Posted at 09:24 AM in Food and Drink, Food and Recipes, Fruits From The Garden | Permalink | Comments (6)
About 6 years ago we bought two little citrus trees in one gallon pots. One was supposed to be a Mexican lime and the other a Meyer lemon. We planted them close together due to space limitations and my son wanted to have more or less “one tree trunk” producing two kinds of citrus.
They grew, but nothing happened at all until year before last when one of them flowered. We had no idea which one. Although it had quite a bit of blooms, it produced only one fruit by Christmas of ‘08, but it was enough to determine it was the Meyer lemon. The Mexican lime has never bloomed at all.
Last year, the little tree bloomed all over and we have been able to harvest quite a few lemons – 13 big lemons so far and we still have another 14 left on the tree.
The 13 lemons yielded almost 6 and half cups of juice!
The Meyer lemon tree (Citrus x meyeri 'Meyer') aka Valley Lemon in Texas, was named for Frank Meyer who introduced the tree to the United States while working for the USDA in China in 1908. After a virus infected the trees in the ‘40s, the trees were banned as a precaution since the virus could possibly attack other citrus varieties.
Lucky for us, a new and hardier version of the Meyer was discovered and the tree re-introduced in 1970 and went on to become a favorite in the home garden or patio, since they grow so well in large pots.
The shape of the Meyer lemon is rounder than other lemons, almost as big as an orange and the flesh is orange-yellow in color.
The fruit can be used as you would that of any other lemon, but it will have a distinctive and milder taste. At the end I list some ideas for using the fruit. I found them by doing a search on the Internet and through discussions with some of my Internet foodie friends.
As I mentioned above, our little harvest yielded a lot of juice. Some I froze in ice cube trays to then save in freezer plastic bags to use in iced tea or for cooking. Some I froze in small sized plastic bags and ended up making lemonade with the rest.
Meyer Lemon Lemonade
2-1/2 cups Meyer lemon juice
2-1/2 cups simple syrup
12 cups cold water
To make the simple syrup you need to bring to a boil equal portions of sugar and water until sugar dissolves completely. Do not boil for long or the syrup will get too thick.
Mix all ingredients well and pour into a pitcher or a cold drink dispenser jug and refrigerate.
I love to serve it with a sprig of spearmint.
Limoncello
Limoncello is a lemon liqueur that originated in the Amalfi coast of Italy and has become quite popular in the States. The lemons used there are traditionally Sorrento lemons, which are huge yellow lemons with a lot of juice, but almost any lemon zest can be used.
Zet or peel from 2 pounds of lemon – yellow part only
4 cups of 100 proof vodka
3 cups sugar
3 cups water
When peeling or zesting the lemons, be careful to peel the yellow only. If by chance you get some of the white pith, scrape it with the edge of a spoon. The white pith will give your liqueur a bitter taste.
Steep the peel in four cups of 100 proof vodka in a large bowl covered with a tea towel or cheesecloth for one week at room temperature. Make simple syrup by stirring three cups of sugar and three cups of water in a large saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves; cool. Add to the vodka mixture and stir. Strain the liquid into bottles; seal and chill the limoncello for one month. Pour into small glasses and enjoy!
YIELD: Not supplied
SOURCE: Bon Appetit, May 2002
Limoncello Spritzers
The recipe for the spritzers is one my friend Diane shared in her family blog. The photograph is also courtesy of Diane.
Ice cubes
Seltzer water
Limoncello
Place ice cubes in a pitcher and add Seltzer and Limoncello (1 1/2 cups Seltzer to 1 1/2 cups Limoncello for 2 drinks).
Stir and serve in wine goblets.
Garnish with lemon slice if desired.
Diane used Meyer lemon slices from her garden for the garnish.
NOTE: The above amounts are per the recipe by Michael Chiarello, but Diane and her daughter found they liked more Seltzer mixed into the drink than called for. She also thinks that a touch of mint would be a nice addition.
YIELD: 2 drinks
SOURCE: Diane Willis
If you like home style Italian food, try Diane's Un Saludo a las Cucinas de Italia blog http://asalutetothekitchensofitaly.blogspot.com
You can also find Diane’s recipe for Limoncello Cheesecake in the following blog link: http://asalutetothekitchensofitaly.blogspot.com/2010/01/limoncello-cheesecake.html
If you have more lemon peel than you need for making limoncello:
Other tips for using Meyer Lemons –
*From my friends Diane in California and Deb in Georgia –Use a vegetable peeler and save the peel before juicing the lemons. Freeze the peels in small snack size bags. When lemon zest is needed, just take the needed amount out, defrost, mince and you will have fresh lemon zest to use in baking and all types of recipes.
