I remember one of the first dates that I had with my wife. She ordered lobster. This will sound like a line, but she did later admit that she wanted it, because the lobster was the most expensive item on the menu. She had never eaten lobster before, and she did not eat much of it that night (why does he remember that fact after all these years- typical husband). Later, she did learn to love lobsters, and I loved preparing them. There was a point where I was preparing seafood every Friday night. Then a relative lived with s for a while; she was allergic to shellfish, so good bye to lobsters. Later, with the children, the seafood experience in the house has been a mixed bag, and I was not sure how they would take to my using shrimp for a meal last night.

   My father has been making sausage and schinken (a cured ham from Germany).  Since he came into town, he brought me a sampling of  his projects. Everything was well received (by the way schinken smoked with cherry wood is fantastic). He brought two types of summer sausage. I think my son was gobbling these up, since they went fast. I know that the turf in surf an turf should be a steak, but sausage goes over well in my family, so when I saw a bit of summer sausage was left, I thought of using it with my shrimp.
    Eating seafood is healthy. Bacon and shrimp is a great flavor combination, but I cannot sell that as healthy. I have always tried to make balanced and healthy meals, but if you have read a few other posts here, you may know that my wife is on a health mission due to her experiences with working at a hospital. I use little oil when preparing meals. I try to use only healthy oils. My wife really wants no oil. Since I bake and roast along with boiling, I do cut down on oil use, but pan frying makes wonderful dishes. This left me with the dilemma of how to prepare this meal.
    I harvested the last of my cabbage this week. I thought of baking the shrimp on a bed of cabbage. Not too exciting. I also wanted more color. I puled some green onions, which added color and flavor. I then sliced carrots and celery on a bias. This was looking like a stir fry. Instead, I placed these ingredients in a skillet with water. I also cubed the summer sausage.  Braised would be the apt description for my cooking method. The water simmered away. I added pepper and cumin to enrich the taste. Yet this was not enough. I dashed in some soy sauce and fish sauce. Fish sauce can have a horrible smell when cooking, but it certainly gives a wonderful flavor when it is in a dish. Once all of the items in the meal had cooked, I thickened the sauce with a corn starch slurry. Before serving, I added chopped lemon balm to the dish.

    This was served over rice. Everyone enjoyed the meal. All of a sudden, Katya announced that shrimp was her favorite (she only would eat shrimp if we bought it at the farmer’s market in the past).  My wife was happy that the meal did not use additional fats. Summer sausage may not replace bacon, but it worked well in this preparation. When my wife asked the name of the dish, I joked a poor man’s surf and turf, but maybe I should have gone with a more Asian sounding name? Soy sauce is used as a standard ingredient in many parts of the world. Fish sauce is the stranger item, associated with Southeast Asian cuisine. If you splash it into a stir fry, you do get a nose full, but in this preparation, you do not get that odor. My children love meals with fish sauce, which, to my mind, is that most people would like it in a meal. I guess I could have added galanga or ginger for a more Asian flavor profile. Using lemon balm felt Mediterranean to me. Lemon grass as a substitute? It is beginning to grow now in Houston. My family did think that this dish was a stir fry, so maybe this braising method could work for other meals. I say braising, because I used a little water in the skillet, but I did not brown first, which does happen in most braises. I could experiment with browning without oil. That does work, but a pan fry with a little oil works better. I have stuck these skillets into the oven to braise, and this does cause the top of the dish to brown. I think that if I experiment with this fake stir fry further, I may make my wife happy with her idea of healthy food. 

From a Houston garden to the table - A site dedicated to gardening and cooking in Houston.

