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Gardening: 2016 (midyear)

ElainaA

By ElainaA
in Food Traditions & Culture

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djyee100

djyee100

Posted
Posted

Purslane was trendy here for awhile. I remember eating a purslane salad with grilled salmon at a local restaurant. The citrus flavor in purslane matches seafood well. But I didn't like the texture of purslane, and I haven't cooked with it. This blogger says purslane is common in central Mexican cooking. Her spareribs & purslane stew sure looks good. I bet there are other Mexican dishes where adding purslane would be tasty.

https://hungrysofia.com/2014/08/06/verdolagas-con-costillas-de-puerco/

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Thanks for the Crepes

Thanks for the Crepes

Posted
Posted
On 8/28/2016 at 9:19 AM, Wayne said:

Also due to the conditions this season I've been harvesting a lot of this by-product (what others call a weed). Sorry for the poor focus.

 

 

Purslane.JPG

 

Common Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) and I am unable to convince anyone that this is perfectly edible, tastes great and is a nutritional powerhouse. Anyone else eat and enjoy this?

 

I have grown this plant as Moss Rose, a floral ornamental, and seen a sketched rendition of it in "The Joy of Cooking" under salad greens. It really seems to thrive in hot, dry weather and well-drained soil, which we are not known for in this area with a lot of clay. I have seen in growing in improved soil, and especially raised beds here. I will recognize the weed version now, and try it next time I come across some. Thanks, Wayne.

 

Some think I'm crazy for picking and eating wood sorrel (oxalis) which is considered a weed here too. I like it though. I can see it pairing well with seafood for its bright, sour flavor. This plant is very common here.

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> ^ . . ^ <

 

 

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Martin Fisher

Martin Fisher

Posted
Posted

Lots of purslane and lambsquarters here.

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~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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Smithy

Smithy

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

 

Some think I'm crazy for picking and eating wood sorrel (oxalis) which is considered a weed here too. I like it though. I can see it pairing well with seafood for its bright, sour flavor. This plant is very common here.

 

An organic farmer friend told me years ago that I needn't bother trying to cultivate French sorrel because I could just go out in our woods and pick wood sorrel for the same purpose. I cultivate the French sorrel anyway for convenience; this year it's going very well, some years not so much.  It does very well with fish and with chicken, or just as an interesting addition to a green salad. Wood sorrel might be a good substitute when we're traveling, and be a good foraging exercise.  Thanks for the reminder.

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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ChocoMom

ChocoMom

Posted
Posted

The sun, rain, and fencing have all done wonders for the garden:

There are over 20 Spaghetti squash, lots of crooked neck yellow squash, pie pumpkins - at last count there were 25 I could see, and the lettuce.  The swiss chard WAS doing nicely, until some other beast devoured it two nights ago.  Carrots are missing a few tops, and the beets as well.  I think deer are getting in through the back way, so I must get more fencing. (We put Clover the roaming calf into the "time out" pen- which is really inescapable, so we know its not her. )

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-Andrea

 

A 'balanced diet' means chocolate in BOTH hands. :biggrin:

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Okanagancook

Okanagancook

Posted
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9 hours ago, Smithy said:

 

An organic farmer friend told me years ago that I needn't bother trying to cultivate French sorrel because I could just go out in our woods and pick wood sorrel for the same purpose. I cultivate the French sorrel anyway for convenience; this year it's going very well, some years not so much.  It does very well with fish and with chicken, or just as an interesting addition to a green salad. Wood sorrel might be a good substitute when we're traveling, and be a good foraging exercise.  Thanks for the reminder.

I like sorrel too.  My plant is doing very well this year also.  D. Madison has a recipe for sorrel sauce in her latest book, veggie literacy that I want to make.  She also has a potato sorrel soup recipe where she has you cook the soup without the sorrel and then blend it with sorrel...keeps the sorrel bright.

