Produce of the Week: Minty Morsels and a Meaty Movie

Summer is such a fantastic time for produce lovers. So much good, fresh flavor over-flowing! One little leafy plant, often considered a weed as it rapidly takes over all available space in your garden, adds a nice clean taste to summer meals.

Mint, genus Mentha, spans an extensive range of species and varieties. Due to a rhizome (runners) rooting strategy, they spread quickly and are hard to oust once established. Spearmint, one of the most popular varieties, has a long history dating back to biblical times. Mid- second millennium, it was touted in England for its use to relieve ailments (especially digestive ones) and aid wound healing. Even today, many of us enjoy sipping mint tea (fresh mint leaves steeped in water are fantastic) when a stomach ache comes on.

Well, this month's SOS Challenge embraced this tasty herb. I had several lofty dessert plans, including something chocolaty or fruity. But, alas, I went the savory route with a light tabouleh dish. This recipe does not really require proportions and such; it's more based on ones own tastes.

Height of Summer Tabouleh

1 cup bulgur wheat

2 cups boiling water or vegetable stock

2 medium tomatoes

1 large cucumber or several small ones

Handful of mint, chopped

Dash of white wine vinegar

Coarse sea salt, to taste

Olive oil, optional

1. Pour boiling water over bulgur. Let sit for an hour or so, until all the liquid has been absorbed into the grain.

2. Add chopped veggies, herb, vinegar, and salt. Toss. Dish out. Enjoy!

Wow, that was pretty simple! My minty dessert that evening was a delightful figgy dish. Make it vegan with either cashew ricotta (whiz some raw cashews, silken tofu, lemon juice, and pinch of sugar in a food-processor) or non-dairy vanilla yogurt. I'm a honey-eater, but agave would be fabulous, as well.

And since mint spreads like an epidemic, I'm sure if it's growing in your back yard, you have plenty more of it. Celebrate the end of summer and the peak of eggplant season with this minty dish from Calabria from Scratch.

Make Heidi's amazing Moroccan Baby Carrots or her Curried Apple Couscous...yes, I am drooling right about now. Smitten Kitchen has a lovely Mango Slaw recipe, and keeping on the sweet stuff, check out NY Times Mint Sorbet! And don't worry, Bobby Flay has us covered in the beverage department, with a nice refreshing Mint Mojito.

So now that you are all nice and situated with your refreshing drink, lounging in the remnants of summer sun, take a chance to watch my friend's awesome video on CAFOs and our commercial livestock industry. He brings up excellent points about the accumulation of waste and its impacts on the surrounding environment.

A Seedy Affair and a Breath of Fresh Mint

The greatest joy for a backyard gardener is the sense of accomplishment you feel when those seeds you planted months ago finally start looking like the vegetables you know and love. Many moons past (ok, let's say six or seven), I constructed a raised bed garden in my parents' backyard. And while I had not planned on being around at present to reap the fruits of my labors, I now find myself reveling in the arugula and lettuces, while waiting impatiently for the peas, garlic, carrots, beans, and kale to mature. Moveover, I will be planting broccoli, rapini, beets, cucumbers, and a variety of squashes as soon as our new beds build themselves...hehe...

We purchased most of our seeds from a local nursery, or I saved them from winter squashes and the borlotti beans from the Italian farm. Seeds are little pockets of life, with the nutrients a new plant needs to get started in the world. It boggles my mind that a carrot will result from a tiny little dot of a seed or a head of garlic from a single clove! Although many large seed companies put patents on their genetically modified seeds - the genetic code falling under intellectual property rights - organizations like the Organic Seed Alliance try to promote the use of heirloom and new varieties, and perpetuate the magic of our floral diversity.

Ah, but enough of these silly, sappy, musings. Let's talk about pies and herbs. This month's theme for You Want Pies with That is Summer Drink Pie! Oh my goodness, oh my goodness - the possibilities are endless (and often intoxicating). So even though it's not sunny summer here yet, I took inspiration from a classic summery drink and the spearmint growing in a pot outside my front door.

Mint Mojito Pie

Mint Ice "Cream"

1 14oz can lite coconut milk

1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk

1/4 cup rum

2 cups packed mint leaves (spearmint is good, or another variety, but I wouldn't use peppermint)

2/3 cup sugar

2 tbs tapioca starch

1. Heat milks in saucepan until simmering. Remove from heat, add mint, and let steep for at least an hour. Strain mint leaves and press out remaining mint "juice."

2. Mix a little of the milk with the starch in a separate bowl until a paste. Add back to the milk with sugar and rum. Heat over medium heat until beginning to boil and thicken.

3. Cool completely and refrigerate. Churn in ice cream machine according to the instructions and freeze until ready to use.

Lime Cookie Crust

1/4 cup vegetable oil

Juice and zest of one lime

3/4 cup turbinado sugar

1 cup white whole wheat flour

2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tbs tapioca starch

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup cookie crumbs

1/4 cup oil

2 tbs applesauce

2 tsp lime juice

2 tbs agave nectar

1. Mix wet ingredients with a whisk until smooth. Add in dry ingredients until well-incorporated.

2. Scoop golf-ball size bits of dough onto a cookie sheet and flatten. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes until just starting to brown.

3. Food-process cookies until very crumbly. Continue to process with oil, applesauce, lime juice, and agave until beginning to stick together.

4. Press crumb mixture into pie or tart pans. Fill with slightly softened ice cream. Freeze until very firm. Dig in, and enjoy this refreshing dessert with a nice, cool, mojito!

Coming up: rhubarb season and some gluten-free baking adventures!

Rachel’s Rainbow: The Attack of the Macarons

“So she packed her favorite lunch – a peanut butter sandwich and chocolate chip cookies. Then she set out on her search for her own rainbow.” - Rachel's Rainbow

May’s Mactweets Mac Attack Challenge was to create a French macaron inspired by a favorite childhood book, character, passage, etc. “Rachel’s Rainbow” was probably one of the first books I ever had (it was published a year after my birth), and it occupies a very special place in my heart.

Rachel walks through the woods in search of a rainbow, collecting the odd apple or leaf in the process. Only she finds in the end that she has the real rainbow she collected right there in her basket. Yes, it’s the typical hokey children’s literature, but it also speaks to a profound appreciation for nature and the gifts of the Earth. I think we often go searching for things and forget to take count of what we already have, and note the wonders that surround us in everyday life. This scrawny, 23-page book uses the eyes of a child to show the reader the beauty and dynamism of the natural world.

In honor of that rainbow each of us searches for – and the peanut butter sandwich and cookies each of us longs to eat – I made a rainbow of macaron peanut butter sandwich cookies. Only the red veered off a little from a standard macaron recipe, in that I used ground dehydrated strawberries for some of the color and to make a PB & J (because I don’t like plain PB sandwiches too much). Also note that my purple is actually brown (and chocolate), as I forgot one of the colors on my rainbow spectrum. My sister also commented that the peanut butter filling is particularly un-photogenic - though I don't know what you can do about that!

Notes and Other Macaron Adventures:

Cashew Macarons with Coconut Cream and Lime Curd Fillings. Left: Curry Powder; Plain; Garam Masala.

After some trial and error over the past few months, I think I have landed a recipe that works for my climate and my oven. Syrup and Tang’s proportions suit a damp climate well, because of the high dry ingredient proportions. Eat4Fun’s chocolate macaron recipe also turned out marvelously. Not So Humble Pie has a new Macaron 101, and Tartelette seems to have an endless supply of macaron variations. I also realized that 300-315F is the proper temperature for my oven, but ovens vary and you should experiment with your own.

Strawberry Lemonade

Minty Dark Chocolate