This is a strange time in the garden. I am harvesting winter vegetables while planting the crop for spring. I am thinking of a tomato salad with basil, since these went into the ground, but I pick kale for dinner. I am pleased to discover that Katya is quite fond of kale. She declares that it is her favorite. I think that this may be due to its appearance (I have a curly leafed kale). My children have been quite good about eating a variety of vegetables. I forget that they are a bit better than some others. My wife was happy when my daughter insisted on buying something at the grocery store, which turned out to be a book (she thought it might be junk food). I heard iron deficiency is a problem in the United States, and this is partly due to the lack of leafy greens in our diet. Leafy greens are found often in my dinners, but I admit my children are not overjoyed with them. BY having them cook with me, they do seem to go after the greens more, taking a sense of pride in the fact of their preparation of the meal.

   Katya, the four year old, and I began to prepare for the meal by going out into the garden. I was after a head of cabbage. Katya began to pick kale, broccoli, and chard. I harvested parsley as well. We went into the kitchen to wash our bounty. The children love sausage. My wife is concerned about eating healthy, so she is wary of the ingredients in sausage.  I decided to buy a small package of turkey sausage. This was sliced into thin rounds. In Germany, you will find cooks who brown the sausage, and then nestle them on top of cooking cabbage. This method flavors the cabbage while cooking the sausage. In my case, I wanted to increase the amount of vegetables, decrease the amount of meat, and find a way to make everyone happy.
    I began by suateeing an onion. Katya does not wish onions on her plate, by she does enjoy stirring the ingredients in the skillet. Once the onions have begun to brown, we add the sausage. After a minute or two, we add the shredded cabbage and other vegetables. At this time, we add a little salt, pepper, and caraway seeds. The heat is turned down to low, allowing the meal to simmer. The final step is mixing in the chopped parsley.
    The mashed potatoes are fun to make with my daughter. We sliced the potato. Boiled them. Drained off the water once they were fork tender. We added a little Dijon mustard and heavy cream (we have taken butter and milk in the past). Instead of an immersion blender or other appliance, we pulled out a potato masher. We began mashing away. By the way, we leave the skins on. Mashing has become the new favorite thing to do in the kitchen for Katya.
    I have never seen that little girl tuck into the mashed potatoes before. She also ate all of the cabbage and sausage dish, except for a few onions which she saved for me (papa, they are really good so you should have them- I give her a look). I dinner was great. We sat outside surrounded by pink impatiens (Sakura, the other daughter had to have these flowers in our pots). The conversation flowed.

From a Houston garden to the table - A site dedicated to gardening and cooking in Houston.

The cold front has moved in, and everyone is expressing relief from the heat. The weather has inspired the casual gardeners to work in their yards. For me the best part has been to sit out on the porch with the family each evening. I read my books, while others play. The insects do not seem to be too bad. I have much of the tea house done. The girls should enjoy that space, but currently the tree house is seeing activity. Dinners have been filled with the harvest from the garden. I used a bit too much curry plant leaves in one dish, and I will not make that mistake again. (Curry plant has a curry like aroma, but the flavor is not the subtle blend of spices that you find in curry). The eggplant, peppers, and tomato plants have come alive again. I am waiting for the cucumbers that were planted in late summer. Then there are the beans. October is a fruitful month.
    I heard a report where a scientist predicted that our summers will commonly see temperatures in the triple digits in the coming years. The prediction goes on to indicate that our winters will be quite mild. The harsh heat and humidity at the end of summer causes many of my plants to go into a stand-by mode. They are growing, but not producing. However, our winters are not so bad for quite a few vegetables. I planted lettuce and collards in a new bed in the front yard. I have my cabbage in place, as well as my broccoli and brussel sprouts. I am hoping for a swiss chard planting soon. I am not sure what my older daughter planted, but I seem to be either finding cilantro or parsley growing in one bed. I have been thinking of growing mustard greens again, but I am not sure if the children will eat them.
    As I have been watering my garden, my neighbor’s tree has spread its limbs over my vegetables. What used to be a sunny space is now shade. I have been spurred on to create more garden beds in the front yard, which my wife is starting to have reservations over. Along the one side was great. Along the front sidewalk was fine. Yet connecting the front beds to the beds near the home along the other side may not fly. I have started to create such a bed by moving the gifted grape pant to this area. The grape was being overtaken by some beans, and I wanted it to have full sun.  There were not many options in existing beds, so I made my move. I am hoping to have the swiss chard go in a bed below  the support frame for the grape. It will take the grape vine time to fill in that space.
    I may have started a bit early, but I moved a crepe myrtle to a new bed. When we moved into our home, the left front bed was framed by several crepe myrtles. They looked nice, but they did not let my Italian cypress fill out. I decided that since I was already rearranging plants and crating new beds that I would move one tree that was in a position that I wanted clear. I dug out this twenty-five foot tree, and dragged it to a new spot along the easement on the other side of my yard. I am watering it every other day. My experience in the past with moving these myrtles has been that the leaves fall off sooner. The tree appears to go dormant or die, but then it comes back in the spring. It takes a year for it to be as active as it once was. I probably should have waited for the tree to go dormant, but if I do loose the tree, I do not mind. I have enough crepe myrtles, and I can always make a cutting to propagate a new specimen.
    I have not worked with many flowering plants for the autumn. I have only planted a few asters. The blue flowers are being picked by the girls to give as gifts to the neighbors. Note to self: I need a lot of flowering plants to keep up with their habit. I should be planting pansies soon. Those flowers make a nice addition to salads. Color more so than flavor.Well, I am going to spend more time in the yard. Just relaxing.

