Moroccan preserved lemons, mint cumin torta and balsamic artichokes, and throwing eggshells into the garden

I've been wanting to do this for a while now, however, despite how incredibly simple it is I just never got around to spending the five or so minutes putting together a jar of preserved lemons - until now.

Basically, it amounts to lemons cut and stuffed with salt, and then left to cure in their own juices and salt for a month. Why "Moroccan" in the title? Well apparently this item is a kitchen pantry staple in North Africa (especially Morocco), where the abundance of citrus is preserved in delicious ways. Although the pulp is wonderful, it is mainly the peel or rind of the preserved lemon that is most prized. The taste is intensely lemony, but not sour like a fresh lemon - the curing and preserving process actually turns the lemon, so to speak, "sweet". Traditionally, these cured lemons are used in North African "tagine" - a fragrant stew slowly simmered in the cone-shaped terra cotta cookware from which the dish gets its name:

http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave2/images/tagines/tagine3.jpg

Beautiful tagine stew ... the special cone-shaped lid allows steam from the stew to rise, but collects on the cone and drips back down into the stew keeping the meat incredibly tender and the stew fragrant

Meyer lemons are supposed to be the best in the west for preserving (considering that we can't get Moroccan lemons readily out here). Our co-op market didn't have any Meyer lemons, so I went with little baby lemons instead ... from what I've seen, these baby lemons are similar in size and shape to Moroccan lemons. In all reality, I might try experimenting in the future with different lemon types (as well as preserving grapefruit and lime in the same manner).

I really encourage you to make your own since it's SO easy, but if you're too lazy and I know you personally, chances are you might get some homemade jams or preserves of some kind sometime in the future :-p

Ingredients: A jar, enough lemons (baby or Meyer lemons preferred, but any kind works) to fill the jar, salt, and maybe a couple extra lemons for juice. Told you it's simple!

Step 1: cut lemon 3/4 of the way down vertically

Step 2: Rotate the cut made in step 1 90-degrees and flip lemon over to other point. Cut 3/4 of the way, perpendicular to the first cut, so that your lemon looks like four attached slices (above). Sprinkle/smear/drop in a tablespoon (or so) of salt in each cut.

Step 3: Continue salting and stuffing the lemons in the jar until your jar is full. Top off with additional couple tablespoons worth of salt ... you can't overdo it, so don't worry

Squeeze additional lemons as needed for juice to cover all of the lemons (and then stuff the peels of these squeezed lemons into the jar as well!). The salt brine will draw more juice out of the lemons over the next couple days, but I've seen recipes where people add more lemon juice right away, so why not.

Some recipes I've read say to store it in a dark cabinet, but others say to leave it in the sun, so I'm just going to leave them on my coffee table because they look so gorgeous. Now we have to wait a month, but from what I hear, the wait is worth it. Use the pulp in cocktails if you want, and the skins chopped up in a salad .... or, if you want to make tagine, you'll definitely be using these. Can't wait.

As you can see, I've been practicing my 生け花, also known as Ikebana (japanese flower arrangement) with my leftover Thai basil stem (haha). In Ikebana, the shape of the stems and twigs play as much of a role in design as flowers, and incredible simplicity is valued over ornamentation and ornate design. Damn, I sound like I could teach a course in this! Hahaha. Mainly I'm doing this because I want to see if I can get the Thai basil stem to root .. then I can plant it in the garden :-p

Here is my wonderfully fresh cumin and mint torta ... some diced onions, potatoes, red bell pepper, and eggs, cooked in cumin, paprika, and some fresh mint. It turned out WAY better than I expected! I should make this quick and easy lunch more often ....

Seeing as summer is coming to a close, I also wanted to cook artichoke since I LOVE nibbling on the leaves of a grilled artichoke at some southwestern style restaurants. I decided to make a ginger-garlic-balsamic marinade. Now a lot of people are intimidated by artichokes or think that they are a hassle to cook, but after doing it I have to say it was so simple and no more difficult than cooking, say, broccoli.

