Garden Betty

Pea Shoot Salad With Radish and Carrot

Pea shoot salad with radish and carrot

When I think of spring, I think of this salad. Fresh, green, earthy, full of life. Luckily for us southern climates, winter tends to feel like spring most days, so I’ve had the ingredients for this salad growing in my garden all season and this recipe makes perfect use of them.

As the superstar of this salad, pea shoots are an underused salad green. Did you even know they were edible? The young shoots and tendrils of the common pea vine taste faintly of pea and are packed with more vitamin C than blueberries and more vitamin A than tomatoes.

Pea shoot

Pea shoots can also be harvested in less than one month’s time after planting, versus the three months it takes before you can pluck a pea pod off the vine. Because of this fast turnaround, peas make an excellent container plant for small spaces as you can simply graze on the greens throughout the season, without the need for a trellis. You can grow several pea plants in a pot, merely spaced an inch apart, and give them an even “haircut” every other week before they have a chance to flower.

If you’re not growing your own peas, you can often find pea shoots at farmers’ markets or Asian markets. (They’re particularly popular in Chinese and Japanese cooking.)

To harvest your own, pull the tip of the vine toward you and slide your fingers down the shoot to the second or third set of leaves. This part of the pea shoot will be the most tender.

Harvest the tip of the pea shoot after the second or third set of leaves

Pinch off the shoot just above the leaves where you see a little nub (the leaf node).

Leaf node on a pea shoot

A new shoot will sprout from the leaf node within a few days. You can harvest pea shoots two or three times before leaving the vines to flower and produce pods mid-season.

Pinch off the pea shoot above a leaf node

I harvest my shoots from snow peas and English peas, and both are delicious. While you can stir-fry or saute the shoots just like you would any other green, I think their delicate flavor comes out best in a salad!

February 4 2013 7 comments
En La Cocina Verduras

Starting Seeds in Coffee Filters (or Paper Towels)

Starting seeds in coffee filters (or paper towels)

So tomorrow is Groundhog Day, and for the last 126 years, it’s been up to Punxsutawney Phil — wide-eyed and bushy-tailed from his slumber — to predict the fate of our gardening season. Will he see his shadow and cast another six weeks of winter upon us? Or will we be blessed with an early spring if he doesn’t?

Regardless of Phil’s forecast, you can still bring a little spring into your home by starting your seeds now and counting down the days, however many there may be. By the time the weather warms up, you’ll be first out of the gates with a slew of seedlings ready for transplanting!

February 1 2013 19 comments
Jardín Semillas

Making a Home in Mexico (Part I)

2013-01-29-01

Since November, my hub and I have been obsessing with a remodeling project… in Mexico… while planning our wedding… and even entertaining over the holidays. On top of all that, we actually stayed sane!

I had mentioned a few weeks ago that we were reviving a bungalow in Baja. We managed to acquire a parcel with nothing more than a surf shack, an outdoor kitchen, and a fire pit on it, and had spent most of December fixing up our flat. It’s still very much a work in progress, especially since we’re aiming to reuse and repurpose as much as possible, but I thought it would be fun to bring you along on our off-grid journey as we begin to make a home in Mexico.

January 29 2013 18 comments
Viajes Vida

Keeping Your Chickens Healthy Through Winter

Happy hen in winter

It’s the middle of winter. You’re getting very few eggs from your flock, if any at all. They’re still in the stages of molting, or they’re just finishing up their last molt.

With their reproductive systems taking a rest and your chickens shedding their coats, winter is an important time for them to rebuild their nutrient reserves and renew their feathers for the year. Many chickens cease laying during molting as they need to channel all that energy — and all available protein — into growing out their feathers, which are almost purely protein (keratin fiber, to be exact).

Combine that with dormant winter gardens, which leave fewer opportunities for them to forage, and you often need to augment their diet with extra goodies to keep them healthy through the season.

As well, don’t underestimate the power of playtime: A lazy chicken equals a fat chicken. And a fat chicken equals a sick chicken. Make sure your chickens don’t end up with coop fever (the feathery equivalent of cabin fever) by giving them something to do and something to eat during the wintry weather.

