A Daikon Radish A Day

A Daikon Radish a day...will keep your friends from answering the phone, once you start to have an avalanche of them. Luckily, I have a secret weapon:

Roasted Daikon Radish Fries

Cut into 1/4-1/3 strips
marinate in olive oil with a shake or two of cinnamon, curry powder, cayenne pepper and a teaspoon or so of honey.
Roast at 425 for about 10 mins each side.

Yum on!


It's an amazing vegetable. Like the boniato, they like sandy soil. The beets didn't do well at all in the boulevard, but the onions did okay. Along the left edge of the boulevard is a weed called Virginia Pepperweed, sometimes, Poor Man's Pepper. Early settlers used it as a pepper alternative. I always let some come up. It's also a host plant for the Great Southern White butterfly.


Sandy, barely improved soil, they thrived in it. I planted one variety that grew to the size and shape of a football.

Didn't You Ask For Fish Chard?

This isn't the first time I've tried gardening since moving to Sarasota in 2001. In fact, it's really kind of the 4th. The first time we built 6'x6' raised beds. In hindsight, I didn't improve the soil enough for the types of things I was trying, didn't water enough, a whole mass of factors. I eventually gave up and the tallest grass you ever saw took over. It was luxurious. But eventually my next door neighbor complained about snakes and it was time to go. [We do have snakes in this neighborhood--the eastern glass lizard [quiet a surprise when it drops its tail], teensy ring-necked snakes [extra fun to bring in the house], black racers [too big for cat snacks but loads of fun to chase]--but the grass wasn't the sole reason :) ]

I did however manage to produce enough swiss chard to serve it as a side dish for Thanksgiving dinner to my family. I took a bite--this didn't taste quite right. I looked around the table. Similarly perturbed expressions. "It tastes...like...fish?" said my brother-in-law, Robert. Indeed it did. I had been using fish oil----mostly unsuccessfully--to keep the bugs off. I think that was the end of gardening round one.



Oils as a whole are tough to use in Florida. Sun cooks the leaves. I've since learned to use Garlic Barrier [the recommend every 10 days, in Southwest Florida in the summer you need to use it weekly] and Conserve Electrolyte when the army worms come out [which pretty much only bother the chard and the mustard and mostly in the summer.] And YES! You can grow Swiss Chard in the summer. While I've successfully grown them in containers, they like they're morning-sun-only raised bed better. The chard in the picture above is 18 months old.

Why the green netting? To keep the kitty-cats from using the raised beds as litter boxes.



Happy chard in the afternoon shade! [That's one of my 10 rain barrels on the far left. Yes, I can get a tad excessive but I've never used city water for garden 4.0.]

If you've never cooked chard use it like spinach. Saute a little olive oil, a little garlic, maybe some red pepper flakes, and then the chard until limp. Put it in eggs, soups. Here's a few favorite recipes.

Chard [subsituted for escarole] and beans

Chard Chicken Parmesan Soup Recipe
[Based on a Suzanne Sommers recipe I can no longer find.]

• In a big pot saute you up some onions.
• Put in a mid-size chicken in [3.5-4lbs]
• Add water to cover the chicken [basically you're making chicken stock]
• Add a handful of parmesan cheese rinds. As I get down to the rinds, I keep it in the freezer until I make this soup. The rind will get jelly-like and flavor the soup wonderfully.
  
• Cook until the meat falls off the bones.
• Let cool a bit, then strain out the chicken bones and skin and gunk. Leave the rinds in. Return the meat to the pot.
• Add the juice from two lemons.
• Bring up to a simmer, and add a bunch of swiss chard. Remember, it will really diminish as it wilts. I figure at least 4 chopped loosely packed cups per person. I often add more at the end.
• Beat 4 egg together. Pour the eggs in as you stir the soup. Voila!

Like the radish greens recipe, this freezes great.

I would guess this makes about 10 servings of soup. You could add rice, serve with a nice crusty bread, etc. A little salt and pepper to taste.



[Haley is done with this swiss chard discussion, although she maintains some interest in the chicken soup.]

How Much Of What?

Almost everything I make is subject to interpretation and generally messing around with. Paprika Shrimp? That paprika sauce is great with eggplant and tofu too. But here is what I generally mean by ingredient quantities and cooking.

Onions
I generally figure 1/2 an onion per person per portion. So a meal for two? At least one medium to large onion. I personally don't believe you can have TOO much onion. Since I'm using green onions and the sizes range figure one loosely packed cup for the same.

Cooking Onions
Unless I say caramelized [which is harder to do when using veggie broth, but you can add honey at the end of the saute] you can cook the onions to your preference. Less cooking=more texture. I generally cook 'em down pretty well.

Veggie Broth
An excellent substitute for oil for most sauteing. How much? Coat the bottom of your pan, add more if it seems you need to. Srsly, trust the force Luke, you can do this.

Oil
Again, unless I specify, to your preference and/or what the instance calls for. For instance, pesto going on bread as a dip requires a little more oil, pesto going on pasta, less. I find most pesto recipes call for a scary amount of oil and I don't generally use that much.

Garlic
Go light on raw garlic when adding to recipes. I once added 6 cloves of raw garlic to Ayo Blanco soup. Man, that was garlicky! Cooked garlic really mellows out though and you can safely add 2-4 very large cloves to almost any of my recipes.