The Meyer Lemon peels can be candied as well. They are really tasty and make pretty decorations for cup cakes, cakes, tarts, and other pastries.
The following are by Amy Scattergood Los Angeles Times Staff Writer in the January 16th, 2008 issue.
* Infuse your favorite olive oil with Meyer lemon peel: Warm a cup of olive oil and the peel from 2 lemons over very low heat for 15 minutes, then allow cooling for half an hour. Strain and pour into an antique bottle with a tight stopper.
* Make Meyer lemon vinaigrette with extra virgin olive oil, Meyer lemon juice, a splash of champagne vinegar, sea salt, cracked black pepper and a little lemon zest.
* Add Meyer lemon peels into a jar of honey and allow to sit for a few weeks; the peel will perfume the honey while it slowly candies in the jar.
* Perfume your sugar bowl by stirring strips of Meyer lemon peel down into the sugar.
* Make hollandaise sauce with Meyer lemon.
* Whisk the zest of a few Meyer lemons into your favorite meringue recipe.
* Throw the peel of a Meyer lemon on the grill before cooking shrimp.
* Peel a whole Meyer lemon in one continuous long strand and drop the peel into a mug of hot chocolate.
Posted at 11:17 AM in Food and Drink, Food and Recipes, Fruits From The Garden, Gifts from the Kitchen, How Does My Garden Grow...? | Permalink | Comments (10)
Posted at 07:12 AM in Fruits From The Garden, Island Happenings, Life in Hawaii | Permalink | Comments (0)
A couple of weeks ago I read a little article by my friend Barbara Fahs in one of our local weekly papers about the WWOOFer Program and she mentioned the name of the owner of a small local farm that has successfully participated in the program for some time.
I called Janelle Honer, who with her husband Steve is owner of Josanna's Garden, to set up a date for our visit.
We walked around the farm for a couple of hours, with Janelle serving as our tour guide. I cannot begin to tell about everything we saw and learned during these two hours, so will not attempt it. Suffice it to say, I have enough photos and information to share several posts.
I'll start with a few photos of the vegetable and herb garden they keep for their WWOOFer work force, the farm fruit stand located near the entrance to the property...and the dish I created with the mini eggplants Janelle gave us upon leaving.
Mahalo, Janelle for your time, knowledge, graciouness and for all the fresh goodies!
a type of spinach
and lemon balm
The mini eggplants and branches of stick oregano
These eggplants were round shaped and no bigger than about 3-1/2 inches in
diameter.
Quantity of ingredients depends on how many eggplants you use and to taste. The
Thai chili sauce gave the rest of the bland ingredients and nice zing....
Stuffed & Baked Mini Eggplants
Mini egg plants - scooped out
Onions - chopped small
Garlic - minced
Salt
Pepper (optional)
Tomato paste
Fresh oregano leaves - I used the mini leaves from stick oregano (*)
Nam Prik Pao Thai Chili Sauce or Tabasco
Shredded Mozzarella
Panko
Butter for sauteeing
Set oven to 350 F
Cut top of eggplants a bit below the green stem line.
Cut off a tiny little piece in bottom so that they can stand flat.
Using a sharp knife, cut down into the eggplant all around the inside of the
skin leaving as little of the white part as possible without being too thin.
Cut across all the way down and then across again to make it easy to scoop out.
I used a grapefruit spoon to scoop and then scrape the pulp out.
Chop the eggplant pulp as small as possible
Chop onion as small as possible
Mince the garlic as small as possible
Saute eggplant, onion and garlic in a bit of butter until onion is limp. Salt
and pepper (if using) and just a bit of tomato paste. Mix in and turn heat off.
At this point I added a bit of the chili sauce and the tiny oregano leaves off
the stick oregano (* shown in the photos with the eggplants)
Put a bit of shredded cheese in the bottom of each hollowed eggplant then a
teaspoon of the filling, layering cheese and filling until overflowing. Top
with a little bit of the cheese and panko.
