Great Expectations
Change your perspective, not necessarily your garden
It’s enough to make you quit gardening. After all your work growing cilantro, it bursts happily into flower. And then it goes to seed.
What I crave and want are delicate green cilantro leaves, so I buy special “slow-bolt” varieties from Seedy Saturdays and various suppliers. But, as my tomatoes turn red in the greenhouse, the cilantro blooms and busts out into seed, a process gardeners call “bolting.” The lovely big cilantro leaves become thin, spidery wisps. There is no turning back a bolting plant.
But according to Andrew Hewson, chef and culinary instructor at SAIT, cilantro gone to seed has loads of potential. I interviewed him recently about his garden at SAIT, and he mentioned the positives of green cilantro seed. And that got me thinking.
Innovative, unexpected uses for edibles are all around us.
Instead of dwelling on our dashed garden expectations, we can instead pretend that we planned to serve blooming bok choy, holey kale and green cilantro seeds.
Tiny Roasted Beets
If you forgot to thin your beets and carrots, they will be smaller than expected. Thin them now and eat the tiny roots.
When I roasted my one-cm-wide beet thinnings the other night, I left a two-cm piece of stem on them, drizzled on some oil, sprinkled on some sea salt and roasted them for 30 minutes in a tiny glass dish, stirring occasionally. The stems turned out crunchy like french fries and the beets were tender. Delicious.
After serving the thinned beets or carrots in a gourmet dinner, remember to water the remaining plants
so they will size up by fall.
Bok Choy and Broccoli Gone to Flower
The trouble with all my travelling is that I never seem to be in the right garden at the right time.
My husband, bless him, is very hands off when it comes to gardening. He will water if given strict instructions, but he rarely checks on anything else. This is why I often come home to bolted bok choy and broccoli.
This neglect actually helped me to discover that the elongated stems as well as the tiny yellow flowers on these cabbage relatives are a delight in a stir-fry dish.
Holes in Kale
Early in the season, flea beetles eat tiny holes in young kale. Even though the beetles move on and the newer leaves are holefree, half the plant will be “ruined” — unless you live in Europe. A gardening chef told me that in European kitchens, chefs pay extra for kale with tiny holes because it identifies the kale as organic. What a great perspective.
No Veggies, No Problem
Nasturtiums produce lovely climbing or trailing flowers, and their blooms are fully edible and peppery. Once again, Hewson added to my knowledge by telling me he eats nasturtium leaves. They will float on a bowl of soup like a lily pad, and the large leaves are a good composed salad base. Our mothers all made tossed salads, but a composed salad with a nasturtium-leaf base is quite different.
Flower farmer Patty Bretin (http://www.bretins.com) encourages her chef clients to use the ornamentals in the organically grown flower baskets she delivers to their hotels.
Begonia petals or individual blooms from white basil add flavour to the Banff Rimrock and downtown Calgary Hyatt plates. Reader’s Garden Cafe (http:// www.readersgardencafe.ca) uses chive flowers from the rock garden on salads. In my kitchen, I use the accidental blooms on my onion flowers. Yes, I know I am not supposed to leave onions in the ground over the winter, but I did. And now, instead of producing even bigger onion bulbs the second year, like ornamental onions would, the vegetable onions are all soft and soggy and have burst into blooms.
I clip the big, bold blooms and use them to scent salads and decorate quiches to celebrate the happy accident of onions left in the ground.
In August, when it is too late to let any more pumpkins form, I will start clipping off the flowers from my great pumpkin patch and use them in soups and for stuffing. Like a cabbage roll, the great, big pumpkin flowers no longer needed in late summer can be stuffed and baked.
Seeds From Our Gardens
Gardeners know sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds can be roasted and served in numerous ways, but who knew that the green seed pods on nasturtiums were edible fresh or could be pickled as a caper substitute? And what about those saved green cilantro seeds suddenly in such great supply? Hewson says, “It is unbelievable — there is a totally unexpected flavour. We use them for marinades and dressings. The trick is to pick them and (use or) freeze them right away.”