First, chop a little bit of the top off of the artichoke, just about an inch or so. Do this with a sharp knife ... my chinese cleaver is SO dull and this was like the most difficult thing in the world to do with a dull blade. Also, peel off the first outer layer of leaves (which hasn't been done in this picture yet). Steam the choke cut-side down in a steamer for about 30-40 minutes, or until a knife cuts into the stem easily.

After steaming, cut the artichoke in half and scoop out the fuzzy light green/yellow "choke" with a spoon. I took this pic after I already scooped it out, so you can't see it, but I have to let you artichoke virgins out there know that the fuzzy choke is unmistakable - I was worried I wouldn't know what it was, but as soon as you open it, you will know for sure. Make sure to leave the meaty heart of the artichoke which is just under the fuzzy choke ... it's the thick part towards the bottom in the pic above

Also inside around the fuzzy choke, you will see thin purple leaves which you will need to remove as well. These are the beginnings of undeveloped artichoke flower which is purple (hence, the color). If you try to eat these, you will find that they are very tough anyways

I marinated the steamed, cut artichokes in a plastic bag in the fridge (get the air out of the bag). For the marinade: 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/4 cup water, with a couple cloves of chopped garlic and about a 1 inch piece of ginger, also chopped.

Originally, I would say do this on the grill - and we were planning to do so for lunch on the roofdeck of the apartment with a beautiful 360-degree view of the city. However, when I woke up and saw that it was in the upper 50s and drizzling, I decided to just try them in my cast iron skillet. Cut side down in the hot iron skillet for about 5 minutes or until charred lightly

Flip over and char the backside, another 4 minutes or so. Enjoy plucking the leaves and pulling the meat off of the leaves with your teeth .. and don't forget to eat the tender heart of the choke - my favorite part!

Now for some Dr. Green Thumb work ...

I noticed three of the tomatoes on the red bush tomato plant have been turning darker on the bottom halves. Originally I was excited because I thought this meant that they were turning red and ripening, however, the more I look at it, I get a bit worried that this is looking like what gardeners call "blossom end rot". It is caused by a number of factors, one of which is fluctuations in soil moisture, but mainly it's due to lack of calcium in the soil. Calcium helps the plant carry water throughout, and helps to maintain cell structure and tissue health, and it is the energy-intensive fruits that show the symptoms first. I have no clue if this is actually blossom end rot, or if it's just ripening, but ...

I fished through my kitchen trash to gather the eggshells that I threw away from the cumin-mint torta that I cooked for lunch. After washing them very well, I just crushed them with my hands and sprinkled them in each of the pots of tomatoes. Then, I dug them into the soil so they weren't just laying on top. I'm hoping when these eggshells decompose it will give the plants some more calcium and fertilize the soil naturally. I may need to water them with some worm tea or add a good layer of compost since I'm gardening in a small container and tomatoes require a lot of nutrients to create their fruit.

I guess in a couple weeks or so we'll know whether it's ripening or rotting due to insufficient minerals! I definitely hope it's the former ...

Finally, as my last post showed, I have been getting some garlic started for the cold weather season by planting some of the larger cloves from a softneck variety of garlic (all-white on the right). I didn't know that cold weather actually helps the garlic to differentiate one clove into two, then those two into four, etc. etc. Anyhow, I was at the co-op market and found this beautiful, local purple and white garlic which was labeled "red" garlic. I definitely want to plant these ... so many varieties! These "red" garlic are a hardneck variety unlike the softneck whites.

That's all for now ... drinking plenty of hot Houjicha and chillin on the couch in this cooler weather!

My beautifully ornate roasted garlic hummus, The CUTEST melon ever, and tomatoes starting to really take off

It's been a week since I last updated, and quite a week it's been! Two BBQ parties, gardening on the balcony planting veggies for the fall, and more - pics below

Starting on Saturday evening, Ian and I attended the gay soccer club's "tops & bottoms" match ... where teams were either shirtless or shorts-less. Needless to say, there were some pretty fabulous outfits out there on the pitch (or lack thereof!). It was really fun and proceeds benefitted the Gay/Lesbian Business Association. Later,  I attended a backyard BBQ/recital for the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra which I have recently auditioned for. At first I was a little reluctant to go, but homemade roasted garlic hummus in hand, I took the bus up to the Greenlake neighborhood where the director was hosting. Long story short, I'm really happy I went ... met a ton of really cool people and realized that although the standards and level of talent in this orchestra are quite high, I am glad the emphasis is on this orchestra being social rather than cutthroat competitive like many others I've played in. Since the group is young professionals or ex-conservatory students, there's a really cool mix of experiences, ages, and ideas.

