Composting – Grow. Cook. Eat.

March 22, 2011

Spring Cleaning (Recipe: Asparagus with Sesame Dressing)

The first day of spring might as well be April Fool’s day here in New England. As if on cue, it snowed here yesterday, Mother Nature’s reminder that we won’t get spring-like weather for another few weeks.

That did not stop me from cleaning up the garden and getting ready for the spring crops. Though things did not go quite as planned (more on that in a minute), I should get the seeds in the ground by the end of the week.

You may recall, I started indoor composting in November. It takes the worms about 3 months to munch through my food scraps and turn what would ordinarily be trash into rich soil. If I was strategic about my composting, I would have plenty for the start of the spring gardening season. Everything was going really well for about three months. And then a few weeks ago, when a friend was visiting, he very gently commented, “Um, sweetie, your house, um, kinda smells like poop.”

As embarrassing as it was to admit, he was right. My house did smell bad. And maybe because the odor was a slow development, I hadn’t noticed how bad it was. I checked in on the compost bin, and only a few worms were left: mass genocide! I had not given the bin enough aeration and dry matter. The combination of the two meant too much water in the bin, not enough drainage, and really bad smells.

The bin moved quickly outdoors, and with a few hard frosts all the worms were completely dead. This final step was good as the red-wigglers, which are great for indoor vermiculture, wreack havoc in outdoor gardens. The food scraps were mostly composted, but not completely. I will let the pile continue its thing outside. In the meantime, I needed some compost, which I purchased at the local hardware store.

I spent the weekend in the garden, raking up the dead leaves and turning the soil with compost. Worms (of the outdoor variety) crawled around in the newly turned soil – a good sign that I had healthy soil.

I will wait until Friday to plant my seeds – lettuces, peas and radishes.

Asparagus screams spring to me and primes my palate for better (read: warmer) days to come.

Asapagus with Sesame Dressing
Recipe adapted from my new book, The Farmer’s Kitchen

8 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 tablespoons sake
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 pound asparagus, trimmed
1 teaspoon salt

1. Put sesame seeds in a small skillet. Toast seeds over medium heat, stirring continuously, until seeds turn lightly brown. Immediately remove seeds from pan.

2. Combine sesame seeds with remaining ingredients, except asparagus and salt, in a blender. Purée until smooth.

3. Put a large skillet on the stovetop with 1 cup of water and salt. Bring to a boil, add asparagus, and cook for 5 minutes, or until bright green.

4. Remove asparagus from heat and toss with sesame dressing

January 19, 2011

Half as Much (Recipe: Asian Slaw)

In the back corner of the produce section, there’s a cooler filled with convenience products – sliced pepper medley, peeled and cubed butternut squash, shredded cabbage and washed salad blends. I shudder everytime I walk past it… it’s really not that hard to cut a pepper, or even peel a butternut squash. Last week, I walked back to the main produce aisle, grabbed a small red cabbage and tossed it into my cart.

When I got home, I started shredding the cabbage for an Asian slaw. After cutting up half, I realized I had more than enough for the 3 people I was cooking for, with ample leftovers. I wrapped up the second half and now will plan to make braised red cabbage later in the week.

After three days of eating cabbage slaw, I had my fill. The first night, I ate it with the char. The second two days, I served it with Claypot Chicken. Sadly, the remainder went into the compost bin. Suddenly, the value of pre-chopped cabbage became more appealing. I can purchase a more manageable quantity. Perhaps I pay a little more, but there’s comfort in not wasting.

Which is the lesser evil? Wasting food or purchasing pre-cut veggies? Or should I not make cabbage unless I’m serving a crowd?

What would you have done?

