Summer Bounty Recipes

May not be many students around over the summer, but that hasn’t stopped our school gardens from performing. Corn is high, tomatoes are plump, cucumbers are fat, peppers are turning color, pole beans are still producing, and zucchinis are abundant.

Two recipes to utilize all this goodness are included below.

1) Black Bean and Quinoa Salad is courtesy of the Los Angeles County Nutrition Program. Be sure to check out their healthy recipes/cookbooks page and their onsite cookbook of healthy, low-fat, easy to prepare, ethnically inspired recipes (in both spanish and english.)

Ingredients:
½ cup quinoa
1 cup water
1 cup corn
2 scallions chopped
½ cup tomatoes
½ cup green peppers (or red)
1 can black beans drained and rinsed
2 Tbs olive oil
2 Tbs lemon juice
1 clove garlic
2 Tbs cilantro chopped
salt and pepper to taste

optional:
1 cup chopped zucchini
Grilled Shrimp chopped
Grilled Chicken chopped

Soak quinoa for five minutes then drain. Bring water to boil and add quinoa. Lower flame to barely simmer, cover, and cook until all of the water is absorbed (20-30 minutes). Let cool. Mix the remaining ingredients in a bowl and mix well. (Note: bulgar can easily be substituted for quinoa).

2) California Tabboulleh is a variation on traditional tabbouleh.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup bulgar (medium size)
1 cup stock or boiling water
1 lb tomatoes
1/2 cup green onion
1 can black beans
1 cup corn
2-3 cups cilantro
2 jalapeno peppers diced (rib and seeds removed)
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. salt if using water
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup citrus (lemon, lime and orange combination)
1/4 cup olive oil

optional:
Queso Fresco or mild Feta Cheese
Avocado
1 cup chopped cucumber
1 cup chopped red pepper

Pour 1 cup boiling water over bulgar and allow bulgar to soften while you prepare the other ingredients. Chop tomatoes and leave in a colander to drain. Chop onion, cilantro and pepper. Rinse black beans. Drain and discard excess liquid from bulgar.

Toss bulgar, tomatoes, onion, cilantro, corn and beans. Dress with citrus juice and olive oil. Season to taste. It’s best prepared a couple of hours or more ahead of serving to allow flavors to develop. (Note: quinoa can easily be substituted for bulgar).

Feel free to alter ingredients and measures according to taste and harvest.

Green Bean Harvest

Green beans (aka string beans or snap beans) are one of our earliest spring harvests.  Seed to table is usually about 60 days.

We are currently harvesting both bush beans and pole beans.  The difference between the two being: bush beans mature all at once while pole beans mature over a longer period of time. Additionally, bush bean plants are usually no more than 18” tall, while pole beans grow as a vine and can reach heights of 10-12 feet (hence the name, the pole is used for support, all pole beans should be grown on a trellis.)

For those with year round gardens think about doing at least two or three  plantings, stagger the sowing, and you’ll have fresh green beans all summer.

To collect green beans seeds for next year allow some of your green beans to
stay on the vine till they appear dry and brittle . Collect the seeds and then store in a cool dry place.

One of my favorite ways of preparing green beans is the roasting method. See Roasted Green Beans recipe from kidscooking.about.com

For more green bean recipes please see the following:
1) GreenBeansNMore.com

2) 4 Fresh Recipes for Green Beans from Eating Well.com

3) 4080 ways to cook green beans from Cooks.com

Coriander Harvest

Its called cilantro when we harvest its leaves, and coriander when we use its seeds.

Being an annual, it’s one of those plants we get to witness a complete life cycle.

It was originally planted in the fall, bolted in winter, flowered, went to seed and now ready for the seeds to be harvested.

Collect the seeds for the following September and we’ll never again have to worry about buying cilantro seeds.

School Garden News – Arizona

School’s gardening way yields national attention

By Rhonda Bodfield, arizona daily star, azstarnet.com

Primary school teacher Molly Reed can cook, but she’s no Rachael Ray in the kitchen.

So imagine her surprise to be flying to New York as a special guest on the cookbook queen’s daytime television show.

Reed herself brought the limelight to Borton Primary Magnet School, even though she jokes that she’s now appealing to her principal for help in picking an outfit for her national debut.

She sent an e-mail to Ray last fall, explaining how the school’s community garden is being used to tackle poor nutrition and obesity at Borton, 700 E. 22nd St.

The school, which has a focus on inquiry-based project learning, long has incorporated some small gardens into the curriculum. In fact, by Principal Teri Melendez’s count, there are a dozen gardens at Borton, most of them small plots belonging to specific classes.

Last year, Reed had a class garden, which culminated in a harvest celebration, including a stir-fry using the veggies they’d grown. She was there to guide their first experience with tofu.

Inspired, she successfully wrote a grant and the new schoolwide garden was built with community muscle, technical expertise from the Community Food Bank and a lot of soaking and digging, digging and soaking.

