Garden herbs used on Pi Day
Great to see our herbs being used more in Sodexo events! Check out the mint, lemon balm and basil used in the pie day recipes!
Lovely Laksa
“So if we are Incredible EDIBLE, perhaps we ought to cook more with our own produce?” was the question Roye raised at our last reflection session. The challenge was on, and Roye and Christian set to work finding recipes that used stuff we grew in the garden. They found two recipes: for Pandan Pancakes and Vegetarian Laksa.
Last week we booked the food tech labs and arrived at the lab, clutching ingredients from the supermarket and fresh produce from our own garden: laksa leaves, pandan leaves, chillies, and limes.
It quickly emerged that we did not have all the ingredients we needed (due to a mis communicaiton around the shopping list) and so despite a valiant attempt to retrieve eggs from the boarding house by Henry, we sadly decided to ditch the Pandan plan (the dodgy looking pandan juice and sugar water went down the drain).
Instead we focused on the Laksa. Many valuable lessons were learned in this session:
- Noodles actually taste nice no matter what you do to them
- Read the recipe carefully – 3 cm of ginger is not the same as 3 sticks of ginger
- Too many cooks really do spoil the broth, but its a lot more fun when all the cooks are cooking together
- Preparation before you start to cook makes all the difference
- The Incredible Edible Wednesday group really know how to work as a team
I wont pretend that it was the best Laksa we had ever had, but it was one of our best sessions ever and I was proud of the team and how much fun we were able to have even when things did not go to plan!
Well done to Roye and Christian for planning a session that really bonded us as a group!
Cuca whats?
The upstairs gardens at Dover have a thriving Cucamelon ecosystem, so here is some cucamelon information, in case you were wondering…….
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A Cucamelon is a tiny watermelon lookalike originally from Central America that are enjoying their spot in the limelight. Home gardeners are captivated with the look of these jewel-like melons and then often fall completely in love with their crisp, crunchy, cucumber-tinged-with-lime flavor.
Why You Really Need To Grow Cucamelons
In addition to their powerful nutritional benefits, this adorable, tasty fruit is just something you’ve got to try. Unfortunately, your local grocery store or farmers market likely stocks things like watermelons and maybe even round, yellowish lemon cucumbers, but the odds of it offering cucamelons is pretty slim. That’s why growing them in your garden is the best way to go. You can enjoy them anytime you like and have fun experimenting with them in all sorts of recipes too.
This exotic plant can be a great part of your garden – they’re one of the easiest plants to grow as they suffer from very few pests, don’t require fancy pruning or need the cover of a greenhouse. Cucamelons are very drought resistant, even more so than cucumbers. While they’re well-known in Mexico and throughout Central America, they can be found growing wild in some Southern U.S. locations, though you can grow them pretty much anywhere, just like its relative, the cucumber.
Pickled Cucamelon with Dill and Mint
A brilliant way to make these crisp summer fruit last well into the depths of winter, home pickling is far easier than you would ever think!
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups white vinegar – distilled malt or white wine
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 tbsp raw sugar
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh dill
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh mint
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- 9 oz fresh cucamelons
- 1 fresh grape leaf or oak leaf
Instructions
- Pour the vinegar into a bowl and add salt and sugar, then whisk until they have completely dissolved. Stir in the dill, mint and coriander seeds.
- Wash the cucamelons in water and pour into a sterilized jar. (Run the jars through the dishwasher and dry in a warm oven set to its lowest temperature.)
- Scrunch up the grape or oak leaf and place it on top of the cucamelons. The tannins in the leaf will slowly disperse outwards and help keep the fruit crisp.
- Pour the seasoned vinegar into the jar and seal tightly.
- Refrigerate for 2 weeks. The cucamelons will be pickled and ready to eat. Once opened, store in the refrigerator. They will keep up to 3 months, but most likely won’t last nearly that long!
- Yields about 1 quart.
Recipe Notes
Pick enough cucamelons to make several jars of pickles, as you will go through one jar very quickly once people get a taste of them!
Makes a most impressive and unusual gift, especially once the weather is cold. Your recipient will remember this gift for a long time!
