Janurary- Herb of the Month- Rosemary

~Rosemary~ Topic of the Month
Just thought I would start out by saying, Happy New Year everyone!
2010 is here!

As I have mentioned in a previous post I choose so make rosemary the herb of the month since I have been using it lately and have really started to like the flavor it adds to dishes.

Here are some medical uses and health facts of rosemary that you may find interesting:

-It is thought of to be a memory stimulant so instead of just keeping your pot of rosemary in the kitchen, you could move it do a more useful spot such as your desk where you do your work of where your kids do their studying and school work.

-Studies done on animals have shown that rosemary has cut their risk in half of getting lung cancer, colon cancer and breast cancer.

-Can also help to relax muscles, rosemary tea has been know for calming nerves.

-If rosemary tea is gargled it has been known to aid in healing canker sores and ulcers.

These are just a few of the many know uses of rosemary.


Cooking:
Rosemary is best used fresh, since it looses most of its flavor when dried, although it can also be used dried if you wish.

Rosemary can be used in cooking so many things, and it does not take much to add quite a bit of flavor. So far I have used it in stuffing, chicken, stir fry dishes, and possibly some other things that I am unable to think of at this moment, but there are sooooo many more options for cooking with rosemary that I have not tried yet.

One thing that will probably be the next thing that I try with rosemary will probably be rosemary butter. Sounds good doesn't it?

Here is a link to a site that explains some good ways to use rosemary for barbeques and others cooking uses along with some recipes.- theherbspiral.com

How to use rosemary in your cooking- this site gives you alot of ideas of how to cook with rosemary. Lots of good ideas. I may just have to try some of these.

Here is a link to my Pumpkin Bread Stuffing with Rosemary


Nutrition Data:
From Nutritiondata.com:
"The good: This food is low in Sodium, and very low in Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Vitamin B6, Magnesium, Potassium and Copper, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Folate, Calcium, Iron and Manganese.

The bad: This food is high in Saturated Fat."
You can check out the rest of the nutrition data for rosemary here at Nutritiondata.com

July- Vegetable of the Month- Collards

Before this year I have never grown collards before, nor did I ever cook with them. I decided to grow them this year since I wanted more kinds of greens that would grow will during warmer weather. Collards are most often grown by southerners because of their talerance to the southern heat. My collards are still producing really well, and hopefully will continue to do so for awhile.

Cooking:

Our favorite way to use collards is to make collard rolls, which is just like cabbage rolls except with collards. Here is our recipe that we have been using but can be changed depending on what vegetables are in season.

COLLARD ROLLS (In Crock-Pot)
Ingredients 20 collards leaves (reserve liquid from the slightly cooked leaves)

1-pound baby cut carrots (slightly cooked)

½ cup precooked rice according to package

3 Yukon golden potatoes (slightly cooked) Approximately

3 pounds ground meat (80% lean ground chuck beef) 2 cans 10-3/4 oz Campbell’s tomato soup 3 eggs

The following four ingredients are what I had available (in season) to add, you can add whatever you may have available that sounds good, instead of the following:

½ cup chopped broccoli raabs

1/8 cup chopped garlic scapes

1/8 cup chopped scallions

1/8 cup chopped beet leaves

1/8 cup BA Farm Seasoning Mix

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

1/3 cup ketchup

Cooking time in large crock pot – 6 hours on low

Prepare rice, carrots, and potatoes as above and set aside.

Trim off the thick back part of stem of the collards as you would the cabbage leaves to make cabbage rolls. Place the collard leaves in water and heat just a few minutes. Reserve 2 cups liquid from cooked leaves; to this mix add the 2 cans of tomato soup. Combine broccoli raab, garlic scapes, scallions, and beet leaves mix together and add 1/8 cup to the meat mixture, reserve remaining to be added in to liquid mixture in crock-pot at the end.

Place in large bowl ground meat and combine the following: eggs, BA Farms Seasoning Mix, breadcrumbs, ketchup and rice. Mix together. Add the above 1/8 cup (reserve) of broccoli raabs, garlic scapes, etc. and mix.

To form collard rolls place meat mixture on the large end of leaf and roll up set each roll aside until all leaves are used. If there is left over meat, roll as a meatball. Place some carrots & potatoes on the bottom of the crock-pot. Add some liquid mixture. Then place a layer of collard rolls. Keep alternating carrots, potatoes, and liquid mixture then the collard rolls until all are used up.

May also be cooked in oven at 375 degrees for 1-1/2 hours (approximately) until done.

Health Benefits:

The following site names and describes the different health benefits of collards, such as improving bone health, and can also aid in preventing certain diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Also mentions how collards can help to prevent some vision problems, and may also help to give you more energy. Of coarse like most vegetables and greens can help with weight loss.
How Stuff Works- Collards Health Benefits

NutritionData.come- Collards

April- Vegetable of the Month- Beets

I have decided to have a different topic of the month each month. This month there will be a vegetable of the month (beets), but sometimes I will have and herb of the month, flower of the month, a particular variety of the month and sometimes maybe even item of the month. I will share with you my knowledge of the vegetable, flower or herb, how to cook with it, its health benefits, how it is grown, and any other interesting info about the particular topic.



