Innholdsfortegnelse for Autumn 2020 i Grow to Eat

Water chestnuts are not nuts but a corm, and are an aquatic plant native to china. Unlike chestnuts that grow on a tree and are usually roasted, water chestnuts can be eaten raw or cooked with other ingredients. Water chestnuts are great for stir-fries and salads, for making stuffing or for using in desserts like fruit salad and cakes, but paired with bacon and sugar they are little bites of heaven. 1 pack streaky bacon16 or so fresh water chestnuts1 tablespoon Dijon mustard1 tablespoon brown sugar Mix the sugar and the mustard together. Cut the bacon strips in half and spoon the mustard/sugar mix over each. Place a chestnut in the centre, roll it up and secure the little package with a cocktail stick. Place on a baking tray and…

Pineapple sage is an excellent source of vitamin K, which is important for blood clotting in the human body. As its name suggests, pineapple sage has a distinctive pineapple aroma, and it is also a pretty perennial in the garden with its tropical bright red flowers. These flowers brighten up the garden and are also edible, being used mainly combined with fruit in desserts and in summer cocktails. The leaves can be used to flavour things like chicken, pork and fish – those dishes that go well with the pineapple flavour. Growing Although it can be grown in colder climates it will need to be sheltered over winter. Originally from the warmer climates of Mexico and Guatemala, it prefers warmer weather. Plant in a sunny position in moist, fertile soil…

Powdery mildew is easy to identify and is one of the oldest fungal diseases known to man. The infection will cause a white to grey powdery fungal growth on the leaves, stems and heads of plants. Interestingly, although the signs are similar on all types of plants, the disease is species specific, so an infection on your roses, for example, will not affect your grapes. The good news is that powdery mildew is rarely fatal for the plant, but can lead to leaves yellowing, curling and eventually turning brown and falling off the stems. Flower buds can also be affected, reducing the yields of vegetables and fruits. The disease is more prevalent in high humidity and warm to moderate weather, on dry leaves and in low light – so at…

The unsuspecting fruit taking the top spot for the world’s most popular is the banana. Well, actually it’s the tomato with bananas second, but I am a proud member of the ‘tomatoes are a vegetable’ tribe so they don’t count. They also strangely steal the top spot for the world’s tallest herb, making banana ‘tree’ a misnomer (because the stem is fleshy, not woody). On top of all that, the fruit is technically classified as a berry! If you live in a tropical area, you can easily grow this weird and wonderful plant in your garden. Uses Bananas are grown, first and foremost, for their fruit. However, the plant itself has so many other uses. Banana trees grow extremely quickly and make a great windbreak or screen when planted in…

I spent a year teaching English in South Korea (as many otherwise unemployable English Honours graduates do!), and it was there that I first learnt of how tasty and beneficial fermented foods can be. In Korea, kimchi is the answer to just about every culinary question. What should I have in my omelette? Kimchi. What goes nicely with a braai? Kimchi. What kind of soup should we make? Kimchi. But it’s also the answer to some health questions too: I’m low on energy. Have some kimchi. My stomach doesn’t feel too good. Have some kimchi. I keep getting sick. Eat more kimchi. You get the idea. Don’t tell the Koreans, but kimchi’s secret health powers are common to many fermented foods, of which yoghurt is the one most of us…

Have some fun trying the recipe below and please contact me directly for additional information on other recipes, food choices, gardening tips, health related issues and lifestyle choices. I love to connect and share what I have learnt about food as our medicine and how to make it easy, quick and fun for the whole family. This is delicious, can be eaten hot or at room temperature, and is ideal for under a vegetable curry. Make it once and freeze some for later. You can ring the changes as you like. 2 onions, chopped finely2 cloves garlic, crushed2 green peppers, diced1½ cups brown rice3 tablespoons grape seed oil, coconut oil or olive oil2 teaspoon each of turmeric, paprika, ground cumin, fennel seeds1 tablespoon each of thyme and origanum (preferably fresh),…

There’s nothing nicer than fresh greens and herbs in winter, and there is no reason why you can’t grow them on a sheltered balcony, patio or windowsill with lots of light. North-facing windows are particularly good, especially if you have a broad windowsill that can hold pots of mature herbs. If the windowsill is too narrow, use a table or any other flat surface in front of a window. Winter-hardy herbs that can be grown from seed are parsley, thyme, sage and origanum. Sow them directly into 10cm pots. Herb seeds need a temperature of about 22° to 24°C to germinate and about five hours of bright light a day to grow well. Besides herbs, try compact leafy vegetables like Asian greens (Chinese cabbage, mizuna, pak choi and tatsoi) as…

