Garden | anunrefinedvegan

Aug 31 2012

Garden, Herbs, Main Dishes, Quick & Easy, Raw, Soups and Stews, Vegetables

Searching for the Holy Grail of Raw Broccoli Soup

I am on a quest. A quest to replicate the raw broccoli (a.k.a. The Nectar of the Gods) soup from Omar’s Rawtopia located in the Sugarhouse neighborhood of Salt Lake City. It’s thick and creamy and nutty and very un-raw-broccoli-like. After one sip even ol’ #41 (George Bush, Sr.) would fall to his knees in adoration of the mighty green Brassica oleracea after one sip of this soup. Omar tops his with his tantalizing seed cheese (another recipe onto which I’d like to get my raw amateur mitts) and a delicious slice of “bread.”

My search began – as many a search has – with a quick stroll through Google, which yielded many results; none of which even hinted at coming directly from the kitchen of Rawtopia. Perhaps employees sign a Confidentiality Agreement… Anyway, I started with a recipe I found at Food.com and messed with it ever so slightly. It’s delicious, no doubt about it, but it’s not It yet. So the search continues. In the meantime, it will take dedicated and prolonged taste-testing at Omar’s to suss out his secrets. Someone’s got to do it.

Raw Broccoli Soup
Serves 4

1 cup raw cashews, soaked for a few hours
3 cups water
1 tsp. agave nectar
2 cups broccoli, chopped into small pieces
1 avocado, cut into chunks
1/2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tsp. onion, chopped
1″ nubbin of fresh ginger root, peeled and chopped
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/8 tsp. cumin
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
dash black pepper
dash red pepper flakes

sliced radishes, chopped red onion, sesame seeds and fresh cilantro, for topping (optional)

Drain the cashews and add them to a high-powered blender along with the water and agave nectar. Process until smooth.

Add the remaining ingredients (except for those used as the garnish) and process until smooth and creamy. Divide among four bowls, top with the cilantro, red onion and radishes and serve immediately. Best eaten the same day it’s made.

Tagged broccoli, cashews, cilantro, Food.com, Omar's Rawtopia, onion, raw, raw food, red onion, Salt Lake City, soup, Sugarhouse

Aug 23 2012

25 Comments

Garden, Herbs, Main Dishes, Pantry Gallery

Summer Veggie Polenta

This little dish is a riff on one my dad used to make. I can’t say for sure that he invented the idea of veggies layered between creamy polenta, but then again, I can’t say he didn’t invent it. He used spinach, tomato and lots of cheese in his – and boy howdy, was it delicious. To me it is “peasant” food and comfort food at its best. Simple, versatile and possibly better the next day.

In a way, this is two dishes in one. The night that it is prepared it resembles a porridge. The next day, it takes on characteristics of lasagna. Either way, it’s a yummy, filling meal that is a great way to use a variety of garden vegetables. I used peppers and summer squash because that’s what is coming in right now, but eggplant would be wonderful, mushrooms most welcome and tomatoes quite a tasty, juicy addition.

Summer Veggie Polenta
Serves 4-6

Polenta:
1 cup polenta
2 cups vegetable broth/water
~4 cups hot water
1 cup cashew cheez, optional
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/4 cup big green olives
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
salt and pepper to taste (I used a smoked sea salt)

Vegetables:
splash of white wine and/or vegetable broth
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 small banana pepper, seeded and chopped
1 small yellow squash or zucchini, chopped
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1/4 cup julienned sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil)
salt and pepper to taste

Make the polenta:
Prepare a medium-sized casserole by lightly spraying it with oil. Preheat the oven to 350F.

Have the four cups of water simmering on the stove. In a medium-sized saucepan, bring the 2 cups of broth or water to a boil and whisk in the polenta. Bring mixture back up to a boil, then reduce the heat so that the polenta is just barely bubbling. I don’t fuss over stirring a whole heck of a lot but instead put the lid on and add water as needed (from the four cups simmering on the stove). Cook until the polenta is soft to the bite.

When the polenta is ready, stir in the remaining ingredients.

Make the vegetables:
Meanwhile, heat the wine or broth in a skillet and add the onions and garlic and gently cook until soft. Stir in the bell pepper, banana peppers and the squash/zucchini. Cook until just starting to get soft. Stir in the tomato paste along with another splash of wine and the tomato paste, sun-dried tomatoes and salt and pepper. Cook for a minute or two and then remove from the heat.