Although a run date hasn’t yet been determined, the film crew already spent a day out at the school late last month, capturing the students in the garden and as they ran the occasional farmer’s market where students washed, packaged and sold their harvest, including lettuce, arugula, radishes and broccoli.

Their last effort sold out in two days and brought in $60, which helps support the garden.

Students improve literacy by writing factoids about each plant — carrots, for example, apparently come in seven colors. The project also helps teach math, with students adding purchases, making change, weighing vegetables and charting growth.

There are a million lessons to be taught. They’re learning that just because eggs are blue or brown doesn’t mean they’re rotten; that the tall leaves are clues to unearthing carrots with a little heft; and how to harvest broccoli — which, if you’ve ever seen it grow, is a legitimate question.

A confessed “chocoholic,” second-grader Alexandra Holiman said her family subscribes to Ray’s magazine, which she finds amusing because there’s a recipe every month for folks who cook for their canines.
Fortunately, she’s also a carrot-snacker, which is why she likes harvesting. “They’re really sweet. They are so good I want to eat them all.”

The new project is an extension of the school’s overall focus on good health.

Two years ago, the school started offering salads with nonfat dressing as a lunch choice.

It has a walking club and schoolwide jump-roping in the morning.

“We want children to know what’s healthy for them so that they can make good choices as they go through life,” Melendez said.

Reed’s students have an even clearer picture of how food affects health. She won a mini-grant last year to set up a student-powered bicycle generator to show students how it takes energy to make energy.

Initially only able to pedal about 10 seconds because of the high levels of friction, they learned about how they need to eat well to be strong. On Monday, one student pedaled for 280 seconds.

Second-grader Allie Tucker attributed some of the growth to the garden. “Sometimes, we eat from there, and the vegetables help make our bones strong.”

Reed said breakfast for her students at the beginning of the year all-too-often consisted of sugary cereals or hot cheese puffs. But after months of sampling the edible plants and herbs grown in the garden, she’s seen a big change.

“I never thought I’d hear a 7-year-old say, ‘I love chard,’ or ‘I prefer kale over greens.’ “

Summer Harvest – Zucchini Recipes

Its not quite fair that summer harvest begins at the close of school. We got our first cherry tomatoes a week before school ended, but no heirlooms, no corn either. Fortunately some of our school gardens are accessible year round and currently zucchini and squash are plentiful.

Try these zucchini/pasta recipes for those who like their pasta both healthy and flavorful. Enjoy!

Zucchini and Pasta 1
Boil water and cook pasta (use whatever kind you like: fusilli, penne, linguini, whatever). Sauté sliced zucchini with garlic, onions and basil in olive oil until softened. Place in Cuisinart and pulse until chunky. Salt and pepper to taste. Mix with cooked pasta and top with grated Parmigiano or Pecorino cheese.

Zucchini and Pasta 2
Sauté sliced zucchini with garlic, olive oil, hot red pepper flakes, and fresh mint. Place in Cuisinart and pulse until chunky. Salt and pepper to taste. Toss with cooked pasta. Top with grated Parmigiano or Pecorino cheese.

Week 36 – Spring Harvest and Planting Peanuts

We had out first spring harvest this week: round 8-ball squash the size of tennis balls, dark green zucchinis with flowers still intact and tender green beans that also grew yellow and purple (anything colorful is always a big hit).

With only five weeks left in the school year it is too late to start anything new (though you probably could squeeze in a crop of radishes or lettuce). However for school gardens with year round access we’re just getting to the sweet spot. We’re planting heat lovers like tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and peanuts. Peanuts? I never grew them before, I couldn’t resist.

Last week I’m at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market and I happened upon Hayward Organic Gardening’s stall of vegetable seedlings. They were selling peanuts in 4” containers for $3.00 (Note: 3 to a container, if you’re careful with transplanting, that’s only a buck a piece, and you do want to separate them). Peanuts need a lot of room to grow (I’ve seen recommendations for spacing at 18” apart in rows 3ft apart) and they need a lot of time to grow (Days to Maturity is 130-140).

If someone didn’t tell me these were peanuts I’d swear they were peas. Botanically speaking they are more pea than nut. Nuts grow on trees, peanuts grow in pods which then get submerged into the soil where they remain until harvest. A member of the Legume family, they are a close relative of black-eyed peas. Can’t wait to watch them develop.

For more about the peanut see:
1) Growing Peanuts in the Home Garden – Iowa State University
2) The Incredible Peanut – Southern Illinois University

3) Can’t talk about peanuts without mentioning George Washington Carver.
Read about his life and legacy (also from Iowa State University)

Weeek 27 – Late Winter Harvest

Next week is spring break. Make sure watering issues are addressed while you’re away. In the meantime, we are currently harvesting: beets, chard, kale, carrots, cabbage, fava beans, broccoli side shoots, and fennel. Did you know kale is one of the healthiest vegetables you can eat? Read this article Kale: The Phytonutrient Master and start adding some kale to your diet. FYI, we’re growing the dinosaur kale (aka Black Tuscan Cabbage).