Asian Red Cabbage Slaw

serves at least 6

½ red cabbage
6 scallions
2 tbs. canola oil
1 tbs. sesame oil
¼ cup sliced almonds
¼ cup raw sesame seeds
1 tbs. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 -3 tbs. rice vinegar

1.    Cut the core out of the cabbage and slice as thinly as possible
2.    Julienne the scallions. Put in a mix bowl with the cabbage.
3.    Heat the oils in a skillet over medium heat. Add the almonds and sesame seeds. Cook, stirring frequently until the nuts begin to brown. Immediately pour over the cabbage.
4.    To the cabbage add the sugar, salt and vinegar. Mix well. Let sit for 10 minutes so the flavors can meld.

December 13, 2010

Walking the Talk

I have worms in my basement, and they’re munching on moldy vegetables and excreting brown liquid. No, this isn’t the premise of a new episode of “Hoarders.” This is my new composting/vermiculture set-up.

My first attempts at composting started in May 2008 when the city of Cambridge initiated a new program to collect food scraps from the residents. They provided free green totes to collect the kitchen waste that we could then empty at either the DPW facility or at the local Whole Foods. Within 48 hours my tote was full. I knew immediately that two things needed to change. First, I was wasting too much food, and second, I needed a compost bin on- premise. Multiple weekly trips to DPW to dispose of my compost just weren’t going to fit into my schedule.

I promptly bought a compost bin for my backyard – the generic black bottomless box that the city sells for a subsidized rate. I could not only toss my food scraps into the bin, but also all the garden debris – pruned shrubs, weeds, leaves, spent vegetables plants, etc.

I have to be honest – I was not as good about composting as I wanted to be. Standing at a measly 5’3”, I had a hard time getting the leverage to reach into the bin and turn the pile – bringing the dirt up from the bottom and burying the newly added compostables to the bottom. I adopted the passive approach to composting – just filling it until it was packed and then waiting a year to take compost from the bottom trap door. At the end of the first summer, the bin filled quickly with the end-of-the-season clean-up, there was no room for my kitchen scraps. And with the snowy winters, it was a bit of a hassle to take things out to the bin anyway.

When Cambridge switched to single stream recycling, I decided to make a more concerted effort to recycle and compost. I signed up for a workshop, for $75 it promised I would learn everything I needed to know (though really, how hard could it be??) and have all the trapping for an indoor vermiculture system.

I walked away with a large plastic tote, with a starter layer of dirt and worms. The worms will eat the mold that forms on the scraps, converting it to compost, and poop out a nutrient rich liquid. The liquid, when diluted with water is an incredible food source for plants. In order to maintain proper moisture in my bin, I will add layers of shredded newspaper.

I cleared a space under the kitchen sink so I could easily access the green tote that would serve as a temporary repository for the food scraps until I carried it to the basement.

(It's filled mostly with old coffee grounds and filters)

Three weeks in, and I feel I finally have a system I can work with. The worm population is thriving in my bin, which is a good sign that I have given them enough food and balanced the moisture properly.

In three months, I will start a second bin, and let the worms finish transforming my waste into nutrient rich soil. When all remnants of food are gone, I will put the “matter” in a plastic bag to kill the worms and initiate the final transition from compost into soil.

April 27, 2010

Soil Amendments (Recipe: Banana Bread)

Photo Credit: My Recipes

I thought I had just watered the ficus tree in the hallway, but when I looked at it this morning, the soil was bone-dry. I gave it a quart of water, but the water quickly raced to the bottom of the pot into the base plate. Within hours, the soil was dry again. It’s a miracle the plant is still alive.

I bought the ficus tree a few weeks after moving into my first Boston apartment. Like me, it’s had several homes in the last 15 years… moving into larger and larger pots. Its current home is a 5 gallon, ceramic planter.

The soil is depleted of nutrients and structure. After several years in the same pot without refreshing the soil, it can no longer hold water. The tree has sucked out every ounce of life from the soil. Sure, I can add fertilizer or plant food to the soil, but it won’t rebuild the soil to help it retain moisture and nutrients to slowly feed the roots.

