Cooking with Flowers

 I was buying cherry tomatoes from an organic farmer on Sunday when I noticed he also had nasturtium flowers for sale. I asked him how he cooked them. He said he often makes squash blossom quesadillas, and sometimes adds the nasturtium flowers to them.

Yum, I thought. For lunch, I defrosted some corn tortillas, scattered them with cheddar cheese and our homegrown blossoms of nasturtiums and zucchini. I added some sprigs of our watercress for some zing.

I toasted them on my cast iron griddle, and served them with a scattering of radish sprouts (fresh from our sprouter) and a few more sprigs of watercress.

It was a quick fun lunch. I'll be making it again.

Beet Salad with Asparagus

In warm weather, a vegetable salad makes a good dinner. Vegetables are healthy, filling and pretty to look at. They make the meal interesting, even when it's too hot to have much of an appetite.

I made this colorful salad of beets, red butter lettuce, asparagus and watercress the other night. A citrus dressing added perkiness, and I puréed one of the cooked beets to make a red dressing that I served on the side. It was both delicious and colorful. I took the leftovers for my lunch the next day. I really like meals that stretch.

Beet Salad with Asparagus
4 medium-small beets
20 spears asparagus, trimmed
3/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup chopped shallots
1/3 cup olive oil
large handful of watercress
red butter lettuce to line the plate

Scrub the beets, place in a steamer in a large pot over medium-low heat, and steam until tender, probably about 45 minutes depending on the size of the beets. When a thin knife can pierce the center of the beets, they're cooked. Remove the steamer from the water and set aside to let them cool a little.

Cook the asparagus in a little boiling water 3-6 minutes until tender-crisp. Drain, plunge into ice water to stop the cooking, drain again and set aside.

Whisk together orange juice, vinegar and shallots. Slowly whisk in the olive oil until it's emulsified. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour half the dressing in a blender. Peel and chop one of the beets and add it to the blender. Purée into a gorgeous purple sauce. Pour into a jug.

Line a plate with the lettuce. Peel (if desired) and slice the beets and arrange around the edge of the plate. Cut the asparagus in bite-sized pieces. Toss with the watercress and some of the first dressing (the one without the beet) — enough to coat the leaves. Pile this into the center of the beets.

Drizzle the beet dressing over the salad, and serve the extra on the side.

Serves 3-4

Watercress and Avocado Sandwich

I placed the chicken wire over the pot to
keep the squirrels from digging up the earth.

Our watercress is growing well on the patio. It wilted in the recent ridiculously hot weather, but it bounced back with cooler (70s) weather.

I picked some spicy sprigs the other day and added them to a sandwich with an excellent avocado on Alvarado St. sprouted wheat bread.

There's nothing like fresh-picked greens to make a meal special.

But even if you have to buy your watercress at the market, you can have a delicious sandwich. (Although I recommend sprinkling some seeds on a pot of earth and seeing what you can grow.)

Before the top piece of bread is added.

Watercress and Avocado Sandwich

whole grain bread
avocado
watercress
lime
salt and pepper

Peel and slice the avocado. Put slices on one piece of bread. Squeeze lime juice over it. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Mash a couple of slices on another piece of bread. Place watercress over the mashed avocado.

Put the two pieces on top of each other. Enjoy.

Spritely Winter Salad

Winter is the season for the more vigorous salad greens - watercress, radicchio, curly endive, cabbages, kale, nasturtium leaves - all of these are great additions to the salad bowl, and are more often found at the farmers markets in winter than summer when the heat causes them to wilt and become bitter (or dead).

I picked some watercress from a pot on the patio and some marjoram from the garden to decorate this salad we ate last night. The dressing is a vigorous combination of citrus juice, capers and oregano, so the greens need to be perky to stand up to it. I used radicchio and frisée on a bed of butter lettuce. Olives and pomegranates are an unusual combination, but added to the fun.

We enjoyed this colorful and zesty salad with a main course of leftover lentil stew and brown rice. It really perked up the meal.

Spritely Winter Salad
2 tbsp orange juice (from 1/2 an orange)
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 tsp olive oil
1 tsp chopped drained capers
1/4 tsp chopped fresh oregano (or a sprinkle of dried)
2-3 cups mixed greens
2 tbsp pomegranate seeds
4 cured black olives, pitted and sliced

Whisk together the orange juice, lemon juice, olive oil, capers and oregano. Season with salt and pepper to taste, but remember the olives will add salt to the salad.

Toss together (or decoratively plate) the greens, pomegranate and olives. Toss with the vinaigrette and serve.

Serves 2

Spring Salad

Lettuce is fresh and colorful in the spring, and the garden and farmers market are brimming with herbs. I combined some spring greens and herbs, fresh fava beans from our garden, and a mustardy dressing for this attractive addition to last night's dinner.

This is a recipe that is a springboard for whatever you have growing in your garden. No fava beans? Then use peas or snap peas, or even organic edamame. Use whatever herbs you like, and try to have some peppery greens and some soft.

It will be like eating spring in a bowl.

Spring Salad
3 cups colorful spring greens, preferably including red and green lettuce leaves, nasturtium leaves and watercress
1 1/2 cups chopped mint, tarragon, dill and chives
1/2 cup cooked, shelled fava beans
2 tsp dijon
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Toss the greens and herbs together with the fava beans. Separately, stir together the dijon and vinegar, then slowly whisk in the olive oil to make an emulsion. Season to taste with the salt and pepper. Toss some of the dressing into the greens, and serve the rest on the side.

Serves 2

Mango and Watercress Salad

Our local supermarket has been selling organic mangoes recently, and I can't resist buying them, eating them, and then planting the pits in hopes of growing a mango tree.