In large part--in cooking like in art and like in gardening--I let me intuition guide me. Not very intuitive? Here's a really interesting book with concrete exercises about hearing your intuition better. Everyone has it--just not everyone listens to it.

Is That A Radish In Your Pocket? Part III

So Ginormous.

Okay one more recipe. A common use for Daikon Radish is in stir fries and you can find recipes all over the net. But another common way I use it is:

Paprika Shrimp Recipe
takes about 20 mins.

• Put a bunch of olive oil in a pan. How much? It depends upon how many people you plan on feeding. I just made approximately 8 servings of this and used a 1/3 cup of oil. In other recipes I recommend substituting veggie broth for olive oil, but not for this one. I've tried it, and it dilutes the paprika taste.
• Take several spoonfulls of good, Spanish paprika. [Srsly, you can get a tin of really great paprika for under $5.00 here . For this recipe I like the smoked sweet because I'm adding bitter in the form of mustard leaves later] Again, how much? For 1/3 cup of oil maybe 4 heaping teaspoons? The resulting mix should be a nice, consistent, dark red. It shouldn't look like olive oil with something in it. It should look like a red sauce.
  
• Paprika, like cumin, is a sauce that really needs to be heated to release it's flavor. I usually heat for 5 mins, then I add onions. Add about 4 tablespoons of honey. Cook the onions at a high simmer to low boil for 5-10 mins.
• Add you some mustard greens and stir! When it gets too hot in the summer for the mustard to survive I've used swiss chard but I like mustard greens better. How many? It hugely depends on the type of mustard leaves. I grow about 9 months out of the year Florida broadleaf mustard [also known as Indian Mustard and leaf mustard]. It's way more tender and mellow than the curly, tough mustard you generally get in the grocery store, and, like swiss chard or spinach, wilting greatly decreases it's volume. Figure on four chopped, loosely packed cups per person. For the tough type? Halve it and see what you get. [I highly recommend growing you some mustard. It's dead easy.]
  
• Salt [a little] and pepper
  
• At this point I usually wilt the greens for about 2 minutes and decide if the sauce needs water. It usually does and I add a cup, maybe two. I often add more paprika at this point too.
  
• Add some frozen shrimp. I usually figure two handfuls of shrimp per person. [Yes, I do have measuring instruments in this house but it's just not me.]
• By the time the shrimp are heated through and have released their little shrimp juices you are ready!
  

Serve with rice and a nice crusty bread for sopping up the sauce.

Sage Advice

Sage is another plant you can grow year round in Southwest Florida. Srsly, you can! They just want watered frequently in the summer. While such an lovely, aromatic plant for a long time I just couldn't figure out what to do with it. Most recipes are as a flavoring for meat dishes and for a variety of reasons there's just not that much meat in our household anymore.

Another favorite paring is with butternut squash, but again, if you are eating locally in Florida butternut squash just isn't available that often. So, what was the solution? After some research I came across Sage Pesto. If you do a Google search you'll come across several variations, but here is my own.

Sage Pesto Recipe
2-3 cups of sage leaves
olive oil to your preference
2-3 garlic cloves to your preference
salt [lightly] & pepper
1/4 cup pine nuts or so [you can also use almonds or walnuts for different variations]

I know I'm not specific on measurements, but I mix and taste and adjust.

Let me tell you--this is one spectacular pesto. Good on bread and pasta [if you are going to add some cheese to the pasta, I'd use grated Asiago]. It's often paired with butternut squash because it's sweet. So, if you substitute sweet vegetable for squash, realistically you can pair it with any caramelized vegetable. I'll confess for company I do sometimes pair it with butternut squash ravioli. But at least the pasta is made locally!

Another favorite sage recipe: Sage, onion and pine nut pizza. I order a plain cheese pizza with no sauce from our local delivery guys, top it with sage, green onions and pine nuts, put it under the broiler until the toppings are browned, voila!

Fried sage leaves are also spectacular but I cringe a bit at fried.


Magic wonders why more people don't heed the wisdom of cats. Spend a lot of time outdoors running around, balanced by long naps in the sun, and snuggles. [Sage advice, remember?]

Green onion recipes

[gay pizza boy thinks fondly of green onions]

To keep my locavore cred I substitute green onions for regular onions in almost everything I cook.

There are also lots of recipes using green onions themselves specifically, but not too many featuring just the vegetable. So here are two:

Braised green Onions Recipe [from BonAppegeek via All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking]
Stuff a dish with as many green onions as you can, with a little butter and water (stock will muddy the delicate flavors), some chopped tarragon or parsley, salt, Bake, tightly covered, at 350 for 40 minutes. Remove the lid, increase the heat to 450 and roast until most of the liquid evaporates, shaking the pan now and then. Season with salt, black pepper, and lemon juice. This is a lot like wilting spinach, or chard, and will greatly reduce the volume.

Green Onion Pesto Recipe
Saute say, two bunches of green onions until cooked . Throw 'em in blender with one or two cloves of garlic to taste, enough olive oil for right pesto consistency and add about a quarter cup of pine nuts [again, to your taste]. Add salt and pepper. After cooking a raw food meal for a friend once [no dairy] I realized you don't really need the parmesan cheese for pesto.