The same type of soil erosion happens in our gardens and in our farm lands. Plants take the nutrients out of the soil to support their growth. And if we don’t replenish the soil, we can’t continue to grow healthy plants. Many commercial farmers (and home gardeners) opt for chemical fertilizers and amendments to add the nutrients back.

The chemical soil amendments give the requisite nitrogen and phosphorus, and commercial farmers can grow more corn and wheat. But unless the soil is regenerated, these fertilizers are like a crack addiction: the farmers must add more and more to get the same effect. And the sea-life becomes collateral damage. The run-off from these chemically treated fields in the corn belt of the US flows into the Gulf of Mexico, creating algae bloom, depleting oxygen levels in the water, and suffocating sea life. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, where fish no longer survive, spans approximately 7,000 square miles.

Image Credit: Fair Food Fight

A primary tenant of organic, sustainable farming is to maintain healthy soil so that it can regenerate itself without artificial enhancements, and without creating run-off that kills other plants or animals. We can amend our soil naturally, keeping its structure healthy so that we don’t need chemical fertilizers.

Organic and sustainable farming practices implement a variety of methods to maintain soil health: crop rotation, cover crops and compost. Cover crops, such as legumes and clover, are planted in off-seasons to replenish the soil naturally with nitrogen. For large-scale farmers this also would mean growing a variety of crops (and
not just miles and miles of corn), rotating the crops across different
plot of land, and letting the land lay fallow every several years.
Unfortunately, most commercial farmers do not do this, nor do government subsidies support this.

For the home gardener, compost offers another option.

Compost is decomposed organic matter, it can be animal scraps (or waste), vegetables or leaves. Compost looks like dirt and has no smell. It can be worked into existing soil to help replenish the nutrients and structure. My compost bin is a receptacle for food scraps, harnessing all the left-over nutrition to feed back into the ground.

Around my house, I have other natural sources of nitrogen. The spent coffee grounds are chock-full of nitrogen, as is the leftover ash from the charcoal grill. I sprinkle these all over the garden in the spring.

As for my ficus tree, I will take it out of its pot, add the old dirt to my compost bin and give it fresh soil.

Banana Bread

The banana peels get tossed into the compost bin. In a few months, I’ll have fresh soil for the garden (and my ficus tree). It also goes great with a cup of coffee.

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (or more all-purpose flour)
2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
6 tbs. butter
2/3 cup sugar
zest from 1 lemon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
5 bananas – to yield about 1 1/4 cup mashed pulp

Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder.
In an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the lemon zest, vanilla, eggs and banana.
Fold in flour.
Bake in a greased loaf pan for 1 hour at 350F.

July 13, 2009

Recycling the 4th

When organizing a party, the general rule of thumb is that 60% of the guests will accept the invitation. Somewhere in planning a 4th of July pot-luck in the garden, I messed up the numbers, as I ended up with 15 guests.

Granted, I was thrilled that so many wonderful people could join me, I just don't have the accouterments for that many guests, and had to resort to disposable plates, cups and flatware. During a last-minute run to Target, I was thrilled to discover biodegradable plates made from recycled paper. I didn't feel as guilty about creating all that trash knowing that some of it would end up in the compost bin.

I billed the dinner as "pot-luck." But as I evaluated the guest list — considering who would bring food vs. beverages vs. nothing at all, I decided it was best if I just cooked enough to cover all the bases. As my friend Paul teased, I could have feed all the guests just on the hors d'ouevres, never mind the assortment of salads, as well as burgers and fixin's.

Needless to say, I had leftovers. From the burger bar, I had leftover patties, tomatoes and onions. From the crudite, I had celery and carrots. Do you see where I'm going with this? With a sprig of basil from the garden and a grating of fresh parmesan, the leftovers hardly felt recycled.

Here's my original recipe with modifications for cooking with leftovers.