On Sunday morning, we would have gone to sell a second round of our jams at the farmer's market, however, Molly couldn't make it so we skipped. I spent the afternoon making another big batch of roasted garlic hummus dip for Ian's soccer team (Seattle Stonewall F.C.) BBQ we attended later in the afternoon:

Beautiful, huh? The Halawi dates were delicious ... might be my new favorite date (sorry, medjools!), and the chives garnish was from the garden ... topped off with a dusting of paprika

As we near the end of summer, I like to see the seasonal changes in produce at the markets ...

Got this fresh garden onion from a cute gay couple who sells their backyard vegetable garden produce at a table at the same farmer's market I sell my jams at. Last year they planted their entire backyard with edibles and this is their first harvest ... how rewarding! And look at how fresh the onion is!

Ian found this melon at the farmer's market this past Sunday while I was sleeping in. We had it for breakfast ... it's the CUTEST thing EVER and the size of a grapefruit. Apparently it's called a "chanterelle melon" but I couldn't find anything on Google about it. I guess it's an heirloom variety of melon, and also may be known as a British garden melon?
[UPDATE]: This melon is actually called a "Charentais" melon ... it is grown in southern France and Spain

Hands down the SWEETEST melon I've ever had. You could literally smell the inside of the melon from the outside before even cutting. Tasted like a mixture of papaya and cantaloupe, and also gave me the most interesting tingling on my tongue! I'm saving the seeds to see if I can grow this eventually

I also bought $10 worth of white nectarines at Pike's Place Market today for only $2, as well as quite a few donut peaches (so peachy!), tiny sweet italian plums, and this really interesting mexican mango that I've never seen before (yeah, yeah, I know that's not local but forgive me and allow me to indulge a little). I also grabbed my thai basil and mint for tonight's dinner of vietnamese vegetable summer rolls and peanut sauce - you know, the clear rice paper kind? yeah .. yum

Now for the balcony garden ....

I'll never get tired of looking at how much is growing on such a tiny balcony space

Can you count the tomatoes? They're now flourishing on both the red bush and golden tomato plants! There are over 12 tomatoes so far and more on the way each week

Golden tomatoes starting to grow now, a bit later than the red bush tomato plant

Remember my post about a week or so back where I planted some softneck garlic cloves? A couple have sprouted now

You can see I've been cutting chives for a bunch of meals (this was the garnish on the hummus, too)

Poppy seeds take a long time to sprout, and then seem like they don't get any bigger. I guess I can't rush the flowers...

Plenty of salad greens ready to be eaten. The past week of hot weather, however, has caused them to "bolt" ... a gardening/farming term referring to lettuce plants suddenly creating a flower stalk in the center to prepare seeds in case it dies. I've plucked the flowers off of most of the greens, but left one on to see what happens

Red turban squash plant has been giving me plenty of fresh, delicious squash blossoms ... maybe this will go into tonight's summer rolls?

And now the fall semester of school is back in full swing ... its incredible to me that this is already my last year! Since moving here, I've been doing/learning some pretty cool things and I'm excited about my future here in Seattle and Washington state ... selling homemade jams at the farmer's market, joining the puget sound symphony, watching ian's soccer games, cooking everything from scratch, hiking, riding ferry boats around, walking the city and my gayborhood, meeting some awesome people here, and taking pleasure in the seasonal bounty of nature.

Again, not bad at all ;-)

Farmer's market results

Seeing as this blog is mainly a journal for myself to look back on later on and laugh at myself, I have to update about how the farmer's market went.

