Homegrown Meals, Sept 3rd. 2011

I didn't get much time to take pic of the foods I make almost daily. Here's what I have...

This one is like a Bibimbap. It has HG(Home Grown) Green Beans, HG Carrots, farmer's market brown onion, ground turkey and sweetened with fig jam. All piled on steaming organic rice. I'm sorry my photos are a bit out of focus.

Hiyashi Chuka (冷し中華) with homegrown Cucumbers, Carrots and Myoga. The other items are organic eggs from the farmer's market (the eggs are really supposed to be fried really thin, then julienned, but we were hungry!), mung-bean sprouts, organic turkey bacon, Tapioca verimicelli noodles, with home-made sauce: (organic gluten free soy-sauce, toasted sesame seed oil, organic rice vinegar, organic raw agave nectar & water) .

Cucumber Kimchee in the making: HG Cucumbers, HG mashed Figs, HG Orange(juiced), HG Garlic Chives, Salted Grunion Roe (from when we went Grunion hunting). Other ingredients include organic paprika, sea salt, and shaved bonito flakes.  We let the fruits ferment for a day on the counter, then refrigerate.

Homemade lasagna. The sauce is a combination of HG and canned tomato sauce. HG Peppers and HG Zucchinis are hiding under the organic soy cream cheese, and "Tinkyada" gluten free lasagna noodles.

Homegrown Meals

Beef Veggie stew with HG swiss chard, HG carrots, HG zucchinis, HG tomatoesm HG green beans. Other ingredients include O grass-fed beef, FM(farmer's market) Onion, FM celery, O black pepper, sea salt.

HG swiss chard stems & HG amaranth leaves and stems sauteed with garlic and butter(Earth Balance).

Salad: HG lettuce, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes. The red stuff on the upper right is the chard and amaranth sauté from above. (O) rice and Coho Salmon were purchased.

Mabo Tofu with HG eggplant and HG peppers.

(O)tofu, (O)ground turkey, (O) garlic and (O)rice were purchased

(O)Natto with HG okra and HG green onion.

The natto, seaweed, shirasu and (O)rice were purchased

I made HG tomato sauce, with this, I made Chili and Spaghetti sauce.

Here's the HG Chili with LOTs of HG tomatoes sauce & HG peppers.
Other ingredients are: (O)Kidney beans, (O)black beans, FM round onions, (O)grass-fed stew beef, (O) chili powder and sea salt.

OK, this isn't HG, but I just wanted to add it: Homemade Moca Latte. I save $5~$11 a day by making it myself! Sometimes I have 2 to keep my energy level up. (I used organic coffee, organic coconut milk, organic vanilla extract and stevia drops, oh and a dash of organic cinnamon too!) Yummy :-)

Homegrown Meals

Curry flavored Fried Rice with HG zukes, carrots, green beans, green onions and bell peppers. Other ingredients are organic (O) ground turkey, (O) bulb onion, (O) white rice, sea salt, black pepper and (O) curry powder.

Spagetti with meat sauce: HG tomatoes, HG zukes, HGbell peppers, HG oregano and HG basil. Other ingredients include (O) brown rice noodles, sea salt, mushrooms and (O) bulb onion

Veggie Soup: HG swiss chard, HG zukes, HG carrots, HG tomatoes and HG rakkyo(Allium chinense). Other ingredients include (O) bulb onion, (O) home-made chicken broth, sea salt, (O) coriander and pepper

Turkey hamburger steak, HG swiss chard greens and roasted (HG) carrots and (O) onions

I'll do a Garden Update soon, I promise!

Homegrown Meals

Veggie Stir Fry with Turkey Bacon

Shimesaba (vinegared mackerel) locally caught at New Port Beach pier along with pickled Komatsuna (Tsukemono) on rice

A lovely exchange from an awesome friend. I gave her a jar of homegrown strawberry jam and she offered me a bag full of homegrown potatoes! Yum!

I make potato salad with the above potatoes; HG carrots, HG cucumbers & HG sunchokes in there as well. Num num!

Some potatoes made it to a 4th of July BBQ too! The BBQ'd veggies have some HG zucchini, HG tomatoes, and HG peppers too.

Homegrown meals

Strawberries in yogurt(coconut milk)

Stir-fry with HG Zukesm Carrots, Green Beans and store-bought organic bean sprouts and organic beef sausages cut into strips

Salad for dinner made from: HG Tomatoes, Cukes and Sunchokes and Farmer's Market Lettuce. Our Lettuces are still a bit too small to harvest.