Bake for about 25 - 30 minutes (I used my little countertop toaster/convection
oven since I only had 3 and didn't want to use the big oven for that small
amount)
YIELD: depends on how many eggplants you cook
SOURCE: Sonia's kitchen
Posted at 10:03 AM in Food and Drink, Food and Recipes, Fruits From The Garden, Island Happenings, Life in Hawaii | Permalink | Comments (4)
I've written about bananas before (see links below) so am not going to go on about them except to say, we really love the sweet, small apple bananas, which are the ones we've been growing.
I took some photos of a banana bloom I thought was gorgeous and wanted to share
Banana Bloom just unfolding
loseup of the bloom from underneath - you can see the tiny bananas beginning to form
Banana blossom and keiki (baby) bananas growing
Also check the post previous to this one for the recipe for a yeast Banana Bread
TROPICAL TASTE - Going Bananas...!
TROPICAL TASTE - The Versatile Plantain
Platanos en Tentacion - Temptation Bananas
Aloha!
Posted at 07:29 PM in Food and Drink, Fruits From The Garden, How Does My Garden Grow...?, Life in Hawaii | Permalink | Comments (7)
The original recipe is for use in a bread machine. I don't have one so I made it by hand. If you use a bread machine, add the ingredients in the order given in the original recipe.
The following is how the original recipe reads, below is how I made it. I did
not make the Chocolate Banana Spread.
Banana Macadamia Nut Bread
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 medium)
1 Tablespoon butter - softened
1 egg white
2 cups bread flour
2 Tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup chopped macadamia nuts
1 3/4 teaspoons regular active dry yeast or 1 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast
Follow your machines instructions. Serve with chocolate banana spread.
Chocolate Banana Spread
1/3 cup mashed ripe bananas
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips -- melted
Mix together.
Yield: 1 lb loaf
Source: Unknown
By Hand Method:
1/2 cup warm water (120 F)
2 Tablespoons sugar
1- 3/4 teaspoons SAF instant yeast
1 Tablespoon butter - softened
1 egg white
1/3 cup mashed ripe Brazilian Apple banana
2 cups bread flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup chopped and toasted macadamia nuts
Mix the sugar and yeast in the warm water in the measuring cup
Mix the butter, egg white and mashed banana in a small bowl
Mix the flour, salt and mac nuts in a larger bowl
Mix the butter, egg, banana mixture into the flour mixture and add the yeasty
water. Mix well
Spray the bread mold with Baker's Joy and add granulated sugar to coat all sides
and bottom. Pour in bread mixture and fill in all sides. Let it rest for about
10-15 minutes. It almost doubled.
Bake in 350 F preheated oven for 35 - 40 minutes.
Let it cool for about 5 minutes and turn over onto a cooling rack.
Slice and serve.
My observations:
The crumb was very nice and the granulated sugar coating on the mold gave it a
slight nice little crunch on the outside. Not much, just enough.
The banana taste did not come through as much as I would have liked, even though
our little bananas are very sweet. I think it needed more.
The macnuts gave it a nice texture.
I will make this again but next time I will add more bananas.
Posted at 07:24 PM in Food and Drink, Food and Recipes, Fruits From The Garden, Gifts from the Kitchen | Permalink | Comments (10)
The mamey is a very popular fruit in Cuba and among displaced Cubans. Very hard to find outside of South Florida for us Cubans who live scattered all over the states.
Known as mamey sapote in Puerto Rico, and just plain mamey among Cubans, the football looking fruit is very temperamental to grow.
The fruit can be roundish or football shaped, depending on variety. The flesh is orange-red, tastes a bit like a combination of pumpkin, sweet potato and a dash of cinnamon. The texture can be smooth and creamy, although sometimes you can find some that are a bit stringy. The peel is rough and brown and the seed inside is large and shiny black.
In some places you can buy the flesh or pulp already frozen in plastic bags. It can be used for making smoothies, milkshakes and all kinds of desserts, including ice cream, cheesecakes and mousses.
Recently I found mamey at one of our local health food stores and had to buy one as it had been several years since I've eaten one. They had several and were grown locally... I must find out who has a tree!
A friend had just given us a jar of his deliciously tangy homemade goat cheese yogurt, so I decided to make a combination milkshake smoothie. To the blender half filled with the yogurt I added the diced pulp of the mamey and a bit of honey...not much, just enough that you could not taste the honey as a separate ingredient.