So it was REALLY freakin' hot .. like 95 degrees kind of hot and we just had our umbrella to shade us (luckily!). There were hardly any people that showed up since I'm assuming most went to the lake to swim. Still, of the 15 or so people that showed up, 12 tried our jams, and 6 bought!!!

In other words, we have a 50% sale rate once people taste our jams! Not bad for a tiny, newly started market! The best part was that we know that people love the taste of our product. I had fun explaining what a Tayberry was to those who asked, and it was so fun to see everybody's reaction to the pink peppercorn and balsamic in the strawberry jam ... they LOVED it! It's so cool to be involved in the community like that

Molly then went out and sold another 14 jars at her work, so we made just under $100 bucks ... not too bad.

Going again next week to sell - hopefully the cooler weather will bring better turnout

Wow ... am I really doing this? My thoughts on my journey so far

It's 10:47pm Saturday, August 14th. It was 95 degrees (in freakin' SEATTLE!), it's humid, I ran around town all day, and I'm tired and hot

But I'm in a good mood ... our first day selling jams at the farmer's market is tomorrow, and I'm optimistic. Sometimes I get into a worrying mood, asking myself "what if we don't even sell 5 jars of jam?!" but Ian keeps reminding me ... we are not there tomorrow to sell jams. We are there to analyze the marketplace, and test the waters for the next couple weeks at this small market before jumping into the big year-round markets.

Above all, I just have to take notice of peoples' reactions. If they taste our jams and aren't interested, then maybe we should re-evaluate our recipes. Or, if they LOVE the sample but don't buy a jar ... why is this so? Do we need to lower the price? Do we need to raise it if we are selling too quickly?

There's so many things I could talk about right now but it's hot and I'm not in the mood (haha, sorry). At the very least, if this all fails miserably, it was a fun experiment for just a couple hundred dollars worth of investment. Am I going to look back and say that I regret the time spent trying to start a homemade jams business with a friend? Of course not.

Looking back over just the last two years, I've learned so much and had so many new experiences that I could have never conceived of. I started college just two years ago on a full scholarship, switched to all-online classes, and I'm set to graduate in just three years. In the time that I've changed to online classes, I moved to Hawaii for the hell of it for a year and worked as a real inpatient pharmacy technician in the Pacific region's only neonatal intensive women & children's hospital. I drove up the entire Pacific coastline from Los Angeles to Seattle - taking the long way, stopping plenty of times, and really soaking in everything that I could along the way - the winding mountain roads, cliffs hidden in the fog, the strawberry and tulip fields of California, the redwood trees, Oregon lighthouses. And upon arriving here in this gorgeous city, decided to really take a look at what I eat and how I live my life. I left the brand new car in Phoenix and opted to walk more and use public transit, I shop at a community-owned co-operative market for local produce sourced from Washington state farmers, and I've started an entire edible garden on a tiny 2 by 4 foot balcony - the amount of space three people  take up when standing shoulder to shoulder. On that space, I now have a total of about 12 tomatoes growing (and many more on their way), salad greens, chives, garlic chives, green onions, thai chili pepper, turban squash, oregano, garlic, poppies, siberian iris, and green shiso all growing for my home cooking needs.

I've learned how to make jam and buttermilk bread, and I tried my hand at flour tortillas from scratch (which came out perfect). I'd like to make my own matcha green tea soba noodles by hand, so that's my goal this week. I'm going huckleberry picking in the forest soon, getting involved in extra-curricular orchestra again, and this is all just the beginning. I'd love to eventually have a little bit of land where I can plant a fruit tree orchard and grow all of the food I eat ... learn to raise chickens and goats while keeping bees naturally ... using the beeswax to make candles, but who knows - I might come across another stepping stone in life that leads me in a completely different direction, in which case, I won't be afraid to step out of my comfort zone and take that step.

For now, I have some jams to label for tomorrow's sale, so if you'll excuse me ...

Wish us luck!

Farmer's market bounty, making your own natural mosquito repellent, and 2 hours in the garden!