So for this month the vegetable of the month is Beets:

• This year we will be growing the flowing varieties of beets:

Forono Beet: This will be our first year growing this variety. It is a red colored beet with a cylindrical shape. Which means that it has a long shape compared to the common round beets that you usually see. I wanted to grow this variety because I think these would be very easy to slice, and could get many more slices from these compared to the normal kinds.

Perfected Detroit Beets: This is an improved variety of Detroit Dark Red Beets. This is the kind that we have usually grown in the past. Very good variety of beet!

Detroit Dark Red: We wanted to try the common variety this year just to see how in compares to the improved version.

I am also thinking about growing another type of beet that is entirely different from the traditional dark red beets, maybe a golden beet, white or Chioggia (striped beet). It all depends on if I will have the room to add another variety. We will see.

I did pick up a packet of golden beets from the garden center the other day (you know what happens when I go there, I buy everything, I just can't control myself). There where not too many seeds in the package but I figured, why not give them a try to see what they are like. If I like them this year I can order a large pack next year. So I should have a very limited supply of golden beets available probably in the middle of the season.

• We usually have beets available the whole market season. This is one of the few vegetables that can be grown for most of the season. We usually make continuous planting throughout the our whole season. I does pretty well in most conditions, and is not very demanding.

• Cooking Beets: We have a lot of customers that like beets and would like to buy some of our beets, but do not know how to cook them. So last year I typed up instructions on how to cook beets, and had them available for anyone who asked how to prepare them. So here are my instructions on how to cook beets:

Rinse off beets. Leave on roots and remove all except 1-2 inches of the tops. Cover with water, and boil covered for approximately 40 to 50 minutes or until tender when pricked with a knife. (Cooking time will depend on size of beets, larger beets will take longer to cook then smaller ones.) When done place beets in cool water until you are able to handle them. While they are still warm, the skins should slide off easily, by rubbing them off with your hands. Beware of the red from beets, can stain easily. Beets can also be cooked the same way in a pressure cooker, which will cut the cooking time in half.

Here is a great link with lots and lots of recipes for beets: Just Vegetable Recipes

• Using Beet Tops: Make sure you keep your beet tops, because that make a very good cooked green. We use to just throw ours out, until one day our neighbor found out and yelled at us for doing so! We once used ours to make stuffed shells instead of using spinach since we did not have any spinach at that time but had beet greens. It was very good and I wish I had written down the recipe so that I could share it with you, but I didn't. I will have to make it again and make sure I write it down this time and take pictures. You can use the tops like you would other cooked greens, and can be substituted for spinach in many recipes.

I plan to use beet top greens during the summer in my bagged salad mix, since it is a green that can be grown when it is warm, in the middle of the summer. Most lettuces will blot (or go to seed) and become bitter when it gets too warm, but beet greens will be fine in the heat. My summer greens mix can be used for either a salad or as cooked greens, which ever you prefer. Some other greens that may be included in the mix are collards, baby swiss chard, kale, arugula and possibly some others.

• Storing Beets: I have found that the best way to store beets is in a bag in one of your fridge. If you leave the in the open (not in a bag) they may not even last a week before becoming soft. I put mine in a regular plastic shopping bag. You can usually keep the tops on for at least a week (check on it regularly), if you are going to store the beets for longer than that you should remove the tops, since they will not last as long as the beets themselves. You can always remove the tops and keep them separate from the beets in case the start to go bad and you do not notice, this way your beets will be fine. The beets themselves can last for months is stored properly, jus about as long as carrots, which also can be stored for a long time.

• Beets Health Facts: Beets are a very healthy vegetable and can benefit your health in many ways. They have been said to help prevent birth defects, heart disease, and some types of cancer.
  

These are just some of the good websites that I have found that explain health benefits of beets:
Nutrition Facts Analysis for Cooked Beets- From NutritionData.com
Nutrition Facts Analysis for Cooked Beet Greens- From NutritionData.com
The World's Healthiest Foods- Lot of good info here.
RawVeg.Info- Lists the different health benefits of beets, and gives links to read more about each benefit.
How Stuff Works calls beets a "Natural Weight Loss Food", read more about at this link.
The Many Health Benefits of Beets- Good site that describes each way that beets can help your health

There are so many more sites that explain the benefits of beets that I just couldn't list them all!


So as you can see beets are a very healthy vegetable. I makes a great side dish, and addition to almost any meal. It is a dual purpose vegetable because you can both the greens and the actual beet root. And as I have already mentioned it can be grown anytime throughout the growing season, so we should have them available at every market.