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Okanagancook

Okanagancook

Posted
Posted

Hi Bhukhhad, nice to see you jumping into Egullet!  Just google sorrel and you will be presented with some great images.  The long light green leaves are what I have.  The variegated leaf sorrel is more for addition to salads.  It has a tart lemon flavour.  Quite unique.  I have had my plant for about eight years and now it has finally settled in.  The more you take leaves off the plant for consumption the better it grows.

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Thanks for the Crepes

Thanks for the Crepes

Posted
Posted (edited)

 

1 hour ago, Okanagancook said:

The long light green leaves are what I have.

 

Is this the plant you are growing?

 

This is the one I was talking about, wood sorrel. Two very different plants, I think.

 

Interesting that so many different plants are called sorrel and they all seem to have a sour taste.

 

I have never seen any type of sorrel for sale either.

Edited by Thanks for the Crepes (log)
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> ^ . . ^ <

 

 

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Smithy

Smithy

Posted
Posted

My garden sorrel is French sorrel, rumex scutatus.  Compare its photo in this Wikipedia article to the photo in the above-linked Wikipedia article for Common or Garden sorrel (rumex acetosa) to see the difference in leaf shape: the French sorrel has leaves with angular bases, and the Common sorrel leaves are more rounded.  Based on their botanical names they seem to be fairly closely related. Wood sorrel seems to have shamrock-style leaves instead, and is an oxalis of some type. Everything I've been able to find says that the oxalis and the rumex aren't closely related, but they both have relatively high oxalic acid content to provide that sour flavor we love.

 

Hmm, I wonder whether that purple shamrock oxalis I have growing in a pot would make a nice salad addition? One web site says it's toxic to pets but they don't bother it. I haven't found anything to suggest that any of the oxalis are toxic to humans, unless the oxalic acid is eaten in too high amounts.

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
Host, eG Forums - nsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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Thanks for the Crepes

Thanks for the Crepes

Posted
Posted

Here's what "The Joy of Cooking" has to say about the oxalic acid in garden sorrel:

 

"It is wonderful in salads, but use it discreetly, both because the flavor can overwhelm and because its concentration of oxalic acid can be mildly toxic in large doses."

 

So many good-tasting plants going by the name of sorrel!

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> ^ . . ^ <

 

 

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huiray

huiray

Posted
Posted
On 8/30/2016 at 10:23 PM, Okanagancook said:

I have never seen it for sale.

 

On 8/30/2016 at 10:43 PM, Thanks for the Crepes said:

I have never seen any type of sorrel for sale either.

 

Both common sorrel types (green and variegated) and rarely French sorrel can be found on occasion in some of the Farmer's Markets in my parts.  Both of the common sorrel types are also grown in rotation sometimes by the hydroponic operations around here (and in Chicago) and in the past I've seen (and got) hydroponic plants from one or two growers here, big fuzzy root balls and all. In some of the conventional Western supermarkets it can on rare occasion also be found, and/or available in those flattish plastic packs of herbs that come out of (usually) California.

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Tere

Tere

Posted
Posted

I have a bank of wood sorrel about 300 yards from the house. Occasionally I pick some for salad (a little goes a VERY long way) but mostly I am too lazy. A leaf or two is a favourite snack when walking to the end of the land to check things.

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Tere

Tere

Posted
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Love it! :D

 

Mine have a case of the yellow leaves so they got a good water last night and a good feed tonight. I am a bad mother when it comes to watering plants, tis true....

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ChocoMom

ChocoMom

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@Shelby That made me giggle.  Our painter left his truck unlocked while he was working at our house. I left a pile of zucchini and yellow crooked neck squash on his car seat, then booked it into the back 40 to hide. xD      Spaghetti squash  and pumpkins will be next. 

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-Andrea

 

A 'balanced diet' means chocolate in BOTH hands. :biggrin:

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Anna N

Anna N

Posted
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23 minutes ago, cakewalk said:

Wow. I always thought the squash-in-the-unlocked-car stuff was an urban legend, (Or rural legend, I guess.) If I had a car, I'd drive it to your neck of the woods and leave it unlocked with the trunk wide open!

I'd race you there. 

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Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

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