|
|
Post by canadamike on Jan 30, 2011 19:48:23 GMT -5
AAAAAHHHHH!!!  Cooking talks in a gardening forum...we need more of that. Atash is right with slightly steaming of veggies before stir frying. It is not necessary with everything, but a GREAT equalizer when you want to mix lots of different stuff together, I do it to the longer ones to cook a lot of time, in chinese bamboo steamers, or with everything if I want to cook stuff at higher temperature to better caramelize them without over cooking. Thanks Atash for the sources of peas with better stems. Pea stems are absolutely delicious, even raw if you want my 2 cents. I guess if I order some peas just for it I will feel less guilty to damage the plant  For some reason, I never can eat them without feeling utherly guilty of damaging the plants. »No need to lecture me on this folks, I know, I know..... I just found, thanks to Atash, a way to circumvent a psychological no-no ;D I will order a better one for stems...maybe the therapy will help me with all of the others for next year If I might add something, small cubes of squash meat are fantastic to counter balance some stronger veggies. Squashes are great in stir frys and we honestly do not take of them enough .... |
|
|
|
Post by littleminnie on Jan 30, 2011 20:55:01 GMT -5
I also don't love greens. I think they water down a stirfry. I do like napa though. Plant transplants early and use a hybrid IMO so it doesn't bolt before reaching full size. I like Rubicon BTW.
Make sure to grow Thai basil!
I have a couple recipe ideas for you. I can't eat dairy and we love Asian food anyway so that is what we usually eat. A simple Thai stirfry is to strfry the meat pieces (shrimp, chicken or tofu I guess) in ginger and garlic and remove. Then add ginger, garlic, and chopped hot pepper like Thai or serrano into the oil. Add whatever veggies you want, the ones that cook longest first. When it might get sticking and burning, add Shaoxing wine or sherry if you can't get to an Asian market. The wine will help cook veggies like carrots or broccoli better. Then mix together sugar and fish sauce and add that. Then right before it is done, put back the meat and add lots of Thai basil and some lime juice. Top with peanuts and serve with jasmine or sticky rice. I think that is it. We eat variations of it every week in summer.
Here is a recipe for greens I came up with:
Braised Bok Choy
Garlic
Hot pepper
Ginger
little sesame oil
1 onion, wedges
1 bok choy, stems (leaves separated)
Saute about 5 min.
Add 1c broth, 2T rice vinegar, 2T soy sauce, 1T brown sugar, 1/2t salt
Braise until tender with lid off, maybe 10 minutes or so. Cut leaves into strips. Then add leaves and stir until they wilt. Season more if desired. Also could sprinkle with sesame seeds.
|
|
|
|
Post by lmonty on Jan 31, 2011 2:54:25 GMT -5
thanks all, lots of ideas here. am enjoying the thread. sent that recipe to my DH, I would love to try it. he's been building up a cabinet full of sauces and condiments and spices and he's a really good cook, so I know when he finally gets to work on this it will be great. he had knee surgery this past friday. was feeling good so overdid it saturday, so now he's back to staying off it for awhile. but it will be great to grow this stuff and use the garden for fresh stir fry and similar recipes. I ordered seeds for a few different things and also hope to get some locally.
|
|
|
|
Post by robertb on Feb 1, 2011 3:32:14 GMT -5
A lot depends on the greens, and the stirfry. Brussels sprouts sliced down the middle can work. I'm wondering about the big cabbage midribs; they might well work if they were finely sliced. Spring greens can be pretty good, in moderation, or their Oriental equivalents.
|
|
|
|
Post by lmonty on Feb 1, 2011 16:06:56 GMT -5
now if i can just figure out how to grow shrimp in my livestock pond....
|
|
|
|
Post by mjc on Feb 1, 2011 17:27:06 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by lmonty on Feb 1, 2011 21:51:39 GMT -5
wow i was kidding- but it does bring to mind a question,
we do have a couple of small farm ponds, one is new and not quite established yet, but the other is a complete ecosystem. stocked a few fish in it last spring and they are hopefully doing well.
anybody ever heard of doing "pond hydroponics"? I'm just kicking around an unformed idea here. like a floating platform with plants that dangle their roots down into the pond....
probably not practical, but would love to brainstorm the idea. if there's a bad drought year, maybe something like that would have an application. especially for tightly spaced high value crops like toms and peppers. weight might be an issue, determinates might get top heavy...but maybe its a way to utilize nutrient rich water that doesn't have to be hauled or moved. our pond is downhill from the garden so gravity isn't our friend in this situation...
but seriously on the shrimp thing- too bad there isnt a way to breed a big enough crayfish to make homescale "farming" of them worthwhile. esp if they can tolerate still ponds water vs, moving streams which we dont have.
|
|
|
|
Post by garnetmoth on Feb 1, 2011 22:15:36 GMT -5
Lmonty- Id suggest starting an aquaponics thread! Alan has some crayfish pondage in the works iirc
|
|
|
|
Post by mjc on Feb 2, 2011 0:34:47 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Feb 2, 2011 7:03:50 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by mjc on Feb 2, 2011 12:57:57 GMT -5
Jo, that's primarily why I think tanks would be better...especially since with the tank you can recycle the water. And I did a little more research and you can adapt some shrimp to fresh water...which would, if you started them in tanks, lessen the impacts. But, if you were growing for your own use, you could grow a lot of shrimp in a 500 gal tank...
But over all...it's not impossible, nor as far-fetched as it first sounds.
|
|
|
|
Post by ottawagardener on Feb 2, 2011 15:00:10 GMT -5
Back to veggies, we've mentioned mustards and garlic chives right? In terms of growing, these are EASY! Garlic chives have survived, in my loving care, drought, flooding, near full shade, full sun in sandy, dry soil, overcrowding, NEGLECT and still did fabulously well. No I don't normally treat my veg that way. They were planted in full sun as a groundcover because they are really good at covering ground - warning. If you want to stop them from self seeding, eat the immature flowerstalks. It's good advice really though I often don't heed good advice like that. However, I had this pot of garlic chives that I had overwintered and forgot about on a shelf in a spare room about 8 feet from a north facing window. It dried out, got chomped on by some sort of soft bodied insect then I finally noticed it and put it outside where it got flooded because of the lack of drainage holes in the pot. Still it lived on. Impressive plant.
Mustard self seeds well in my garden so though it gives a short harvest time, it is a low care addition. Some people don't like that it self seeds abundantly.
I've also grown various chinese cabbages. The open kind tend to do well in cold frames. The large kind are delicious but best if fall grown here.
|
|
|
|
Post by ottawagardener on Feb 2, 2011 15:00:25 GMT -5
Growing shrimp. I love this idea.
|
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Feb 2, 2011 17:03:49 GMT -5
Yea, I like it myself Telsing. Sounds like an awful lot of work though. What about food and waste? Do you have anything about feeding costs? Does the waste have to be composted before being spread? With the salinity of the waste, perhaps you could grow those sea side Italian tomatoes? I don't recall the name of the variety but I do remember they were discussed here on the forum a while back.
A 500 gallon tank? Where would you come up with a toy like that? You would have to be able to deflect rain to maintain the salt content. I still think that the crayfish would be easier and less of an environmental impact. The flavor is very similar as well.
|
|
|
|
Post by garnetmoth on Feb 2, 2011 17:21:07 GMT -5
i LOVE chive flowers, I imagine garlic chive flowers are similarly good. Get them fairly fresh tho, theyll get hard bumps (seeds!) as they age
|
|
