food | The Canny Gardener

November 2, 2019
by Creative Buddha Leave a comment

The food of the Pharaohs

As a child, I used to love shelling peas- a task handed by my mother to our small fingers. Many got eaten straight away instead of being handed back for cooking. Nowadays, we get ready shelled frozen peas which are convenient. Peas are associated with fish n chips, Sunday roasts, pea soup, and many Western foods. However, it is surprising to note that peas actually arose in Greece and the Middle East- Greece, Syria, Turkey and Jordan. Ancient finds also indicate that peas were eaten in Egypt, Georgia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India from 4800- 1750 BC. In the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, it appears in the Ganges Basin and southern India. Due to trade it spread further east- Japan, Korea, etc. and also West.

Peas have given rise to stories (The Princess and the pea, Five peas fairy tale, etc.) and proverbs (two peas in a pod, peas thrown against the wall, etc.) and is much loved all over the world. In the world of science, peas provided the basis for the theory of genetic inheritance. In the mid-19th century, Austrian monk Gregor Mendel’s observations of pea pods led to the principles of Mendelian genetics. Gardeners love the beautiful and delicate pea flowers. They attract bees which not only pollinate them but also produce honey. They are fairly easy to grow in a small plot of land or in a container.

A bumble bee hard at work on pea flowers

The most common type is the green garden pea (English peas) and the smaller, French petit pois. Nutritionally, peas are high in fibre, protein, vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin C, vitamin K, phosphorus, magnesium, copper, iron, zinc and lutein. Though starchy, the glycemic load of a single serving of peas is estimated to be about 4, making them a low-glycemic food. For me, I find that eating some peas stops me craving for any sweet dish afterwards. So I add to many foods that I cook. It is an inexpensive food that is always in my freezer and I can add them towards the end of the cooking. As they have been frozen, they retain the vitamins and other goodness. Here are some foods I cooked using peas.

Indian pulao with peas

Home made Paneer (Indian cheese) and peas

Eggs and peas

May 25, 2019
by Sumita Leave a comment

Winter’s gift for birds

This is spring time in the UK and we can hear birds flying, chirping and building nests. Walking under a tree, I heard the sounds of baby magpies hidden somewhere while I watched the anxious parents bring food to them. Birds are amongst the non humans who actually build homes for their young ones. Many birds are expert builders (and don’t seem to need any training!), and some are experts at repurposing holes, ledges, and parts of buildings for their nests. As an architect, I first learnt about non human architecture from this book many years ago-

A weaver bird’s nest from South India (credit: wikimedia commons)

But these days, given our penchant for weeding and tidying gardens straight after winter, our non human friend have nothing to build nests with, especially in cities. This year, I have been very busy finishing a book and had forgotten to ‘tidy up’ my patio. It was full of dead plants and I felt very embarrassed about how it was looking. But one day, raising my head, I saw two magpies busy pulling at my dried plants and branches and fly off with a beak-full. Next, I saw a little robin that has become a regular, taking little branches and stems for its own nest. I have also had a thrush coming by to pick up building materials. Ahh, I realised, my patio was actually being useful, even though it looked a state!

my untidy patio with metal robin

Seeing these birds has been such a delight and given me another reason not to tidy up so soon. Along with the nest building materials, they have taken away weeds, cleared up spider’s webs and eaten some slugs- saving me some work. I never knew how useful birds are to the canny gardener. Make sure you keep some of these materials to attract birds into your garden and help them build their nests in the spring-

Things that birds could use

Twigs or sticks
Dead leaves
Grass clippings or dead grass
Moss or lichen
Pine needles
Mud
Pebbles or small rocks (not the ones in the photo though!)
Spider web silk
Straw or other dried plant stems

Do keep some water for these thirsty parents too!
PS- As these birds tend to be wary of humans, I tried but couldn’t take a photo!

October 8, 2017
by Sumita Leave a comment

Energy garden project

Last year, I started a project with my charity, Charushila, for a concept called ‘Energy Gardens’. The Energy Garden project is a partnership project delivered by the NGO Repowering London and environmental charity, Groundwork Trust, with Transport for London. In time, 50 of London’s Overground stations will be transformed into community ‘Energy Gardens’ with thriving gardens that will incorporate food growing plots and solar panels providing on-site renewable energy for lighting, water pumps or other station amenities. In addition to improving the daily commute of people going to work the creation of the gardens will also help people get into work through training opportunities and paid horticulture apprenticeships for young people.