Assemble the casserole:
Pour one half of the polenta mixture into the prepared casserole dish. Then spoon in the vegetables. Top with the remaining polenta and smooth the top. Bake uncovered for 20-25 minutes and allow to sit for about 10 minutes after removing from the oven.

Tagged banana pepper, bell pepper, dad, garlic, mushrooms, nutritional yeast, onion, polenta, vegetable broth, yellow squash

Aug 21 2012

50 Comments

Desserts, Fruit, Garden, Pies and Tarts

A Peach Pie in Pictures

Twenty dollars later, Kel and I became the proud owners of a giant box of locally grown peaches, each one picture perfect. Peaches grow everywhere in Bountiful, weighing down the gnarled trees in nearly every backyard, tempting us – begging us to relieve the poor branches of their juicy payload. Yes! we reply, but quickly remember that we would be trespassing. Peaches are summer – the beginning of the end of summer – and baking a peach pie is a sacred rite of the season.

I’ve done nothing special or innovative here. I just baked a standard peach pie; cutting way back on the amount of sweetener simply because these peaches were as sweet as candy just as they were. Why mess with a classic? So, I’m not including a recipe here. Buy yourself a mess of peaches (8-10 will do), dig up your mom’s tried-and-true crust recipe (I used the one on the back of a bag of Bob’s Red Mill Whole Wheat Pastry Flour) and get to work.

This is an ode to peaches and freshly-baked pie; warm nights, Queen Anne’s lace, the chainsawing of crickets, gardens gone wild and the whiff of melancholy that accompanies the precious, honeyed days of late summer.

Your crust might not fully cooperate (as mine did not) and it may become a homely mess once placed onto a plate (as mine did), but it will taste sweet and delicious (as mine did). It will taste like summer and make you want to hang on to every last second of August even as the days get shorter. The memory of your peach pie just might carry you through the dark days of January and February. Remember, those peach trees will be out there, covered in snow, racking up the necessary cold hours, dreaming of the spring to come and the chance to overload their branches yet again with golden-red fruit.

Important Serving Note: a homemade peach pie is best served alongside a generous scoop of dairy-free vanilla ice cream. It’s simply a matter of respect.

Tagged Bob's Red Mill, Bountiful, fruit, pastry, peach pie, peaches, pie, pie crust, summer, UT, Utah, whole wheat pastry flour

Aug 03 2012

26 Comments

Dressings and Sauces, Garden, Herbs, Salads, Vegetables

Other People’s Food (5): Green Beans and An Oil-free Salad Dressing

A bit of a cheater post, this. The beautiful green (and purple and yellow) beans came from a neighbor’s garden – have I told you about Bountiful, Utah yet? Everything grows like mad here. Could be why it’s called Bountiful. Maybe? Anyway, the beans came from a garden just up the road and the no-oil salad dressing recipe came from the Divine Ms. B at The Veg Bar (who I wish was just up the road; I’d love to hang out with her).

This is true: I read Bar’s post, looked through the recipe and immediately shut down the computer and went into the kitchen to make it. Within a couple of minutes I had a lovely little jar full of tangy, herby dressing*. I had no plans for how I was going to use it until this gigantic bag of colorful beans arrived. Lightly steamed beans and zucchini – and cherry tomatoes (also from the aforementioned garden) that I tossed in at the last minute – topped with Bar’s easy, no-oil dressing. A quick and summery side dish or main course if the heat has you craving only salads.

*Minor tweaks: subbed unsweetened coconut yogurt for silken tofu because I didn’t have any; used Thai basil since that’s what I had on hand; omitted the agave nectar because I felt the coconut yogurt was still sweet enough to compensate and threw in a splash of Bragg Liquid Aminos. Toasted walnuts would go very nicely scattered over the top of this bean salad.

Tagged beans, cherry tomatoes, easy, garden, green beans, no fat, no-oil dressing, no-oil salad dressing, quick, salad, The Veg Bar, zucchini

Jul 28 2012

50 Comments

Garden, General, Miscellaneous, Nature

Late to the Party

Just as I did when Pinterest came out all hot and heavy on the scene, I resisted joining Instagram*. Who needs it? thought I. Who needs yet another way to obsess over acquiring Friends and Followers – to connect socially – to share more? Not me, no way. So it was only a matter of time, right? Caving in, I recently added Instagram to my iPhone and true to probably every other Instagram user, I immediately starting snapping everything that moved and also everything that didn’t move. Much to my surprise, my not-so-high-quality iPhone photos looked…really cool. I share a few below (and one above).