We mainly eat them in our morning fruit, but the other day I made this Asian-inspired salad with watercress picked from a pot on our patio (near the pot of soil containing yet-to-sprout mango pits) and a dressing of soy sauce and roasted sesame oil.

It sounded a little weird when I described it to Larry, but he was game, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

I think it would be good even without the mangos, although they do provide a sweet counter-balance to the heat of the watercress and the salt of the soy sauce.

Mango and Watercress Salad
1 tbsp vegetable oil
3 tsp roasted sesame oil
2 tbsp lime juice
2 drops tabasco
2 tsp soy sauce (preferably tamari)
salt and white pepper to taste
2 cups sliced romaine lettuce
2/3 cup loosely packed watercress, coarse stems discarded
1/4 cup grated carrot
1 tbsp cilantro, leaves torn
1 tbsp mint, leaves torn
1/2 mango, peeled, pitted and diced

In a small bowl, whisk together oils, lime juice, soy sauce, tabasco, and salt and pepper to taste.

Toss the romaine with a little dressing and spread on a large plate. Arrange the watercress and cilantro in layers on top, then scatter the herbs over top. Finish with the diced mango.

Serve the dressing on the side.

Serves 2

Cabbage and Watercress Slaw

Leftover beans and rice are a common dinner around here - I just warm them in the oven and dinner is on.

Of course, a crunchy side dish is essential to balance the soft textures of the beans and rice. The other day this cabbage and watercress slaw fit the bill.

It's adapted from a recipe I learned years ago in a macrobiotic cooking class in Montreal. The original recipe called for grated daikon - a large white radish. I can't find it organically grown at the farmers market so I use bottled horseradish instead.

If you don't have white miso, leave it out and add a little extra salt. The miso is a good addition, though. It has the umami of fermented soybeans and the B12 that is so essential to the vegetarian diet.

The cabbage is salted to draw out excess water so it doesn't make the dressing runny. But if you have a fresh young cabbage and you're going to eat the slaw right away, you can skip this step.

Cabbage and Watercress Slaw

3 cups finely chopped cabbage

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup watercress, without the thick stems

1/3 cup lemon juice

2 tsp white (shiro) miso

4 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp horseradish

Mix cabbage with salt, let it sit 30 minutes, then rinse off the salt and squeeze excess water from the cabbage.

Wash the watercress. Combine with the cabbage.

Whisk together the lemon juice and miso. When miso is dissolved, whisk in the olive oil and horseradish. Season to taste with salt and pepper. It should be well-flavored, but not too tangy.

Pour the dressing over the vegetables. Toss and serve.

Serves 2-3

Watercress and Tangerine Salad

The watercress is flourishing on our patio. The banana plant collapsed in the icy weather, the bird baths froze over, and the watercress kept on growing.

It will die out in the heat of summer, but for now we have spicy homegrown greens for our salads.

The other night I tossed some watercress with a tangerine for a great combination of heat and sweet.

Watercress and Tangerine Salad
6 almonds
1 tangerine
2 cups watercress
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
salt

Toast the almonds in a dry skillet over medium heat. Toss with salt and let cool.

Peel and section the tangerine.

Rinse and dry the watercress. Remove any thick stems.

Combine the almonds, tangerine and watercress. Whisk together the olive oil and lemon juice. Add to the salad and toss gently. Season to taste.

Serves 2

The hummingbird was unamused when the fountain froze over.
The watercress seemed to enjoy the frosty weather.

Watercress and Barley Soup

It's easy to get stuck in the brown rice rut. Yet there are so many other great grains to eat. Recently I've been diversifying the grain in our diet, and have re-discovered the pleasure of barley.

I made barley soup last week to welcome my mother who’s visiting from Montreal.

Travelling can leave one slightly queasy, and barley is good for settling upset stomachs. I remember as a child being given barley sugar sweets to ease carsickness. And babies are traditionally fed barley water for colic.

Barley also provides long-term health benefits. A US Department of Agriculture study shows that the soluble fiber in barley reduces cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol (especially the bad LDL). Barley also helps balance blood sugar.

Just as you can buy brown rice or white rice, you can buy hulled or pearled barley.

Hulled barley is less processed, with only the tough outer hull removed. At my local health food store I found Health Best organic hulled barley (also called whole barley or scotch or pot barley). This has the bran intact, like brown rice. It’s more nutritious, a little chewier, and takes a little longer to cook than pearled barley.

Arrowhead Mills makes an organic pearled barley which has the bran shaved off so it has a little less fiber, but is still nutritious. (And honestly, to me it looks the same as the Health Best hulled barley.) Regular supermarket pearled barley is just the small white starchy center of the grain - don’t bother with it.

Barley takes between 45 and 60 minutes to cook. The way to know when it's done is to taste a grain.

This is the sprightly spring soup I served my mother. The watercress enhances the lemony taste, but you could substitute arugula or spinach if necessary.

A lot of the flavor comes from the vegetable stock. Chop the greens finely just before adding to the soup to conserve nutrients and keep their fresh flavor.

Watercress Barley Soup
2 tbsp olive oil
10 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup hulled barley
4 cups water or vegetable stock (I used 2 cups stock and 2 cups water)
2 cups finely chopped watercress (leaves and stems)
1 tbsp lemon juice

Sauté garlic in olive oil until lightly browned. Add barley and stock. Simmer until the barley is tender but still a little chewy, about an hour. At this point it can wait until you’re ready to eat. Then reheat the soup, adding extra water if necessary. Stir in the watercress and lemon juice, and cook for five minutes until the greens are soft. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 3-4 as a meal.