For happy hens, try a few of these tips and come spring, you’ll have a flock that’s fully coiffed and back on track.

January 25 2013 14 comments
Gallinas

Quintessential SoCal: Surfing and Snowboarding in the Same Day

Surfing and snowboarding in the same day in Southern California

There is no doubt about it: I live in one of the greatest cities on earth.

Los Angeles, while home to nearly four million, is actually a hidden gem within itself. I’m convinced that the people who give LA a lot of flak have either a) never visited, b) visited the wrong places, or c) believed the urban myths and reality shows that try to define this vast city. Sure, we have the Hollywood Walk of Fame and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, but those are such tiny slivers of what LA is truly about.

We also have the South Bay, a beacon of SoCal surf culture, and the beautiful Palos Verdes Peninsula where I live, which many people in LA don’t even know exists. We have enormous peaks and sprawling sand dunes and Class V rivers just a few hours’ drive from the heart of the city. And perhaps most brag-worthy, we can surf and snowboard in the same day.

Surf and snowboard? All in one day? The topic is a favorite among local rippers, who banter about doing it someday and tell outsiders that this is what makes LA so great.

And while surfing and snowboarding in the same day sounds good on paper, I’ve never known anyone to actually do it in the 10-plus years I’ve lived here. Which got me to thinking… would anyone in their right mind do it?

January 23 2013 12 comments
Aventuras

Poor Man’s Capers: Pickled Nasturtium Pods

Poor man's capers: pickled nasturtium pods

Here in Los Angeles, nasturtiums are wildly weedy, growing all over hillsides and gardens and reseeding with wanton abandon. This weediness makes them very underappreciated as a bona fide vegetable, and even moreso as a pickled delicacy.

Nasturtium flowers

While much of the country doesn’t see the seed pods until late summer (when intense heat causes nasturtiums to wither away), we Angelenos see a succession of flowering nasturtiums year-round, giving us seed pods even in winter.

Nasturtium seed pods

Those delicate green pods emerge after the blossoms have faded, appearing in clusters of three on the stems. Before you yank your plants out, hunt for those little pods to get one last use out of your nasturtium crop! You don’t need more than a handful to turn them into tasty “capers,” and though they’re sometimes called poor man’s capers, they have a distinct, mustardy flavor all their own.

January 18 2013 20 comments
En La Cocina Semillas

Nasturtium Pesto

Nasturtium pesto

We’ve had an abnormal amount of rain in LA these past couple of months, and with all the rain came the nasturtiums. Fields of nasturtiums — all over my garden, popping up through the mulch, under the stairs, between the cracks, volunteering everywhere.

Bumper crop of nasturtiums

Most people don’t give nasturtiums a second look. They’re sometimes regarded as weeds, as they reseed easily and will grow absolutely anywhere with the least amount of maintenance. They’re often seen as ornamental annuals, blooming through early summer before the heat turns them into a scraggly mess of vines.

But historically, nasturtiums (Tropaeolum majus) are considered vegetables, hailing from South America and originally cultivated in Peru. The leaves and flowers contain high amounts of mustard oils, which give them a pungent, peppery flavor and are released when the plant is crushed or chewed. (The same oils are found in mustard seeds, horseradish root, and wasabi.)

Mustard oils have active antiobiotic, antifungal, antiviral, and antibacterial properties, making nasturtiums a natural remedy for everything from skin infections to sinus colds. The leaves are also rich in vitamin C and iron, and anthocyanins in the red and orange flowers make them highly antioxidant. Just make a simple (yet beautiful) salad with the leaves and flowers to gain the many health benefits of this very underrated plant!

But when I end up with a bumper crop of nasturtiums, my favorite use for them is making pesto. The mustard oils in the plant add a spicy kick to this recipe not found in typical pesto, and it’s such a treat to have homegrown, homemade pesto when it’s not basil season!

January 15 2013 13 comments
En La Cocina Verduras

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