Incidentally, I also came late – very late – to the Mac party. A couple of days ago, my hard-working HP laptop died an unceremonious death. Stuttering, freezing, faltering, its hard disk had apparently suffered irreparable damage from too many trips through airports; it finally balked at being crammed into overhead bins and possibly revolted over having to store too many food photos for the blog. Like a person dashing out of a burning house, I grabbed what files I could and then retreated. To the Apple Store. I’ve been toying with the idea of becoming a Mac owner for years. Now seemed like the perfect time to jump in.

*If you are an Android user, I recommend Vignette. It has way more tweaking options than does Instagram. I’m hoping to see Vignette create an app for the iPhone.

Tagged airports, app, apple, Apple Store, garden, Instagram, iPhone, Mac, photos, pictures, Pinterest, travel

Jun 10 2012

35 Comments

Dressings and Sauces, Garden, Herbs, Salads

Oil-Free Tomato, Kalamata & Miso Salad Dressing

When it comes to salad dressing, I’m on auto-pilot. It takes me mere seconds to whip up an oil-free vinaigrette and it’s really light and wonderful – but – it’s getting a bit tired. Enter the ripe tomatoes Kel has been bringing in from the garden. In went some olives and miso because everything tastes better with them. The dates temper the tangy acid and the vegetable broth lends richness. Takes almost as much time to make this as it does my old standby dressing. Vary this by using fresh herbs instead of dry or a different vinegar.

Oil-free Tomato, Kalamata & Miso Salad Dressing
Enough for a few big salads

1 large ripe tomato, cored and cut into big chunks
2 tsp. lemon juice
2 tbsp. vegetable broth
2 tbsp. water
1 tsp. white wine vinegar
2 small pitted dates, chopped
8 pitted kalamata olives
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp. brown rice miso paste
pinch black pepper
pinch dried oregano
pinch dried basil

Place all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth.

Tagged basil, garlic, miso paste, no-oil salad dressing, oil-free dressing, oregano, salad, salad dressing, tomato, vegetable broth

May 31 2012

43 Comments

Garden, General

Hunting Hornworm

It’s hunting season here in Oklahoma; no license needed and weaponry is just a matter of personal taste. Some of us on the ranch kill with our bare hands, but me, I don’t have the stomach for the “wet work.” I prefer the bottom of my shoe. Here on the 160 we’ve instituted a Zero Tolerance Program (ZTP) for this particular varmint. The prey: the crafty, conniving and voracious hornworm.

Where do hornworms come from? Large (and really quite beautiful) Sphinx moths deposit eggs on the undersides of tomato leaves and the larvae eventually chew their way out of the eggs and into the green Eden of healthy, succulent tomato plants. The tiny caterpillars become fat, juicy and quite large (3″-4″) as they feast on the tender leaves. They seem to love to dangle from the very tops of the plants, but it takes patience to spot these critters. They are the color of the plants on which they feed, but the tiny spike at the ends of their bodies gives them away.

Hornworms can quickly and efficiently strip bare the branches. The caterpillars – if my shoe doesn’t find them first – will molt four times before going walkabout. They find some nice, comfy soil, dig in and during the final molt a green skin forms which eventually – buried – will turn hard and brown. After about three weeks, the skin splits and an adult moth emerges – to begin the cycle of destruction all over again.

Tagged garden, greenhouse, hornworms, moths, pests, Sphinx moth, tomato plants, tomatoes

May 19 2012

52 Comments

Garden, General, Herbs, Nature, Vegetables

How The Garden Grows

Green tomatoes.

It’s really full-on summer here – though the calendar disagrees with me – in Oklahoma and besides having tomatoes, peppers and basil in the greenhouse, Kel has things humming along in the outside garden as well. As I mentioned in an earlier post, he’s really been a one man show this year as far as the gardening goes. I putter out to help here and there – and to help myself with whatever is ripe – but he’s done 99% of the work, and he’s done beautifully.

The garden space has slowly expanded since we moved here in 2007. It took us a full year to realize that we cannot plant produce straight in the ground. The soil just isn’t that good, but more than that, the Bermuda grass ate our lunch, so to speak. It creeps, crawls and invades anything that it can. So, we covered the garden plot with black plastic and let it cook for nearly a full year. And we raised the beds to boot. This year we’ve added a couple of new spots that will be ready next year, after the black plastic, the sun and the worms do their work. Here’s how things look:

The full garden with areas under black plastic.