The above picture which I took just south of Seattle, northbound on the I-5 is a "smart highways" system that Washington is implementing in a few weeks, and the little displays above each lane will make suggestions on which lanes to merge into and give traffic information for each individual lane. Hate to break it to everybody, but this kind of multi-million dollar project does not alleviate traffic. Building more freeways and lanes creates more supply which then creates more demand. Rather than taking the most direct route from point A to point B, how many of you out there have taken the highway (because you thought it would get you there faster) even when getting to it requires at times actually driving away from your destination? Highways create traffic funnels - it's that simple.

Speaking of transit and commuting, the formerly all-red wall surrounding the new light-rail station just next door to our apartment has been opened, and local artists are being allowed to showcase their works on it. Above is a spray paint mural that was recently finished. I think SoundTransit and the Seattle Dept of Transportation are doing a pretty good job of minimizing the impact of construction for this big new light-rail station by heavily involving the community. How much nicer does this look than a chain-link fence and piles of dirt and construction debris?

On a different note, I really like taking the time to shop at the farmer's market and at our local community-owned local foods co-op market. Above all else, I enjoy actually seeing seasonal changes in produce ... you don't see this in supermarkets and chain grocery stores. As far as fruit goes, we're past the peak of berry season and now it's melons, peaches, and nectarines. Eventually it'll be apples ...

Found a yellow watermelon at the farmer's market ... of course, I had to try it! Only $3 for this big, juicy melon!

Yup, yellow flesh inside, too!

Couldn't pass up some beautiful rainbow carrots and purple, white, and green beans

Purple rainbow carrots look really cool when cut up!

Crenshaw melon ... a cross between a persian melon (cantaloupe family) and a casaba melon (honeydew family). Looks like a cantaloupe but tastes more like a honeydew, I think

Today's lunch ... Ochazuke (お茶漬け) ... traditional Japanese breakfast of (usually) leftover rice from the night before with savory toppings (here I have ごぼう, or burdock root) and green tea poured over everything ... yum

It's summer and I've noticed a few mosquito bites on myself lately, so I decided to post how to make your own anti-mosquito spritz... it also works for keeping a lot of other kinds of bugs away too.
20 drops Citronella (lemongrass) essential oil, 8-10 drops of cedarwood essential oil, 5 drops of grapefruit juice, and 1 oz of water. Shake well and spritz .... seems to be working pretty well - no new bites.

Put some of this on before I sleep and also today before spending 2 hours in the garden ... transplanted the lettuce since they're growing so quickly now (and even had to cut some ... better use it tonight!), added some compost to feed the tomatoes, planted garlic / green onion / thai chili pepper / more salad greens / poppies ...

Lettuce leaves are getting as big as my hand! Time to give them some more space ...

Transplanted the lettuce in a row container (left) so they have more room

My first harvest of salad greens, only a month after I planted seeds! This was mainly just because I transplanted and needed to 'clean up' the salad greens a little. I'm letting the others get much bigger

I knew it was easy, but I never did it. Inspired to get some garlic growing (even though it's a winter crop) since I read about it in my cool new Urban Farm magazine :-p

Peeling apart some softneck garlic cloves

Just stick 'em into some soil and cover with half an inch more of soil

Shiso plant is growing SO fast, so I'm taking a clipping from the plant's new top growth and planting this in a separate container ... lets see if it will eventually root and give me a second shiso plant!

Planted the clipping from the original shiso plant (in the back)

Tomatoes looking nice!

New starts .. green onion, poppies, and more salad greens

Thai chili pepper ... another new start. I kept the seeds from a thai chili pepper plant next to my apartment in Hawaii and they've grown successfully before

I've been trying to train the mini red turban squash plant to climb up the balcony railing, and now it's sending out some tendrils to keep it attached! Pretty cool how it knows it needs support

Mini red turban squash plant blossoming beautifully, but no female flowers to pollinate with its pollen yet, so for now it's brightening up the garden at least

Pretty space-intensive growth ... I like it. Lots of stuff on the balcony

Our new comfy, squishy couch!

I like spending the afternoon drinking tea, laying on the couch reading a book, and looking out onto the balcony garden :-)