to have a lot of weed potential, but they are widely available from seed catalogs. Same with lambsquarters.
Itās so interesting how the same plant can be totally different in different climates! I tried lambsquarters, red orach, and magentaspreen this year, and none of them liked my garden. They were all happy to sprout indoors (which I did so I could test the flavor before planting them out, in case they had potential to become very weedy). But outdoors . . . nope, not even one single seed germinated. I donāt think theyād be weeds in my ecosystem!
Do you have more seeds? I recommend sprinkling them around this fall and I think theyāll germinate after some wet and cold weather when itās right for them.
I remember that getting the original Magentaspreen seed to germinate was a bit fussyābut now that they are scattering their own seeds they would be almost impossible to get rid of.
I think it is a numbers game; a very small percentage of such seeds germinate successfully in the wild, but given that the plants produce so many seeds, that isnāt a problem. Some seeds also seem to lie dormant for at least a year.
YES. Im so happy to eat from my garden and its our winter growing season for fresh greens!!! I love salads with every green from the garden, a home prepared dressing and cashews or dried cranberries!! Or a fritata with fresh eggs.
Did you grow them? Its a new variety for me, be happy to see some photographs or the name of the variety.