Beautiful basil. Our honeybees will go crazy when these are in full bloom.

A strawberry plant, new this year.

So many grapes this year!

Bell peppers from the greenhouse.

Potato plants; imagine all of those happy, little spuds underground!

Close-up of a straw bale. My artist’s eye loved the tangles of dry grass.

Young blueberry plant, covered in unripe berries.

Sturdy row of onions.

One of my contributions: lavender.

Red Hot Poker, for the hummingbirds.

Tagged basil, blueberries, garden, gardening, grapes, lavender, onions, peppers, postaday, potatoes, Red Hot Poker, strawberries, tomatoes

Apr 02 2012

20 Comments

Garden, General, Miscellaneous, Nature

We Walk

Deja vu? Due to a computer glitch (read: operator error), this post was published recently – prematurely. Somehow my finger managed to hit “Publish” instead “Save Draft.” WordPress, maybe you could add an “Are You Sure, Idiot?” message before publishing? I’ve added a few photos since that inadvertent post. These are some of the images that Kel, Ike and I see on our daily walks.

Morning:

Hackberry Tree in Morning Fog.

Foggy Morning, Little Pond.

Box Turtle in Dewy Grass.

Tracks Through the Wet Grass.

Afternoon:

Sweet Violets, Sweeter than the Roses...

Pasture.

Old Deer Stand in Woods.

Weathered Bird House on Windmill; Honeysuckle in Bloom.

New Leaves on a Young Oak Tree.

Rusty Barbed Wire, Old Wood Post.

Gray Moss on Rocks.

Evening:

Hummingbird Moth on Bugleweed.

Small Snapping Turtle.

At Grass Level.

Plane Contrail.

Horsehead Pump.

Indian Paintbrush.

Tagged afternoon, bugleweed, deer stand, dew, evening, fog, hackberry tree, honeysuckle, hummingbird moth, Indian Paintbrush, leaves, morning, moss, nature, oak leaves, oak tree, pasture, pond, rocks, snapping turtle, turtle, violets, walking, walks

Mar 13 2012

27 Comments

Garden, General

You and I and Nature In the Garden

Signs of spring are all over the blogosphere and even better, all over our trees, yard and garden. Seems we are all ready to ditch the hats and gloves and get back outside to turn our faces into the sun. For Kel and me, that means getting back into our various gardens. Kel has been at it for a while now, starting cold-hardy plants and clearing out the asparagus bed, but after last year’s brutally dry and hot summer, my taste for working in my perennial beds had dried up like the cracked soil in the pastures. But the warmth of the day yesterday lured me outside to see what had survived. It was time to clean out the dried and cut back the dead. I was in for many nice surprises.

While I’d ignored them, many plants had returned to life – proving once again the strong will to live in every living thing. No real surprise that the mint, ever the opportunist, had already spread its bright lushness beyond its boundaries into the daisies (just poking through the moist soil) and aster (showing no signs of live). The creeping phlox had indeed crept – as I have encouraged it to – and there are tiny spots of green on the Russian Sage, in the various ornamental grasses, and the purple and yellow coneflowers. Thick buds are rising in the irises and the catmint is a beautiful little mound of fresh green. The two small ornamental trees I’d planted last year – a sweet almond (covered in soft pink flowers right now) and the cherry with its fledgling red leaves survived despite the odds being stacked heavily against them. The hollyhock is back as are the red hot pokers, hardy hibiscus, lavender and daylillies. As I worked, pulling weeds and clipping back dead foliage, the frogs that emerge with the first hints of warmth were in full throat – some sounding like hundreds of beginner violinists clumsily scratching bows across strings, others like the tick-tick-tick of a roulette wheel – all of them looking for love. Ike rolled in the tall, cool grass and maybe even envied my digging in the dirt (one of his favorite past times).

It is appropriate that the phrase is hope springs eternal, for each spring, every new growing season renews our hopes that we will have successful crops and that flowers will bloom big and gloriously and fragrantly. Each spring is an opportunity to learn more, to apply the lessons learned from past mistakes and to dream and plan about next year’s garden.

(Do you recognize the words from the title of this post? It comes from a beautiful and one of my favorite songs by Van Morrison: In the Garden, on the disc, No Guru, No Method, No Teacher.)

Tagged aster, catmint, daylillies, flower beds, garden, gardening, hollyhocks, In the Garden, iris, mint, No Guru No Method No Teacher, perennial beds, spring, Van Morrison, yarrow

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Category Archives: Garden