Charushila was a partner in facilitating the project at one of the stations, Acton Central. The first year was spent in community engagement which provided a blue print for what the local community wanted and getting ideas for the project that people felt were of local importance. The engagement was also about securing future commitment to the project in terms of maintenance and ownership. In all, about 200 local people were consulted for this project- including residents, passengers, station staff, school children and local businesses. The project has been taking shape slowly and many ideas are yet to be implemented. Some of the planters have already been adopted by local organisations, so if you’d like to adopt one, please let us know. We are looking for volunteers to plant, water and weed, so please come along if you live nearby.

But even though it is yet to be finished (these community projects involving gardens always take a long time!) , it is always heartening to get compliments from people getting in and out of the trains (a man said, “wonderful to see this work!”) and even better to eat the produce. My two recent recipes involve spinach and pumpkin flowers (these flowers were about to be thrown away!)

Spinach, Bangla style:

Wash the spinach carefully and chop.

This is about 500 gms of spinach but as you’ll see when it cooks, the volume reduces!

Heat couple of spoonfuls of cooking oil in a wok- I used organic sunflower oil. Throw in a teaspoonful each of mustard seeds, black onion seeds (Kalonji) and Fenugreek (Methi) seeds, one birds eye chilli pod, a tablespoon of turmeric and a small ball of jaggery/molasses or if you can’t find that, then a teaspoon of sugar will do. I also added some chopped carrots. Put in salt to taste- the spinach is slightly salty anyway, so put in less than you might do for other dishes. Put on a lid and relax with a cup of tea while the spinach cooks. In about 20 minutes, take off the lid and check- it should look like this-

Pumpkin flower fritters

pumpkin flowers.jpg

Wash the flowers carefully and and take out the hard stalks and petals at the bottom of the flower but make sure you keep the shape of the flower. Dry them on a towel.

This is for three flowers- so if you have more or less, do adjust accordingly. In a small bowl, mix a teaspoon of freshly crushed coriander and cumin seeds, add salt to taste (and paprika powder to taste if you like chilli taste). Add three large heaped tablespoons of chickpea flour and carefully add water so that you get a runny consistency. When you dip each flower into it, the paste should stick evenly to the whole of it, otherwise adjust the water so that it does. If you make too much of it, you can always add chopped onions and make some bhajjis with the same paste! These are now fried in hot oil and you can eat them with ketchup (like my son does!) or with tamarind chutney-

June 11, 2017
by Sumita Leave a comment

Our charity project is coming along

These are photos from an ‘Energy garden’ project we are doing on a London Overground station. The intention is to have vegetables, herbs and flowers growing on the platform, with rainwater harvesting, composting, and recycling. So the vegetables and flowers have been planted and are doing well- thanks to the station staff who look after them. A mural and slate plaque are planned for later this summer.

This work is being done as part of the environmental design charity I started, Charushila. For more information see www.charushila.org

This video introduces the Energy Garden concept which is a partnership between London Overground, Groundwork Trust, Repowering London and local organisations like ours-

May 13, 2017
by Sumita Leave a comment

when life gives you lemons…

Lemons, preserved or not, are really great for many types of foods from Western to Eastern, stopping by at Middle eastern, so really universal. Lime is sweeter than lemon and is used more in Eastern dishes but you can interchange them as I discovered if you have one and not the other. I have been experimenting with lemons and limes recently so here are some of my discoveries and money saving tips.

To keep lemons and limes fresh for a long time, do not put them in dishes and display them on dining tables as they show in home improvement shows. Instead, put them in a jar and fill it with water and keep in the fridge. This way, they keep for a long time instead of becoming dried and unusable. Lemons and limes are quite expensive, so this is a good money saving idea.
Lemon rinds can be dried at home, before you use the juice for cooking, so try to buy unwaxed limes and lemons and make lemon peels instead of throwing the peels away.
It is quite easy to make preserved lemons however, the cost and time required are not worth it, according to me. So it is cheaper to buy organic preserved lemons than making them at home. Plus you can buy these anytime of the year- if you choose to make them at home, lemons can be quite expensive in the summer, so you have to wait for winter to make them at home. However, one money saving tip I have discovered is not to throw the fleshy bits as many of the Moroccan recipes suggest and only using the rind. In fact, once you cut everything in bits and discard the inedible internal skins and bitter seeds, you can use everything up. I have so far used these in Moroccan style lamb and chicken; and Italian style pork. I have used grape juice to sweeten the dish as the lemon bits can be quite sour.
Both lemons and limes can be used to make lemonades. I prefer a quick version using squeezed lime and lemon juice and some sugar and a pinch of salt- then mixed with fizzy water and ice. You can thrown in the used rinds and some mint leaves if you have them. A cheap cool drink for the summer.

