cooking Archives - DirttoDelicious

2018 Goals and Intentions Front and Center Full Steam Ahead, while pondering 2017 goals & intentions in the rear view mirror

Title : Just Say No to Botox! It gets to point in life where aging gracefully comes with acceptance of one’s own inner beauty.

Title: “Spicy Couples May Not Always Appear So On Outside ” Funny how when arranging shapes of veggies for photo, and putting titles to images strange connections of thoughts happen!

Jan 4, 2018

*** Maybe go to last paragraph and read why the photos are here, what they have to do with goals …and then come back here 🙂

Yada yada yada… 2017 already seems far away in the rear view mirror.

What did I /you/ we intend to accomplish in 2017 ? Hmmm, were those written down and reviewed within that past 10 days. Did I choose to be grateful for what I did accomplish? Did I do any personal work to resolve and start again?

I, like many folks have great intentions and goals that as years go by they seem less and less important …or attainable. Oops, I am sounding way to honest and negative to be posting those thoughts. With that said I am going to ( hopefully not ramble too much ) speak personally here. When I think back on 2017 I know the plan was to get major headway with THE CHEER PROJECT . So where is this at? TheCheerProject.com is up and running ( despite theme and plug in conflicts that took it down.) The Gallery -Portfolio is no where near where my intention for it was but a good start. The virtual tour concept of the entire Cheer experience is still my intention but have not been able to budget that yet. The program I enrolled in to help me get corporate sponsorship for the project has been educational, but not utilized as well as I had hoped.

I designed dirttodelicious.net as a show case to pull together my many gifts and areas of focus and also as an experiment to connect the dots of what I am up to and seeing if sharing it all here was valuable to me, and anyone else. A refresher on what that intention was:

My artwork from The Cheer Project and photographs of things I grow arranged on my paintings.
Making a visual and literary connection between my artwork and my varied streams of thought.
My ongoing photography of anything else that I deem appropriate for any of my themes in relationship to “dirt to deliciousness”.
My ongoing theme of learning and sharing ideas that relate to my personal experiences, research and trial and error re health and well being. Yep I mean going like feeling like dirt to feeling delicious.
My ongoing theme of creating recipes and plan to write down and refine those recipes and photographing before eaten.
Exploring having a blog spot on the web to write and post imagery that is eclectic in its nature yet multi theme based.

So with that said my evaluation of dirttodelicious.net for 2017 is this:

I did not post anywhere near enough to call seriously active
TheCheerProject.com took over in my time to focus on a web site and my learning curve with WordPress has become a project all of its own.
I love having it as a spot to share
It is still a mixed bag of multiple themes but is getting closer to working with my other sites and varied social media to cross reference

It is obvious to me that I have more goals and aspirations than time allows. But that is me… life long.

*** I am wondering how “the universe ” will respond this coming year between images of what I grow shot on paintings from the Cheer Project and The Cheer Project itself. I opened up this blog post with 3 images of mine that are showing at the art gallery of the Herberger Theater in Phoenix, Az. These three images are part of the show “Visual Feasting ” and will be there Through Feb 26, 2018. Yep stuff I grow on top of Cheer Project Paintings. Who knows, maybe just like how I was chosen by Scottsdale Cultural Council to create “Emergent” for Influx 6,after reviewing images of things that I grow photographed against my Cheer paintings… maybe I will again be commissioned to create more 5ft x 8ft images like I was with “Emergent”. If you want to see Emergent and hear more about it go to blog post https://dirttodelicious.net/temporary-art-in…ation-for-influx/ ‎

Here is to wishing all of you, all the best you can imagine and so much more. To use a wonderful affirmation phrase “this or something better ” 🙂

Linda Enger

Time… where did mine go?

How is it possible to loose time, like a missing sock in the laundry?

Or should I spend more time reading the book I think it is called The $64 tomato?

With all the things that are important to me and my priorities…. eating home grown is one of them… but then again so is my art, and family and friends, and movement/exercise that does not mess up my back and wrists like gardening seems to. And of course we all have bills to pay… and dues to pay.

So many choices … how much time ?

2 of my favorite summer veggies need planting . Guess which one

I really need to get the seeds going or ( gasp) buy little plants from someone.

Hint to answer Q of subject line…

I love making/eating vegetarian Indian food and am always trying to note the values I learn from studying Ayurvedic cooking using food as medicine .

So all of this veggies are cooling, while one lowers all Dosha levels, and Two lowers Pitta and Vata but raises Kapha.

Can you guess which is which?

