Vegetable salt

Hello there!

I miss a real herb garden. It's not that there's lack of space, the case is that I don't have the time to finish the building of it, a stone wall that will preserve the heat from the sun for the herbs to thrive. 

In the garden I had before this one, I had a bed for my herbs and made a very tasty herb salt every year.

This blog gave me the idea of making a salt of vegetable. It's in swedish, sadly for you foreign readers, but she has many great ideas about growing and cooking vegetables.

Anyhow, here's my version of veggie salt

1 onion

a couple of kale leaves

a bunch of tips from the sugar snaps

a grab of nasturtium leaves

A big bunch of basil leaves (the only herb)

two chilis (not the hot ones)

and a grab of maché lettuce

see photo below.

Mix all the ingredients above in a blender and pour 200 ml salt while still blending. The salt will absorb the juices and preserve the tastes of the greens.

Dry the salt in the owen with the door slightly open, the temperature should not be higher than 50 degrees Celsius. Store in nice glass jars.

This salt goes to everything and add a lovely taste to any dish. 

Hot summer and zucchini harvest

Gosh, what a hot summer we had. It's so hot it's hard to keep the spirit up. Yesterday I was home with headache propably caused by the heat, sun and too little to drink. It's very important to drink and to eat something sweet and salty.

The positive thing though is that the veggies that thrive in this heat are giving lots of fruits, like zucchinis. I need to be inventive now. Zucchini can be boring, but the neutral taste gives you a wide range of flavours to combine it with. Today I made a frittata with basil sauce. Here's the recipe. Oh by the way. In this recipe you can gladly use those zucchinis that has grown too big.

Zucchini Frittata with basil sauce

Frittata

2 large zucchinis

1 onion

4 eggs

1 hand full of sundried tomatoes

50 g of feta cheese

seasoning

Put the sundried tomatoes in a glass of water to soak (I took my home made tomatoes and those are hard). Grate the zucchinis and onion and put in a colander. Pour over some salt and toss around. Whisk the eggs in a bowl and season with your favourite spices. Chop the feta cheese and the drained sundried tomatoes in fine bits. Squeeze the juice out of the zucchini mix to get rid of some water and mix everything in the egg bowl. Fry in a pan on low heat with butter or oil, put on a lid for a while to cook the top of the frittata.

Basil sauce

3 dl of sour cream

1 hand full of fresh basil leaves

1 garlic clove

salt and white pepper

Mix all the ingredients in a blender until you get a smooth light green liquid. This sauce works excellent with a salad or with roast beef, if you like. 

Todays Green smoothie

Todays green smoothie comes entirely from the garden. The apples are ripen and the rest, sallad, kale and sugarsnaps has been harvested for a while.

The ingredients on the tray gives two small bottles of green smoothie

Here's a little snapshot of the next years crop. Broad beans, blue peas, sugar snaps and grey peas. It is very easy to harvest and save peas and beans to sow.

Friday evening dinner

Our supermarket has started a campain to make their customers to eat more vegetables. I think this is a excellent thing. They promote fruits and vegetables of the season and often sell for lower prices. When I walk past the sweet potatoes I couldn't resist them. In a second, the dinner plan was set.

Roasted sweet potatoes and hot salsa

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees C. Peel the sweet potato and cut into wedges. Pour them in a oven pan and add a tsp of coconut oil and Tbs of sunflower oil. sprinkle sea salt and ground some pepper over them before you roast them in the oven. 30 minutes is enough because they get squishy very easily.

The salsa is made of 3 finely chopped tomatoes, 1 finely chopped onion, 3 mashed and finely chopped garlic cloves, a half finely chopped red bell pepper. The green herb is fresh chopped chervil (a good replacement for those who doesn't like coriander). Blend all ingredients in a bowl and season with himalayan salt, chili flakes and ground black pepper.

For the meat eaters I served grilled chicken filets with lots of barbecue seasoning on top.

Serve with a green salad.

Note: Sweet potato is literally a sweet potato, it contains 10 times more sugar than potato so if you would like to cut down on carbs, this is not a choice for you. 

Green smoothie post

So how about three apples, one banana, a lemon, a huge plate of greens for breakfast. Does it seems too much to eat? That is an example of what I eat for breakfast in the form of a smoothie. I know the internet is flowing over with those green smoothies and about the benefits of them.

So for those who thinks, oh another green smoothie post, you can stop reading now and wait for next post ;)

Our old family relic, the starmix from the 50's is still running strong. The pitcher holds about 1 liter and I pack it loosely with baby spinach leaves and maché sallat.

Three apples are chopped in pieces with the stem and seed house removed. I press these in my juicer and receive a large glass of fresh apple juice. One lemon is pressed + a bunch of  chervil is also added.

 After mixing all the ingredients in the mixer I get half a litre of green thick and chunky smoothie. I fill my 250ml glass containers all the way up to keep the smoothie fresh. If there is space left, just add water. In this way I can make it the day before and drink it at work the morning after.

The only limit for a green smoothie is your own imagination. Add wich fruits and leafs you like and make your own favourite.

NOTE: At first when I drank the green smoothie I got a terrible headache. The trick is to drink and chew for a long time and not starting the day with the smoothie until you have been up and running for a while. Don't forget to drink plenty of water as well.

Broccoli sprouts

This is my favourite topping; Sprouts!

Perfect on top of anything. Broccoli sprouts adds a little nutty and fresh taste to your dish.

On top of your salad, sandwich or in you smoothie.

I used a plastic tray for flower pots and covered the bottom with 1 cm of pot soil. The soil is soaked and then  broccoli seeds are sprinkled in an even layer on top. A thin layer of soil to cover the seeds. Make sure the soil is always a little moist. Put the tray in a window to get nice green sprouts. After ca 4-5 days it's time for harvest.

I bought special bags for sprouting at Runåbergs fröer (swedish seed company). They sell a small variety of sprouting seeds.

Sauerkraut

Oh, Im so happy and pleased!

After my second trial I have succeded to make my own sauerkraut. Sauerkraut is a great way to eat probiotics and you don't have to deal with bloating problems like some can get when eating raw or cooked cabbage.

Don't be afraid that the taste will be grouse, it's not. It tastes like the salad that is served at Swedish pizza places. Just grind som pepper over it and there you have it. 

After Christmas the supermarkets sold the red cabbage for only 20 cents per kilo. A big cbbage head for only 50 cents was bought.

Shred the cabbage (exept the outer leaves to use later) and mix it in a bowl with a half handfull of Himalayan salt. Mash the blend with a coffe mug to get the juice out of the cabbage.

Tuck the cabbage in a big glass jar with airtight cap. Make sure you press out as much air from the cabbage as possible.  Fold the outer leaves and put on top of the shredded cabbage to get a seal. Pour water over the leaves (boil the water then let it cool first) to get a air tight cover over the leaves. If the leaves have a tendency to rise you can do as I did, put a coffemug on top before sealing (see picture below).

Let the cabbage stay at the kitchen bench for two days approximately. You should see some bubbles along the waterline. Then store the jar in a colder place ca 12-15 degrees celsius (the cellar, cupboard or something like that) for 5-7 days. Hopefully you will have a delicious cabbage sallad after this time.

First time i tried to make it I used my home grown green cabbage. I didn't use any extra water at all and I stored the jars in the cellar. It smelled like poo during the 5 day storage. When I was supposed to open a jar and taste, an awful smell struck my face and I could see mold on the surface. So be careful when you make it. Be sure you use clean jars, boiled water and make sure you have the leaves under the water.

I serve the salad every day with green salad to get a healthy stomach.