Another stir-fry dish; HG Carrots, Garlic Chives, Green Beans, Zukes and Sunchokes. Store-bought organic bean sprouts and gluten-free soy sauce.

Making some Fig Jam w/ last year's frozen figs, to make room for this year's harvest. The 1st pic is of the frozen figs I thawed partially in water to peel off the skins, then cut them up in the pot. The 2nd pic is the jam in progress. Cooking it until the liquid evaporates enough to make a thick jam.

Homegrown Meals

Here's what I've managed to capture this week. I didn't get a chance to take a pic of the homemade pizza. Although I don't think the pizza counts much for being homegrown since the only thing home-grown was the Oregano and Basil that went into the sauce and the Rosemary that went into the altered gluten-free Focaccia recipe for the dough.

Cold Salad with HG Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Carrots and Sunchokes. It also includes Coho Salmon, Potato Starch Noodles, Vegenaise (our son is allergic to eggs, so no Mayonaise), and Organic Mustard

This is Hiyashi Chuka, HG ingredients are: Carrots, Green Beans, Cucumbers.  Bought items are organic turkey bacon, organic chicken breast, organic bulb onions, and noodles. That and gluten-free soy sauce, organic rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil and organic agave nectar.

Homegrown Meals

Hot Pot meal for a colder night: HG(home-grown) Carrots, Bok Choy, Shungiku, Green Onions and Zucchini.  Bought items are the Coho Salmon, Ground Turkey, Organic (O) Ginger, (O) Garlic, Sea Salt & (O)Short-grain white rice.

Chinese Stir-fry with LOTS of HG Bok Choy and HG Carrots.

Bought items are Button Mushrooms, Garlic, (O) Chicken,

Sea Salt, Potato Starch for thickening the broth & (O)Short-grain white rice.

My Mom and I take turns cooking, and we don't always take pictures of what we make for dinner, but most of our meals includes at least one thing from the garden.

Meals from the Garden

Garden Stir-Fry with HG(Home Grown) Carrots, Yu Choi and Komatsuna. Farmer's Market bought items: Cabbage and Zucchini. Canned item: Straw Mushroom.

HG New Zealand Spinach quickly blanched. We eat this with a bit of soy-sauce. Our son eats it like if you were to put a plate of french fries out in front of him, with both hands stuffing his face!

Been busy! More Strawberry Jam canning, Komatsuna pickling, and seed starting some onion and more Lupini beans.

HG Seri in the rice, HG Garlic Chives, Carrots and Sun-chokes in the stir-fry

Canning jars are piling up! Next to them are some dried herbs

Garden Hot Pot with Komatsuna, Carrots, Green Onion, Edible Chrysanthemum and NZ Spinach. Store bought items include Shiitake mushrooms and White Button mushrooms. Organic Chicken & Wild-Caught Salmon to flavor the broth as well.

Meals from the garden

Last of the pumpkins from previous season that's being prepared as pumpkin pie. We didn't use any sugar in the recipe. Just some molasses to sweeten the naturally sweet pumpkin flavor. More of a subtle sweetness that we are enjoying as breakfast :-)

Chicken pot pie... could have used more gravy. Homegrown ingredients are: Celery, Carrots, baby potatoes and frozen green beans from last year's harvest.

Veggie stir-fry

Simple strawberry yogurt

Meals from the Garden

Veggie Stir-fry with home grown Chinese Chives and Carrots

Veggie soup with home grown carrots and celery. Kolrabi and bulb onions bought at the farmer's market, and organic tomato paste bought from a Co-Op. Oh, one store bought item: mushrooms

More strawberries! This is one day's worth of pickings.

My jam jar collection

Curry flavored veggies with chicken. Home grown celery, carrots and sunchokes along with cauliflower from the farmer's market.

Homemade Mochi with Yomogi

"Yomogi" is Japanese for Artemsia Princeps. It is a perennial Chrysanthemum which can be very invasive. (Thus, we have it confined in a pot, the base protected from the roots growing into the soil with a step-stone.)  This herb is used to color the mochi green and give it a pleasant aroma.  The "kusa mochi" (grass mochi) is enjoyed in the spring usually during Girl's Day celebrations and is cut in to a diamond shape and placed in front of the dolls.

We didn't get fancy and cut them into diamond shapes though. These we ate with "anko or an" a sweet bean paste made from boiled Adzuki beans.

Eating the land

Stir fry with home-grown snow peas, bok choi, carrots and organic turkey bacon

Bounty from a city plot. The upper left is a smidgen of the sunchokes that were dug up. On the upper right, thinned out lettuce. Navel oranges on the lower left and Satsuma mandarins on the lower right