Pasta Bolognese
¼ cup olive oil
1 ½ cups diced yellow onions (or red onions)
½ cup diced carrot
½ cup diced celery
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
2 lb. ground beef (or leftover grilled hamburger patties)
2 cups tomato sauce/puree (I pureed raw tomatoes which were quite watery, negating the need for extra broth)
1 ¾ cups beef stock (no need if using fresh tomatoes that are watery)
1 cup dry white wine (surprise, surprise, I had left over of this too)

1. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a large sauce pan. Add onions, stirring occasionally, until wilted and lightly browned. Add carrots, celery, salt and pepper and continue to cook for 5 minutes

2. Season meat with salt and pepper. Add to pan, breaking up meat with back of a spoon. Continue cooking until meat is cooked through, about 5 minutes.

3. Add tomato sauce, wine and stock. Simmer for a very long time.

4. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Serve with pasta, or use for your favorite lasagna recipe

March 20, 2009

Garden Updates – Last Day of Winter

Spring officially starts tomorrow, and I will begin sowing seeds outside for my lettuces, peas and other spring delights. My portable greenhouse will protect my seedlings from a late season snow……. which sadly can happen into mid-April.

After a quick peek in the garden this morning, I discovered winter-tolerant Brussels sprouts. The stalks remained sturdy and in-tact through this brutal winter, though the leaves wilted. The outer leaves have a purple hue, the same shade that tomatillos develop when they are left on the vine to ripen and sweeten. Could these, too, be extra sweet? I only have enough for a small meal, so I'll want to maximize their preparation.

Under a pile of dead leaves and old mulch, tarragon and mint show signs of life. Mint has a reputation for being a hardy perennial, so while I'm happy to see it come back, I'm not surprised. With tarragon, on the other hand, I've been less successful, so I'm especially relieved to see it come back. The parsley nub has a few green leaves, so I'm wondering if that, too, will come back. I had thought it was an annual, but maybe not.

Less exciting is the state of my compost bin. At the end of the season last fall, I shoved most of my garden clipping into the bin. I had hoped that 6 months of the passive method (i.e. not turning the compost pile) would be enough. But, alas, I will need to work it rather vigorously over the next few months if I want to use my own compost to amend the soil of my summer garden.

August 18, 2008

Garden Updates – Mid Summer

My summer crops have just come into full swing and I’m thinking about the fall plantings. I’ve made the same mistakes in years past – planting the lettuces and cooking greens after Labor Day. I’ve barely made a salad before the first snow comes and ends my growing season. This year will be different!

Gardeners and farmers must think about the next season in the middle of the current. Most plants have at least a 60 day cycle from seed to harvest. While farmers have the luxury of acres of land (and therefore, can appropriately rotate crops through different fields), urban gardeners must carefully plan for the entire year, not just each season, in order to maximize the space. Before the spring crops bolt, the summer crops have gone in the ground. And when the summer crops are in full force, fall seeds are planted.

So my first challenge is to determine where to plant. The spring crops were very tidy. I planted a row of lettuce, and they pretty much confined themselves within a few inches on either side of the row – leaving ample room for the coveted summer vegetables. And let’s be honest, when it comes time to plant the summer tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers and squashes, I get a bit zealous, planting as much as my yard can manage. I’m always surprised by how much they grow, and the boscage leaves little room for the fall crops.

Gardeners and farmers must think about the
next season in the middle of the current. Most plants have at least a 60 day
cycle from seed to harvest. While farmers have the luxury of acres of land (and
therefore, can appropriately rotate crops through different fields), urban
gardeners must carefully plan for the entire year, not just each season, in
order to maximize the space. Before the spring crops bolt, the summer crops
have gone in the ground. And when the summer crops are in full force, fall
seeds are planted.

So my first challenge is to determine where
to plant. The spring crops were very tidy. I planted a row of lettuce, and they
pretty much confined themselves within a few inches on either side of the row –
leaving ample room for the coveted summer vegetables. And let’s be honest, when
it comes time to plant the summer tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers and squashes,
I get a bit zealous, planting as much as my yard can manage. I’m always
surprised by how much they grow, and the boscage leaves little room for the
fall crops.

