Garden Report Jan. 5, 2012

If you are trying to get more vegetables into your diet, the best way is to grow your own. Not only will they be fresh with better nutrient values, but they just taste better. Fresh vegetables are better in any recipe. You can grow most vegetables in pots if you don't have space for a large garden. Gardening is also a great hobby!

 Garden gnome from my friend, Char watches over my vegetables!

I've always enjoyed gardening. I remember as a 5 year old, visiting our neighbor in Escondido, California who had a wonderful garden. He allowed my siblings and I to pick cherry tomatoes off of his plants, and we'd pop them in our mouths. Delicious! Perhaps that is when I caught the gardening bug!?

I have a year round container garden. Here is how the plants are looking as of today:

These are beets. I have two pots of beets and they are doing very well. I might clip some of the greens for our stir fry tonight. I am so tempted to pull up a plant and see if I have any actual beets.

Swiss chard. I love this stuff. Great for smoothies and in stir fry. I will definitely be clipping some of this for tonight's dinner.

Peas. I have 2 pots of peas. Since the garden is covered in plastic, I think that these took a bit of a hit. Too hot under there. I took the plastic off for the day. Temps are in the 60's daytime and low 30's nighttime. Fortunately, they are making a come back.

Here are the sunflower greens I'm growing in the kitchen. I love sunflower greens. Awesome taste and so nutritious! They are delicious on salads, sandwiches and scrambled eggs.

This is a picture of the black oil sunflower seeds I get from Sprout People. 

Red Curry Salmon Chowder

I found this recipe in one of those freebie magazines that you get at the health food store. The name of the magazine is Delicious Living.  This soup certainly was delicious! This is one of the best recipes I have tried out in a while.

Red Curry Salmon Chowder

Serves 4 
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes

1 TBSP coconut oil
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 TBSP Thai red curry paste
1 TBSP grated fresh ginger
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small red Fresno pepper, sliced
1 (14 ounce) can light coconut milk
1-2 cups low sodium vegetable or fish stock
2 tsp low-sodium fish sauce
2 tsp honey
1 pound skinless salmon fillet, cut into large chunks
2 small heads (1/2 pound each) bok choy, thinly sliced crosswise
1/2 cup basil leaves, thinly sliced crosswise
1/2 c. cilantro leaves and thin, tender stems
2 large limes, cut into wedges

Heat the coconut oil in a medium-large saucepan; cook onion and mushrooms for 3-5 minutes, until just softened.

Stir in curry paste, ginger, garlic and Fresno pepper; cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in coconut milk, stock, fish sauce, and honey; bring to a boil and add salmon and bok choy. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 3-6 minutes (depending on salmon thickness), until bok choy is tender.

Divide  among four bowls, sprinkle with basil and cilantro, and serve with lime wedges on the side.

377 cal, 29g fat (6 sat), 5 gm protein, 23 gm carb, 4 gm fiber and 211 mg sodium

How it all went down:

The recipe called for a pound of skinless salmon fillet, but I couldn't find any wild salmon at the stores yesterday, and I went to FIVE stores (ugh) to find it. No basil in any of those same stores. So we didn't have that as a garnish for the soup. As far as the salmon was concerned, I purchased canned wild salmon, and it was a good substitution. My son suggested for the next time I make it, that I add more salmon! OK, yes, this is my son that has always eaten fish and has loved it since he was little. But, a little more salmon isn't a bad idea if you are using canned. I'd use two cans of salmon in the future.

I also couldn't find a Fresno pepper, which is hotter than a jalepeno. None of the stores had fresh jalepenos either. All bought out. It was New Year's Eve after all. I should have planned ahead.
So, instead, I just used the red bell pepper that was in my refrigerator. It made for a milder soup. Fortunately, I had everything else on hand. The key to preparing any recipe is that it is OK to make a substitution here and there! Regardless, we will definitely make this again.

Whole Grain Cereal cooked in Crockpot

Last night I decided to cook some whole grains for today's breakfast. Slow cooked whole grain cereal may have been the breakfast of champions before processed, boxed cereal came on the scene. That was many years ago though, and now, many people think that hot cereal consists of just oatmeal or cream of wheat.

There are a few ways of going about cooking hot cereal with whole grains.

I decided to cook my cereal in a crock pot. If your crock pot doesn't run hot, you can probably just put the pot on low, and your cereal will be cooked in the morning. Mine runs hot, even on low, so after 3-4 hours, my cereal was finished. I just put it into glass storage containers and into the fridge once it cooled. The picture below is after it had been refrigerated overnight and I had scooped a portion out. I ended up with about 8 cups of cooked cereal.

This morning, I added a little water to 2/3 cup cooked cereal and microwaved mine to heat it up for about 1 minute. Perfect!

Another method is to cook the cereal in a covered casserole in your oven overnight. It can bake at about 150* to 200* overnight. Don't sleep in though, or you may have overcooked (hard) cereal!

From the old LDS Cannery Cookbook, there is a recipe for using 1 cup of whole wheat (or other grain), and adding 2 cups of boiling water to it in a thermos (with a little salt), and storing it overnight. I am sure this would be a bit on the chewy side!