From a Houston garden to the table - A site dedicated to gardening and cooking in Houston.

Winter is a great time for garlic in Houston gardens

My daughter is connecting the idea that vegetables are plants, and my experiment from a few weeks back has proven to her that you can buy something at the grocery store to grow. One item that is doing well in my garden is the garlic. I planted the garlic heads just as they were to show her that all of them will grow shoots similar to the green onions that she knows. Being busy with work, and with uncooperative weather, has not allowed me to spend as much time in the garden as I would like, but I am glad that the plants are growing without me.

    I am also wanted to go into the details of my little educational foray at a party last week. My brother has a small vegetable garden where he broadcasts his seeds to grow. A party goer did not believe that a few plants were just vegetables stuck in the ground though. My brother pointed out that he also takes seeds from plants he encounters. I was amazed to see his Thai basil still going strong (he found the seeds by a restaurant). My basil dies off after the first hard freeze, but he is fortunate. I think that more peole should try planting what the buy or find to see that it is alive.
    With my garlic, I pulled the heads out of the ground to show my girls. I could smell the garlic as it rose from the dirt.What a wonderful smell that is. I showed them the thin, fibrous roots. I let them taste the leaves (I was not popular after that move)- that is one of the pleasures of growing garlic; being able to use the leaves in my cooking. I divided the heads and planted them in rows, so we will see how it goes. I have not done anything special to have them grow. Garlic needs the cold to produce bulbs next year. I watered once when we had no rain; however, we have had good rain levels, so I did not need to water more. The only fertilizer that I placed on was my regular application of some organic fertilizer mix. This usually happens every two weeks, but I only have done this once a month during the colder months.
    I do not grow cabbage, because of a lack of space. I do like using garlic with cabbage, so I thought that I would bring up that vegetable. A simple dish that I like to make is called “roadside cabbage”. This is served on roadside stops in China (so I am told- would love to find out if it is true). I begin by browning some thinly sliced pork and onions. I add a tablespoon of miso to this, then the garlic. Once the meat has cooked (about five minutes), I add shredded cabbage (a lot of cabbage- the meat is a flavoring). Once the cabbage has wilted, the meal is done. I do sprinkle on some lite soy sauce. I serve this over rice. I have varied this recipe with other meats. Bacon goes down well in this dish. I do use quite a bit of garlic, so the flavor will come through.
    I should buy a few heads of garlic to roast. I think garlic is one of those aromatics that can add such depth to a meal.

From a Houston garden to the table - A site dedicated to gardening and cooking in Houston.