Why grow it? It’s a hardy perennial that can last many years in the garden. It can also be used as a pretty green groundcover in garden beds, between pavers and in rock gardens. Its culinary uses are many, but it goes particularly well with tomatoes and other vegetables, with eggs and meat dishes and it’s a tasty herb for pizzas. Where to grow it In the garden, it needs a lot of sunshine to produce an intense flavor, but it will grow in partial shade. Indoors it needs adequate heat and sunshine. How to grow it? Oregano can be grown from sown seed, from cuttings, or divided from a healthy plant and planted in light, well-draining soil more on the sandy side with plenty of organic matter like compost…

Comfrey has very special properties that will benefit many areas of health and garden maintenance. It’s one of the most useful plants to have in the garden. 1 Compost accelerator The most common use of comfrey is as a compost accelerator. Comfrey is high in nitrogen, so when added to brown leaves, which will be high in carbon, the comfrey will balance out the carbon-to-nitrogen levels and so speed up the composting process. 2 Free fertiliser Comfrey is high in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium – the three elements that make up most fertilisers – and contains many trace elements. It has a large and deep (up to 2m) root system that pulls nutrients from the subsoil into their leaves. When comfrey leaves decompose they turn into a liquid. When diluted…

I’m sure that if we were to take a walk around your garden, we’d find at least a few herbs growing: parsley, basil, rosemary, thyme – something. But I’m also fairly certain that we would have to look further to find a single spice growing. Why is that? I suppose we tend to use fewer spices, or smaller quantities, when we cook than we do herbs, but it can be great fun (and very tasty!) to have a few spices on hand in your garden. Here are five spices that YOU can grow: Mustard Mustard is often grown as a leafy green, but if you leave the attractive and versatile plant to go to seed you can harvest the seeds and use them as a spice in your culinary creations.…

Overnight oats is so incredibly easy, it’s healthy, cheap and doesn’t even use much electricity, and you can change things up by adding different toppings so that you never get bored of it. How to cook it Overnight oats is basically preparing oats without cooking them, using time instead of heat. Instead of putting oats and water in a pot and boiling it on the stove until the oats have absorbed water and are cooked, you soak the raw oats in milk for a few hours, preferably overnight. (If you don’t like the idea of soaking the oats in milk, or if you are vegan, you can soak them in water or a plant milk (almond, coconut, cashew or oat milk.) When you wake up you’re greeted with a creamy,…

Waste not, want not Pick squashes when the stalks are dry, with a 5 - 10cm stem, to prevent the point where the stem attaches to the fruit from rotting. Store in a dark, cool cupboard. Dig up potatoes only when the plant has died down completely. Wipe soil off the potatoes (don’t wash them), and store them in a hessian or paper bag in a dark cupboard to prevent them from going green. Beetroot and carrots can stay in the ground over winter if you don’t need the space. Ripening tips In areas where frost occurs at the end of May, remove small unripe fruit (tomatoes, brinjals, squashes etc.) so that the plant can put its energy into ripening the larger remaining fruit. To speed up the ripening of…

Compost – making it, storing it and getting rid of kitchen waste in it – is always an issue. A lot of people, especially those with smaller gardens, don’t like a big, old-fashioned compost heap creating an eyesore in their gardening space. With our penchant for all things corrugated, we decided to try out the neat corrugated iron compost bins available from RainQueen SA (www.rainqueensa.co.za), and they work a treat. They also look good in the garden, so you don’t have to hide them around a corner. Tips Air circulation is critical. Every week or so take a thick stick or a garden fork and poke holes in the compost heap. Don’t let the compost dry out – keep it moist by lightly sprinkling the compost with water very now…

While clearing away my grandmother’s and mother’s old recipe booklets, compiled by ladies of the church or those who belonged to agricultural unions in the 50’s and 60’s, I was overcome with a great feeling of sadness, loss and hunger. On those typed and copied pages with many footnotes and decorated in food splotches are recipes for side dishes. Yes, in those days vegetables and salads were sides and not mains – even chicken was sort of second place or a ‘vegetable’ when weighed up to a good, meaty roast! For fancy entertaining, the pièce de résistance was the moulded salad. No kitchen belonging to a housewife worth her salt was without moulds of different shapes and forms. If money was no object, they would have been made of copper…