Suffice it to say, I need to clear away something
to make room for the lettuces. First out: the zucchini. I sowed about 20 seeds,
hoping to get a few zucchini. So far, I’ve had nothing… though plenty of squash
blossoms. And I’ve had my fill out squash blossoms. Next out: kohlrabi. I had
planted 20 of those, too. As hard as I tried, spraying organic pesticide once a
week, the aphids decimated at least half the plants. Of the remaining, only two
plants showed promise of reaching maturity. The “mid-season” peas came out,
too… the first batch were stringy, so it seems silly to take up precious space
for a vegetable that will likely end up in the compost bin.

What's been spared: The tomatoes and eggplant
continue to proliferate. And the Brussels sprouts, happily growing in the back
corner, won’t be ready until Thanksgiving. The cucumber sprawl produced its
first 3 this week, and I expect many more in the coming weeks. I will likely
have enough to make pickles – an exciting prospect! And the chilies
inconspicuously grow in the front.

On the docket for fall: arugula, mizuna,
tatsoi and broccoli raab.

On the docket for fall: arugula, mizuna, tatsoi and broccoli raab.

July 21, 2008

Tales from the Farm – The Composting Cycle: From Food to Chicken to Eggs and Back Again

A few years ago, I was driving through the Eastern Shore of Maryland and drove past a Perdue truck. If you have ever seen this, I can assure you, you will never eat commercially processed chicken again. The flat-bed truck transported the chickens, each in an individual cage, 20 cages high. The top chicken is, literally, living high on the hog. The poor chickens on the bottom were coated in droppings from the 19 layers on top. And the birds in the middle are breathing in a toxic fume.

It’s no wonder we have to worry about salmonella and other diseases in commercial chicken.

Farmer Brett also raises chickens. By contrast, these chickens are truly free-range. In fact, these chickens have more roaming room than most urban dwellers. And they eat better than most of us too – feasting on a rich diet of organic produce (the non-salable produce), weeds, grain and left-over food from the house. The chickens never receive antibiotics because they are not exposed to disease. Nor do they need growth hormones – they grow the old-fashioned way – with a healthy diet and plenty of exercise.

The chickens serve an important function for the farm. In addition to the obvious eggs and eventual meat, the chickens also help prepare the soil by weeding and creating "natural" compost. The chicken coops are strategically positioned around the barn with adjustable fencing that allows Brett to move the chickens. The chickens happily peck away at the weeds leaving a barren plot. To supplement their diet of weeds and grains, they act as a repository for non-salable produce and left-over food scraps from the house (all the things the rest of us would compost). In exchange, they enrich the soil with nitrogen generated from their, ahem, droppings. Further soil amendments are not required.

Let’s be honest, though, Brett raises chickens for the eggs and the meat. The soil enhancement is a bonus. Once the hens reach menopause, and stop laying eggs, they are “converted” into stewing chickens. As one might expect, the meat has more flavor — the result of all that exercise. The “meat”, the primary portion we eat from animals, is muscle – and they’ve developed just like ours when we go to the gym. The meat is darker (from all the blood flow) and with more texture (a euphemism for tougher). The eggs have a firmer texture too. They cook more quickly and fluffy than eggs purchased at the supermarket. The yolks are deep yellow, almost orange.

Over the years, I have taught many aspiring chefs and home cooks how to butcher a chicken. It’s pretty straightforward, I tell them, as long as you cut in the right place: the ligaments are soft and the bones thin. My first attempt at cutting up a chicken from the farm was surprisingly difficult. After a few struggled attempts of redefining butchery, I realized that all the exercise that makes the meat more flavorful, also makes the ligaments and bones stronger.