Adapted from Homegrown Revolution
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Native growing Mexican sour gherkins hail from Mexico (of course) and Central America. The plant is an unbridled vining specimen with pointed, serrated leaves and small (grape sized) fruit that look exactly like miniature watermelon
Cucamelon Bruschetta
prep 20 minscook 20 minstotal 40 mins
yield 4 servings
Ingredients
- 1 Pint Cucamelons, cut in half
- 2 Cipollini Onions, peeled & finely diced
- 1 Bird’s Eye Chili, finely sliced. (add another if you like it really spicy)
- Small Handful of Basil or Mint, chiffonade
- 1/4 C Good Quality Olive Oil
- 2 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 Tbsp Local Organic Honey
- Juice of Half a Lime
- Coarse Sea Salt & Fresh Cracked Black Pepper
- Toasted Bread to Serve
Instructions
- Toss the first 4 ingredients in a bowl. Set aside.
- Put the rest of the ingredients in a mason jar and season to taste. Cover with a lid and shake baby shake until emulsified.
- Pour over prepared vegetables. Stir well, season if need be.Spoon over toasted bread.
- Eat.
- While most Americans have never heard of cucamelons, this fruit is definitely one you’ll want to know a lot more about. Also referred to as “Mexican sour gherkin,” or its most common name in Spanish, “sandiita” (little watermelon). It actually has a slew of other monikers in local dialects and Native American languages, most of which translate to “mouse melon.”This cute fruit is the size of a grape, looks like mini-watermelon and taste like cucumbers and lime. The sour fruit grows on a thin vine and is surrounded by ivy-like leaves. While they’re a bit bizarre looking, cucamelons aren’t some strange genetically-modified hybrid, but a delicacy from Central America that’s been eaten since pre-Columbian times and are a staple in Mexican diets.
https://www.naturallivingideas.com/how-to-grow-cucamelons/
http://sheeats.ca/2013/07/the-best-things-in-life-are-tiny-cucamelons/
Harvesting the pineapple at last!
In our last Wednesday session for Incredible Edibles we celebrated by harvesting our pineapple and eating it together. It was absolutely delicious and tasted all the sweeter for having been grown by us!
We also had a reflection session in which we each answered the following questions:
- What has been your highlight in Incredible Edibles so far?
- What have you learned?
- What should be a focus for our work next term?
You can see our group reflections in the Reflection video
Laksa Pesto
One of the groups made a delicious pesto made with some of the fresh ingredients grown in our gardens, such as, the laksa leaves and the chilli’s. They had some obstacles, but since they made two batches of pesto, they managed to correct their mistakes. The pesto was served pasta (prepared by Sodexo) and even some teachers and maintenance people tried it!
As we are planning to make a zen garden in the upper garden, one other group helped out with clearing out the upper garden, like weeding it and making the ground even, preparing it to be made into the garden.
And because we are making a zen garden, of course we need sand, so two girls helped bring up the sand. And more about the zen garden, others helped carefully dig out some of the Pandan plants (and possibly dill), and transport it to the upper garden for planting.
By Inaya
Anyone for dill? (or Laksa? or a zen garden?)
This week we did a lot of different things. We first planned who was doing what, and split into groups. One group did some weeding as usual, in the lower garden. We cleared out the weeds in a couple of the beds that contained lime, mint, and dill. We also pulled out the Laksa, because it was not doing very well, and it could make more space for new plants.
One of our groups started to plan a new tool rack to access our tools more easily. It is going to go in the lower garden where the tools are currently, but it will help be more organised. They are planning to build it in the Ideas Hub later, when they have decided on everything.
We also are going to make a sort of zen garden, in the upper garden, along the walkway . Before planting and building it, we first needed to draw out exactly what and where everything is going to go. So far, we are going to put plants that look kind of spiky and nice. Since we are Incredible Edibles, we have limited plants because they all have to be edible, but we had some ideas of what to put in it, like lemongrass and pandan.
Another group continued the vertical garden from last week, but we found out that there is a piece missing, so we need to find it or get a new one to build the whole thing. Near the end of Service, we harvested some of the dill that was getting really tall in the lower garden and some of us brought some of it home. Next week we are planning to make a pesto pasta using Laksa leaves!
By Anila!