YUK to yummy… and coping with unwanted guests

Seems like this winter after srting with varied types and brands of Kale seeds the Lake Valley Organics brand of Red Russian Kale is the only one that has really taken off . This time only in pots that are strategically placed in various sub climates on the property. As always there tends to be a consistently inconsistent issue I have encountered. In some of the pots , glad to say not all yet 🙂 little buggers have moved in when they know I am not looking.

When gardening I TRY to spray them off with the jet setting on my hose but often that is temp fix. I know there is always input I get on how other gardeners deal with this from my friends at http://www.vpaaz.org that has a wonderful permaculture forum and from whom I have learned SOOOO much. I know I can always plug in a search name and find great information to help me. And now I have been finding more like minded gardening peeps on Desert Gardeners of Maricopa County facebook group as well. I will share more another time on dealing in the garden with these pests but for now I want to talk about eating and food prep .

YUK ! Now some of the die hard , back to the earth type may these guys are not going to hurt you and very high in protein. And of course some foodies out there are really tapping into what some other cultures have incorporated for oh so long…..you know the chocolate covered beetles concept…..DOUBLE YUK.

If you are kosher, or other wise NOT interested at all in eating these guys and you want to enjoy your harvest ( which I am one of ) …. here is what I do and recommend.

Disclaimer… this does take some time and focused eyes, but I really take personal issue with going out and BUYING what I know I have already GROWN!!!

Soak your leaves in bowls of salt water. I use the cheapest kind of sea salt for this ( I get mine at Trader Joes or Costco) . I do MULTIPLE baths. I examine each leaf and make sure I rinse well in clear water after each bath. Put in my trusty salad spinner ( what did we do before them ). By the way my favorite after trying MANY is the OXObrand which is still going strong after I can not begin to imagine how many hundreds of times it has been spun! Wrap those leaves in paper towels and put in ziplock bags. SO I will not forget about the rotation of my produce I like to mark the date with a Sharpe marker.

Enjoy!

Power greens aka Dandelion Greens aka more weeds

Just a sampling of the mature dandelions pulled in our yard….

It is great I like dandelion greens but must say this time of year I am overwhelmed with my home grown wild greens. They are in my garden plots and EVERYWHERE else 🙂 I must say the younger the better . This batch was not tough when cooked properly but the mustard bite is stronger the larger, and older the leaves are. MAJOR Vitamin K and I am not sure but some research I am seeing lately shows it a dietary player with Alzheimer patients. ( which is a major concern in my life now as co care giver for my father in law. Big hit of Vitamin A .
If you want more than my opinion on RDA % on this go to http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/dandelion-herb.html. Trust me. Eat your greens. The bitters may be hard to like but great for you! The more uncomfortable you are with the bitter taste the more your body likely needs the liver cleanse that spring greens are notorious for accomplishing.
I like the young small greens (sparingly ) in salad with goat cheese. I find these much more mustardy than Arugula . Funny before I gardened I found the overpriced dandelion greens in store to be much more mild!
So with ALL greens they cook down LOTS which is great, cause I have LOTS. A quick blanch in boiling water for a minute and cooled immediately by a cold shower reduces a good deal of bitterness.

ok so you want the full data? thank you to http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/dandelion-herb.html for making this easier for me 🙂

See the table below for in depth analysis of nutrients:Dandelion herb greens (Taraxacum officinale), Fresh,
Nutrition value per 100 g
(Source: USDA National Nutrient data base)
Principle	Nutrient Value	Percentage of RDA
Energy	45 Kcal	2%
Carbohydrates	9.20 g	7%
Protein	2.70 g	5%
Total Fat	0.70 g	3%
Cholesterol	0 mg	0%
Dietary Fiber	3.50 g	9%
Vitamins
Folates	27 µg	7%
Niacin	0.806 mg	5%
Pantothenic acid	0.084 mg	1.5%
Pyridoxine	0.251 mg	19%
Riboflavin	0.260 mg	20%
Thiamin	0.190 mg	17%
Vitamin A	10161 IU	338%
Vitamin C	35 mg	58%
Vitamin E	3.44 mg	23%
Vitamin K	778.4 µg	649%
Electrolytes
Sodium	76 mg	5%
Potassium	397 mg	8%
Minerals
Calcium	187 mg	19%
Iron	3.10 mg	39%
Magnesium	36 mg	9%
Manganese	0.342 mg	15%
Phosphorus	66 mg	9%
Selenium	0.5 mg	1%
Zinc	0.41 mg	4%
Phyto-nutrients
Carotene-α	363 µg	—
Carotene-β	5854 µg	—
Crypto-xanthin-β	121 µg	—
Lutein-zeaxanthin	13610 µg	—