The resulting milkshake was creamy, thick and delicious.
Posted at 08:21 AM in Food and Drink, Food and Recipes, Fruits From The Garden, Life in Hawaii | Permalink | Comments (6)
The following is a bit different from my usual postings, but one that concerns me very much and should be of concern to all of us.
Posted at 09:35 AM in Current Affairs, Food and Drink, Fruits From The Garden, How Does My Garden Grow...? | Permalink | Comments (1)
Posted at 11:32 AM in Food and Recipes, Fruits From The Garden | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Bamboo is a grass. That was news to me. I knew you could eat the bamboo shoots or young canes, as I've eaten the canned varieties many times, but did not know what to look for or how to harvest or prepare them.
This stand of bamboo is approximately 30 feet around and about 60-70 feet tall. If I were to stand beside it, I would be dwarfed! This shot was taken from about half-way up our driveway looking down.
There is a huge clump of bamboo growing at the bottom of the driveway and a friend comes every so often to harvest the new shoots. When he was here a few days ago, I asked him to show me what to look for and how to prepare it. Patrick was very helpful and I finally prepared and tasted fresh bamboo shoots for the first time.
Bamboo shoot coming out of the ground - not quite ready to harvest yet. The shoots are harvested when they are approximately 2 weeks old.
According to one of the sources I checked, bamboo shoots are high in fiber, are a good source of potassium and contain very few calories (one cup of half-inch long slices contain only 14 calories) and hardly any fat, making it an ideal source of food.
Bamboo shoot after cutting and before peeling.
Starting to peel
Trimming the bottom end
In the kitchen - peeling and trimming as I cut. When you start peeling, there is a shiny pink layer of 'skin' similar to the skin on new ginger. This layer needs to be trimmed off.
I sliced some of the shoot to make scalloped bamboo shoots and I cut some julienne style for our salad.
Most bamboo shoots need to be cooked before they are eaten. There are some varieties I will mention below that can be eaten raw (*). The internet sources I found said to cook the shoots for about 20 minutes. Patrick told me they cook it for 1 hour. I opted for safe I also cooked mine for an hour.
I rinsed them in cold water after cooking, drained and stored in a lidded-plastic container in the refrigerator until ready to use. The cooked shoots can also be drained and frozen.
The bamboo shoot can be stored in the refrigerator, raw while still whole and unpeeled. Just place in the vegetable crisper drawer, but for no longer than two weeks as it then starts developing a bitter taste. The site recommends keeping it away from sunlight as much as possible since that can also make it taste bitter.
Our Fresh Bamboo 'Yard Salad'
We call it our 'yard salad' since everything in it, except for the chevre, came from our yard. This salad varies, depending on what is available to pick in the garden at the time.
The salad pictured above consisted of whole Malabar spinach leaves, whole Okinawan spinach leaves and a chiffonade of Dawn Dewa spinach leaves. Chiffonade of Italian or sweet basil, leaves of lemon basil; ruffled and plain purple basil; snippets of flat or Italian parsley leaves; the little top knot of pineapple sage; snipped chives; whole mizuna leaves, and another salad leaf I can't identify. I added some seeded and sliced purple peppers and some seeded rounds of banana pepper. To add color, I sprinkled the petals from both one yellow and one orange marigold. I added the cooked, julienne bamboo shoots and about a tablespoon size piece of chevre.
We used a vinaigrette I make with white vinegar, garlic cloves and ginger slices. It is so easy to make I never let this one run out!
(*) According to Barry, one of my sources from a tropical plant group in which I'm a member, he grows two varieties that can be eaten raw.
Nastus elatus and Dendrocalamus brandesil.
He says he likes to use them, raw in salads with much the same ingredients as one would find in the Thai version of Green Papaya Salad. Replace the fresh, thinly shredded bamboo shoots for the green papaya. He also says that fresh palm hearts and Peach Palm (Bactris gasipaes) will work in this dish as well.
The owner-moderator of that group, Mike V. said he thinks the P. dulcis, iirc variety of bamboo can also be eaten raw. Another good edible variety according to Mike V. is Vivax, though he thinks it is best cooked.
For more information or if interested in joining click on the Taro and Ti group.
Posted at 11:24 AM in Food and Recipes, Fruits From The Garden | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)