In the centre of Durban, amidst a cacophony of taxi hooting and the bustle of a seething throng of humanity is a green escape, a piece of ground that is productively farmed and produces fresh vegetables that are sold at markets and to local restaurants, with the excess donated to charities. To find something like this in the midst of a cityscape is fairly unusual in itself, but things get even more interesting when you find out that all of this happens dozens of metres off the ground, on the rooftop of a normal-looking business building across the road from the International Convention Centre. The building is home to the peculiarly named iTrump (Inner City Thekwini Regeneration and Urban Management Programme), an initiative that deals with urban regeneration, and their…

One of the benefits of growing your own veggies is the variety of plants from all over the world you can combine in your own backyard. You can travel from continent to continent with each step through the veggies you choose to plant. Today we are travelling East by planting Chinese cabbage. ‘Chinese cabbage’ is used as a broad term for a few types of cabbage (including bok choy) but Chinese cabbage as we South Africans know it is a variety called Michihili Chinese cabbage. Its crinkled green leaves cover a white interior that can be used in soups or stews, or as a more vitamin-rich replacement for lettuce in salads. It is a quick grower ready for harvest in 2 – 3 months, making it perfect for the mildly…

It’s fun to grow new things, so with this in mind we decided to grow water chestnuts (Eleocharis dulcis). Why? Because we heard that the boys from Aqua Flora, a water garden nursery in the North West, could supply them, and our motto is always, “Why not?” Aqua Flora duly couriered the plants down to us (which we found fascinating in itself!), although there were a few tricky moments when we went to the local PostNet to collect them and they had not yet arrived! We imagined them finally being unearthed a week later, a soggy and smelly mess that we would have to dispose of responsibly, but when they turned up they were fine. We planted them straight away in a concrete planter that Garth had made a few…

Wholegrain mustard turns a few common ingredients into something special, something that no table should be without, especially when there’s gammon and bread lying around. Ingredients 3 tablespoons brown mustard seeds3 tablespoons yellow mustard seeds⅓ cup white wine vinegar⅓ cup dry white wine¾ teaspoon salt1 tablespoon diced onion¼ teaspoon white pepper A pinch of allspice Pop all the dry ingredients (mustard seeds, salt, white pepper, all spice) into a mixing bowl and mix. Add the diced onion and mix. Add the vinegar and mix. Add the white wine and mix. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Add the mix to a blender and blend until it has reached the thickness and coarseness you like. Store in the fridge and use within a couple of weeks.…

Apple cider vinegar is reputed to have magical properties and be the cure for all ails. But is it really a magic elixir from the ‘Fountain of Youth’, a fighter of disease and killer of germs? There is the fact that apple cider vinegar contains all the health benefits of apples, concentrated into a liquid that is packed with essential amino acids and enzymes containing many vitamins and minerals. And if you consider that humans sometimes need tiny quantities of trace elements for good health and that a tiny deficiency can result in sickness, it stands to reason that something packed with many of these elements is good for you. While scientific evidence suggests that ‘an apple a day may not keep the doctor away’, a tablespoon of apple cider…

We all know that veggies are good for us and that leafy greens are a must in our diet. But which plant foods are actually the most nutritious? We did a bit of research and came across a wonderful study by the American Centre of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that defines Powerhouse Fruits and Vegetables (PFV) and ranks them according to nutrient density. What is nutrient density? The study defined food density as the percent of daily values of qualifying nutrients per 100g. So if it is recommended that you have a lot of iron in your diet, nutrient density is how much iron, as a percentage of the required amount, is in 100g of the vegetable or fruit in question. The study examined 47 fruits and vegetables from…

When I was young we didn’t go to nurseries much, but my mom was always getting new plants for her garden. Like almost everyone at the time, she got most of her new plants by swapping cuttings, seeds and baby plants with friends or fellow members of her gardening club. But times have changed, and these days communities aren’t as close, people are busier, and gardeners tend to buy their plants and seeds from garden centres. I’m sitting at my desk writing this on Black Friday, and while I can appreciate that the economy and therefore most of us benefit from this explosion of capitalist fervour, the whole concept makes me feel very uncomfortable. So, it was a wonderful to receive a letter that was the antithesis of Black Friday.…