Here is the recipe I used last night:

1/2 c. quinoa (Bob's Red Mill-prewashed)
1/2 c. hard red winter wheat
1/2 c. oat groats
1/2 c. pearl barley

quinoa top left, wheat top right, oat groats bottom left, pearl barley bottom right

I combined all of the grains in the crock pot with 4 1/2 cups of water and 1/2 tsp salt. I added another cup of water after about 3 1/2 hours of cooking on low.  I think that erring on the side of extra water won't hurt at all. I unplugged the crock pot after about 4 1/2 hours, and it was perfectly cooked. You can use any combination of whole or cracked grains with this recipe, and even cut it in half if you have a smaller crock pot. The ratio is 1/2 c. grain to 1- 1 1/2 c. water.

I served my cereal with Greek yogurt and blueberries for breakfast. Delish!

Here is a close-up of the cooked cereal:

Growing Microgreens

Microgreens are a quick way to grow delicious produce from your garden or kitchen.  They are grown from radish, cabbage, beet, and other greens. They usually take about 10 days to grow, and are cut off when they reach 2-3 inches just above the soil line.

(picture courtesy of Sunset.com)

I wanted to share an excellent video with you on growing microgreens. I found it on YouTube, and it is  by a company who grows microgreens for sales to restaurants and farmer's markets in their area. I think that the principles of growing can be used for home production as well.

The one type of microgreens that I love to grow are sunflower greens. They are so tasty.

I buy my microgreens seed from sproutshop. I've used sunflower greens for many years. Here is a recipe that I posted back in 2008 for sprout burgers using sunflower greens.

Winter Container Garden 2011-2012

Another Winter, another container garden! I am really hoping to start tearing up my back yard in February and begin putting together my raised bed garden. I think I will get better yield from my plants with the raised bed garden.

However, what I have currently are a half dozen very large pots that contain Swiss Chard, Beets and Peas.  Here is one of the pots of beets. I will be using the beet greens in a stir fry this week. I like using the beets in smoothies.

I have Swiss Chard planted in several pots, by itself and along with other vegetables.

The lighting is a little strange because all of these pots are in a mini greenhouse of sorts that I created. This is last year's set up. This year I have a larger space.

Here in Southern Utah, our day time temps in the Winter are in the 50's and the evening temps are in the 20's to 30's. The plastic greenhouse allows me to grow all kinds of crops such as Swiss Chard, Spinach, Kale, Bok Choy and Peas. I haven't tried lettuce in my green house, but I'm starting some from seed this week, and I'll pot some up here in a few weeks. I'm also starting more spinach.

Portobello Mushrooms with Chicken and Spinach

Portobello Mushrooms with Chicken and Spinach

Looking for a delicious dish that you can indulge yourself with that will not ruin your healthy eating habits? I created this recipe using ingredients that were in my refrigerator, and now it is one of my favorites! It is easy to prepare and so nutritious.

First, here are the ingredients that I used:

Grated carrots, diced cooked chicken, diced mini portobello mushrooms (Costco purchase), baby spinach......

and Tomato Basil  Dressing from Whole Foods. You can find it in the refrigerator section of the store. 

I used about 8 oz. of mushrooms and diced them. I put 1 tsp of olive oil in the pan to saute them and then added the grated carrot.

Next, add the chicken. Since this is one serving I'm making, I measured out 2 ounces of chicken...and yes, I used a kitchen scale!

Once the chicken has been in the pan and is heated up, I put in the spinach. I put my cast iron skillet on the pan as a cover, and let the spinach steam for a minute or so.

Sprinkle some grated cheese on top. It not only tastes great, but it looks yummy as well!

Close up!  I have tried other no oil dressings such as the Fig Balsamic Dressing, but I really like the Tomato Basil Dressing the best. You could use fresh basil and a little tomato paste from a tube and a few other herbs if you don't have the Tomato Basil Dressing. Enjoy!

Calorie Count:  375 calories and no regrets!

Portobello mushrooms, 8 oz           60 calories
1 Tsp. Olive Oil                              40 calories
1  carrot, grated                               25  calories
2  oz. chicken, cubed                      110 calories 
1/3 c. mozzarella cheese, grated      110 calories
1 c. baby spinach                             10 calories
Tomato Basil Dressing, 2 TB          20 calories

Healthy Turkey Chili

I decided to try another one of Dr. Amen's recipes from the "The Daniel Plan."  You can find the main dish recipes here.  For the Healthy Turkey Chili recipe, scroll down the page a bit.

First of all, just know that browning lean ground turkey is nearly impossible without a bunch of oil.  I went ahead and did the best I could(with a spray of oil) before just adding the remaining ingredients. After all, it will cook while simmering in the tomatoes. This recipe calls for pureeing part of the vegetables, but I decided to just add everything diced.  The flavor was very good.

Here is a picture of the finished product:

This is a cross between a soup and a stew, or as Rachel Ray calls it, a stoop.  Very delicious!

I think that the next time around I will go ahead and puree part of the vegetables. I have a red pepper soup recipe I enjoy that purees the veges, and it tastes great.

By the way, I used canned tomatoes in the recipe. I had a can of Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes and a can of Hunts diced tomatoes, and it turned out fine. I also used 1 can of kidney beans (drained and rinsed) and a can of black beans (drained and rinsed). It called for 2 c. of kidney beans and 1 c. of black beans, which is 3 cups total. I think that is about what you get from 2 cans of beans.