Okanagancook

It's so sad. Slowly working on the boxes. Weeding and turning over the soil. The rest of the sumac flowers drying in the greenhouse. Maybe our Syrian Family would like some once they are dry.

Just pizza tonight. Italian sausage and caramelized onions . Oh, and red wine.

There are any number of recipes using sumac. Typically used with lamb, chicken, shrimp. Mixed in a yogurt sauce, etc. Just do some googling. Or if you like middle eastern food I highly recommend Persiana the cookbook by Sabrina Ghayour. She has 13 recipes using sumac. I will do some shrimp tonight: Shrimp with Sumac, Cilantro, Lemon and Garlic. Make the marinade: 6 T olive oil, zest of 2 lemons and juice of 1/2 lemon, 2 Tablespoons sumac, 5 garlic cloves sliced thinnly, 20 grams cilantro finely chopped, salt, pepper, 800 grams large shrimp. Marinate the shrimp for about 30 minutes. Shake off the marinade and grill or fry the shrimp. Can't wait.

Well, the processing was way easier than I had envisioned. The yield prediction of 1 cup of sumac seeds to 1 1/2 teaspoons of sumac spice is BS. First picture is my yield, sumac on the left, seeds on the right. The sumac is quite fluffy. It was very easy to separate the seeds from the 'flesh'. Second pic is in the processor. Third pic is the seeds. Fourth pic is the sumac

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! Very good. That was not easy. They are called seeds on most of the websites I visited. Yes, it's sumac. We have numerous plants around the property and I learned last year that they are the kind that can be used for spices...StagHorn. The flower heads are slightly sticky and at this time of the year they don't have a lot of bugs in them. This is a new experience for me. I decided to harvest a few of the fresh looking ones. I stripped the seeds off the flower heads and put them on an Excalibar Dehydrator matt and popped them in the dehydrator at 135 F. I think they should be dry over night. To my surprise, and dismay, one cup of raw sumac seeds will only yield 1 1/2 teaspoons of the sumac spice. I thought it was the seeds that is the spice, but no, it is the covering flesh of the seed that is the spice. So, once they have dried I will put them in a food processor and try to separate the flesh from the seeds. I will put them in a strainer and try to extract as much of the flesh from the seeds as possible. That's the instruction from several websites including Serious Eats. Once I learned about the low yield I went back outside and cut off all the new growth flowers I could reach and have put them in my green house to dry and to allow the bugs to crawl out. Once they are dry then I am sure the seeds will strip away from the flower stem much easier than what I did today with fresh flower heads. Then all I will need to do is put in the food processor, etc. Here is a picture of the fresh flower heads from earlier today.

Nope. hint....it's a Mediterranean spice.

Grape seeds was a good guess considering we have lots of vines. But not correct. The pasta was good but I think I put too much basil in the amount of dough I had. The texture isn't quite right for pasta. We just had a small sample bowl for breakfast. I think they will be fine with a sauce. We just had them with my cultured butter. ElainaA, if you are going to make some, I blanched the basil then chopped it in the food processor until it was fairly finely chopped....not pureed as in a blender. I think if you put two tablespoons of the blanched basil in with 2 cups worth of flour for pasta (and your eggs/egg yolk) that will give it enough flavour without the textural problems I have. You could make a sample batch with 1 cup of flour and 1 tablespoon basil to see how you like it. The bow ties are very easy to make. That was my DH's idea after we worked on the garganelli for awhile he could see it taking a long, long time and seeing he has zero patience he switched to bow ties.

Thank you for the pasta praise! good guesses but it is neither. Thanks for playing

Ok, guess what I am making.

Sous vide lamb loin; grits from the IP; reduced lamb stock/wine/sauce (too much of it) and tomato/green beans/garlic and sauted button mushrooms drizzled with some lemon juice and truffle oil at the end. The grits took 15 minutes HP with Natural Release. Cooked in a bowl. Could have done with another 5 minutes I think.

Harvested all but one of my basil plants. Got a whole big bowl full of leaves. What to do? I have plenty of pesto. I already made basil oil. I have frozen basil in oil from last year still......Pasta! Like spinach only basil. Some hand made shapes and a few piles of spaghetti. My dehydrator was already on with plumbs in it so I put the pasta in for 3 hours and it's perfectly dry.

TFTC, beautiful quote. Thank you.. i love my garden. It gets the morning sun so my favourite place with my morning cuppa- tea is the garden chair over looking the garden. I watch the 'magic' unfold as spring turns to summer and the plants respond to sun, warmth, fertilizer and of course water. Fall is good and bad. The good being the harvesting of root veggies, the final picking of tomatoes, red and green. The bad that it's over for the year. Luckily here I will be back at planting the garlic mid-October and in early March my peas, radish and carrots. So not too long to wait without a garden. The garden is like a good friend...pretty reliable, generous and forgiving for the most part. I do not really have problems with bugs. This year it was rats eating my ripe tomatoes. i feel like I am providing for my family while not farming. Providing high quality vegetables as fresh as you can get while saving money. This is evident when one visits the farmers market and notices the prices. Deserved on behalf of the farmers who toil long and hard to bring their bounty to the market.

sartoric, your meals are always delicious looking!

I agree about boring tuna.

That is one nasty looking salad.

Thanks for posting. Interesting reading. Birds Custard, brings back childhood memories. I think I have a half a canister in the cupboard.

I have had my mandolin for quite a few years and have only slightly cut myself once. The key is your UNDIVIDED ATTENTION ! I also use a small bar towel to put on top of the object being sliced if it is large, like potatoes when slicing for frites. I love my mandolin. I just picked the last of the zucchini so will make your sala for lunch tomorrow. Thanks for sharing.

OMG, that turkey looks fantastic! I can see the moisture on the surface! And do I see zoodles on the plate!?

they are bamboo dinner trays from Bed, Bath and Beyond. We were watching the football in the TV room. The honey lemon vinny as Le Pigeon calls it is an interesting sauce. You put 4 lemons, halved; 4 sprigs of thyme; 3 whole garlic cloves; 2 sliced shallots, 2 tablespoons water, 1 tablespoon cracked black pepper; 1 teaspoon salt; and 1/2 teaspoon chili flakes in a dutch oven and roast at 375F for about 45 min uncovered until the lemons are browned. Remove from oven and press through a chinois. Put the liquid and 1/4c honey in a blender and whiz adding 1/2 c olive oil to emulsify. Delicious. Makes a lot so next time I will half the recipe.

Part of dinner which I forgot to take a picture of. Roasted okra with onion, garlic and mint. From a Gift of Southern Cooking.

Ok, I hope you guys are satisfied! I picked most of them. Left the smaller ones and as soon as I can find some newspaper they are going downstairs in the wine cellar to ripen then I will dry them. We also harvested our buttercup squash, all 13 of them. I already gave away 12. Next year I will be murdering anything that grows out of the compost.

Here are my shell beans before and after shelling. They are beautiful. Some of the smaller ones I will try planting next year. I cooked all three cups that I harvested and made a bean and tomato salad with basil infused oil. They are really, really good. Too bad they don't stay red when cooked.

Grilled Romaine from Le Pigeon Cookbook. The Lemon Vinny was awesome. A side of home grown shell beans with last of the cherry tomatoes and infused basil oil.

Steak, frites and overdone broccoli (from IP). This was from last week.

Correction, NOT on pasta...too preoccupied with NFL. Sorry