April 22, 2017
by Sumita Leave a comment

Wild Garlic

Wild garlic is now available- for free! You can get it from about April to June so although you may overindulge on it now, like other wild plants such as samphire, it is made more delicious by the very nature of its seasonal availability. You can forage for it in the woodlands, especially in places where it is quite shady. Allium ursinum – known as ramsons, buckrams, wild garlic, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic, bear leek, or bear’s garlic – is a wild relative of chives native to Europe and Asia.

(Wild garlic leaves and flowers: image credit Marcelle Rose Nutrition)

Wild garlic of course, doesn’t look like garlic and it is the leaves that you use. The taste of the wild garlic leaves is quite mild but the effect on your stomach can be strong, so it is best used cooked, not raw. You can smell the leaves from quite far and so they are easy to find. Be careful because often they grow with other leaves and grass which are not only unsavory but can be poisonous.

There are many ways to cook it but my favorite is the wild garlic and potato soup because it is healthy, filling and easy to cook. There are soups with just wild garlic in it but I find them too strong. I first learnt to make this soup in Devon, almost twenty-five years ago and this is it-

Ingredients
I tbsp oil or a small blob of butter for frying
1 medium size onion, chopped
400g potatoes, peeled & diced (occasionally I have also used carrots in this mix)
1.2 litres vegetable or chicken stock (I use organic stock cubes or Bouillon powder dissolved in water)
50g wild garlic leaves, shredded
Crème fraîche or double cream (or I prefer yoghurt) to serve
Wild garlic flowers (if you have them and make sure they are opened up, not closed)
Salt & pepper to taste

Heat the oil/butter in a large saucepan. Add the onion and fry on a low heat for 6-8 minutes, until softened without colouring. Add the potatoes and stock. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Blitz in a blender or food processor until smooth, with flecks of wild garlic leaves. Reheat in the pan, seasoning to taste. Serve with a swirl of cream/yoghurt and garnish with a few shreds of wild garlic leaves and flowers.

The other way I have used them is to use them in pasta with a seasonin of chilli flakes, salt and shreds of garlic leaves fried in olive oil- heavenly! You can also make garlic leaf pesto but again I find that too much. In my opinion, you can need to use garlic leaves sparingly like you would coriander.

Shreds of wild garlic also work well in salads. Here I have used it in a raw courgette salad with a simple dressing of lemon, salt and pepper with olive oil.

September 19, 2015
by Sumita Leave a comment

Gratitude for plants

Recently I was reading about plants that grow in water. You can put literally anything like carrot tops, onion tops, celery etc in water and they grow again. Amazing, so I have been doing some experiments to see how little plants need to grow again.

But there are plants that grow in air too. You will have seen root plants such as potatoes, ginger etc as well as bulbs such as garlic and onions also grow from nothing. Here are my experiments with turmeric which needed nothing but darkness and air to start growing green shoots.

Here are the planted shoots, growing beautifully-

Which brings me to the point of this post- how amazing plants are and how little they really need. A bit of water, a bit of soil, bit of sunlight, some pruning from time to time and perhaps a change of soil and addition of compost. Yet they provide an eco system that supports our very life. They attract bees that pollinate other plants, they give us food, medicine and clean and purify the air we breathe. We’d all die if plants died. They are beautiful and keep us healthy. They give us so much for so little. Yet, how many times have I expressed gratitude for plants? Not many times, perhaps because I take them for granted. From now on, I shall express gratitude for plants every day!