A fryer chicken, even in the free-range environment, still has some tenderness, because they’re only 6 weeks old. As such, they don’t require as much special attention when cooking. These menopausal hens, at 8 months, need a slow cooking to tenderize and soften the meat.

Here’s my favorite recipe for stewing chicken. I love the simplicity of it, and I usually have everything in my pantry so I can make it on a whim.

Harrira Stew
(serve 4)
serve with raisin cous cous
1 1/2 pound boneless chicken meat, cubed (preferably dark meat)
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 tomatoes, diced, or 10 oz. canned tomatoes
2 1/2 pts. chicken stock or canned broth
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
8 oz. canned chick peas
chopped cilantro
red chili flakes or harissa (opt)

Put chicken, onion, garlic, and stock in a large pot. Bring to a boil over high heat. Add spices, tomatoes and chick peas. Reduce heat to simmer, and continue cooking until chicken is done, approximately 30 minutes. Garnish with cilantro and red chili flakes or harissa.

Raisin Cous Cous
2 cups cous cous
2 1/4 cup water or chicken broth
1 tsp. salt
1 shallot, chopped
1/3 cup raisin

Put raisins, shallots, water and salt in a pot. Bring to a boil. Pour in cous-cous. Stir to mix and cover the pot. Remove pot from heat, let stand for 5 minutes. Fluff cous cous with a fork.

Harissa
2 tsp. chili flakes
1 clove garlic, chopped
3 tbs. olive oil
2 tsp. ground cumin.

Put everything in a pan. Heat over low heat for about 5 minutes, or until garlic starts to brown. Remove from heat immediately so the garlic does not burn.

May 25, 2008

Reducing the Compost Pile, Part I

After just two weeks of composting, my bin already has a good base. Though this is not necessarily something to be proud of… much of it is the product of food waste – overly ambitious food projects, last minute dinner invitations that mean I cook less at home despite a full fridge, etcetera.

I’ve become increasingly interested in the issue food waste after reading an article in the New York Times last week. It ties in with the issue of reducing our carbon foot-print as well as rising food costs. As I blogged about earlier, and has been well documented in the press lately, food scraps in our trash ends up in land-fills and adds to greenhouse gases in the form of methane. We can reduce this effect by composting, but this does not address the second issue of rising food costs.

Do you recall being admonished (or hearing stories of others) for not cleaning your plate because there are starving children in Ethiopia, China, India, etcetera? The cynic doubts that clearing our plates will reduce world-wide hunger. After all, how will the food from my plate get to those needy families? Another rebuttal is that I have already paid for the food, so I own it and can throw it away if I want. The answer is a matter of supply and demand. If I take more than I need, supply is decreased, and demand is increased thereby raising prices. If I only buy what I will consume, the supply is increased and prices decrease.

Again, like composting, how can the little things I do make a difference? Supermarkets and restaurants are the biggest culprits – with supermarkets throwing away produce with the slightest blemish, lest they tarnish their reputation for the freshest and best produce. And restaurants serving more than any person can eat in a single sitting – leaving the diner to waste the food or bring it home in a doggy bag and hope it makes its way into a subsequent meal. The best I can do is align my beliefs with my actions that demonstrate my concern. This alignment can be viral and incite the bigger players to take action.

You can read more about this issue at Jonathan Bloom’s Blog.

With dancing thoughts of reforming my wasteful ways, I embarked on some culinary adventures…. Stay tuned.

May 17, 2008

Black is the New Green

I trotted over to the Department of Public Works this week to pick up my own composter. Basically it’s a black plastic bin (made from recyclable plastic, of course) with air holes and no bottom. The manufacturers claim that it is rodent safe and, if I compost correctly, will not emit any “off” odors. I set it up on a level plot of soil conveniently tucked in a corner, ironically right next to the A/C compressor. Perhaps this will off-set the pinky-toe of the carbon foot-print I leave from the summertime A/C usage? Probably not…