April 25, 2015
by Sumita Leave a comment

camping at home- and living without

I was brought up in India, a hot tropical country. We did not have many ‘modern amenities’ for most of my life- things that would be considered almost impossible to live without, for example- the fridge, telephone and the TV. Now I live in London, a country of temperate climate. In 2011, I decided on an experiment to switch off my fridge and freezer. Initially I used an old fashioned ‘food safe’- a Victorian metal cabinet which I left out in my balcony- to store perishables. As I was away on and off for eight months of that year doing research for a book, it was a particular challenge to manage food and food waste. However, needless to say, my fridge and freezer had been usually empty as I cook with fresh ingredients and do not usually buy frozen or chilled foods anyway.

Initially I made mistakes, mostly with rice. I usually eat rice as I am on gluten free diet. Gone off rice is dangerous because it harbours spores of Bacillus cereus, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning. If the rice is left standing at room temperature, the spores can grow into bacteria. These bacteria will multiply and may produce toxins (poisons) that cause vomiting or diarrhoea. In order to save time, I cooked more rice than needed but it was more than I could eat. I was sick. So l learnt not to cook more than I needed. I learnt to give away extra food to people when I was going away.

Of course, my two children did not like that their eccentric mummy did not use a fridge (‘all our friends have fridges and their mums don’t sing while they cook!’ were the complaints I heard). Amongst all other things, apparently cold milk is a necessity, I realised for children who have been brought up in the city and do not realise that fresh milk from the cow is actually warm. When we wanted ice cream or ice, we bought it and used it straightaway. I did not use my fridge for two years! After much complaints about the milk temperature and my singing, I decided to switch on the fridge and freezer only for the summer. This year I found someone had left a good quality insulated picnic box outside our place. I got it and washed it; and have been using this- again left out on the balcony. Delicate herbs like coriander keep quite well outside in a small cup of water and hardy mint actually grows roots (and I have planted some of it). The coriander you see in the photo is a week old (from the supermarket)- in the fridge it would have rotted by now. The mint is several weeks old!

Thanks to climate change, as the weather is still cold enough, I am not using the fridge at the moment (even the milk is cold enough for my children). So what are the advantages of not using the fridge or freezer?

1. I buy only what I need (my food bill has gone down immensely)

2. Food is cooked fresh, using fresh ingredients.

3. Zero or nil food waste.

4. Although not enough to be huge difference, my electricity bill has gone down slightly.

5. Due to being forced to have fresh food, we buy local and thereby save on food airmiles.

6. We’ve had to cut down on several high calorie foods such as butter, cream, etc as all these foods need the fridge- this is actually good.

7. Best of all, I don’t have to clean the fridge or freezer- I am using them for storage at present.

Wacky or canny- you decide!!! I am still singing though!

September 13, 2014
by Sumita Leave a comment

Freezer tricks

My last post was about summer abundance and how to cook with unripe or extra produce from your garden. Well, if you don’t want to cook it, you can also freeze it. In the UK, about 800,000 tonnes of food valued at £2 billion is thrown away annually- 30% of the food thrown away is perfectly usable but we buy too much and throw it. Six steps to reducing food waste are-

Plan ahead for the week, on a daily basis. Use coupons and reduced price food wisely- don’t buy reduced price food just because it is reduced and give away coupons you won’t use.
Buy what you need or what you will definitely eat (do try a new food once in awhile!). Do not be tempted by BOGOFs and money off coupons unless they are about what you would buy anyway.
Store food correctly at the right temperature and place- many food such as bananas and avocados do not need to be stored in the refrigerators.
Cook the right amount. I use things like yoghurt and fruit to supplement if one person says they are hungrier that particular day rather than making more food.
Store leftovers for later use.
If you really must throw, then see if you can compost it. Many food items such as meat can’t be composted. Some food can be eaten by pets and animals such as pigs but again check before giving it to them.

About £860 million worth of food is stored in freezers. We could do more. Saving food not only saves the planet by keeping down the greenhouse gases but also saves us money. Freeze food before it goes off and bought food can be frozen on the day of purchase. Some tips-

Check your freezer is below 5C- your chicken and greens will last three days longer.
Bread gets stale in the fridge six times faster, so divide your bread and store excess in the freezer. You can easily defrost it by leaving it out or using the microwave.
You can also divide other food into smaller portions for freezing. Ice cube trays are handy for freezing juices, milk, tomato sauce, herbs into small portions that can used as needed.
Cut vegetables into pieces and freeze- these are very handy for quick stir fries.
You can also freeze eggs, cheese, chopped bananas, summer fruits and cakes.

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The Canny Gardener

how to grow, cook and use plants, plus some philosophy!

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