Produce- "Dirty Dozen" and "Clean 15"

It would be great to be able to buy organic all the time. It would also be great to have a vacation house, 4 cars, and a flying pony, but that's just not realistic for most. We need to retain some discretionary income to be able to enjoy the non-food niceties of life too, right? (what? Non-food-related enjoyment? Impossible. I know, I know, but let's focus...)


Unless you're able to set aside a pretty hefty portion of your paycheck to always buy organic, you'll probably find yourself picking up some conventional items pretty regularly. Each year the Environmental Working Group tests produce for the amount of residual pesticides AFTER they are prepared as normally eaten (washed, peeled, etc). The produce left with the highest amount of pesticides (containing toxins with links to cancer, neurological disorders, etc) are labeled "The Dirty Dozen." (gross, right? I'll say that again: AFTER washing and peeling. yikes.) More recently, they've also come out with "The Clean 15" list, which, as you can imagine, has the least amount of residual pesticides. 


There's always another side to these studies and UC Davis takes serious issue with the methodology of this study, particularly with the inclusion of the uber-healthy blueberry on the dirty side, but I would still err on the side of caution with most, particularly those at the top of the list. 


Here's the 2012 Dirty Dozen and Clean 15:


Dirty Dozen Plus™ as listed on ewg.org
Buy these organic
1   Apples
2   Celery
3   Sweet bell peppers
4   Peaches
5   Strawberries
6   Nectarines– imported
7   Grapes
8   Spinach
9   Lettuce
10   Cucumbers
11   Blueberries – domestic
12   Potatoes
Plus +   Green beans +   Kale/Greens
+ May contain pesticide residues of special 
concern


Clean 15™
Lowest in Pesticide
1   Onions
2   Sweet Corn
3   Pineapples
4   Avocado
5   Cabbage
6   Sweet peas
7   Asparagus
8   Mangoes
9   Eggplant
10   Kiwi
11   Cantaloupe - domestic
12   Sweet potatoes
13   Grapefruit
14   Watermelon
15    Mushrooms


Want a printable list to take to the store with you? 
Print This Lil' Guy! ---->

3" x 4" 

Grow Your Own Onions After Dinner!

Recently I've developed an interest in composting. Partially to help feed the garden, but largely because I realized how much organic material we throw away weekly.

While researching how to start composting, I came across a few sites that talked about growing and endless supply of green onions in a jar and this one that talked about how to sprout, plant, and harvest from the garden. Of course, I had to try it. I mean, come on, right? Grow my own onions? Yes, please. 

That night I saved the bottom of the onion that we grilled up (mmm... veggie skewers) and dried it out for a day, as the site recommended. I then placed it in a shallow plastic container with water and a teaspoon or so of water-storing crystals. (It's been hitting the 100 degree mark fairly regularly during the last few weeks and I didn't want all the water to evaporate. Side note- the crystals are super fun to play with. See Office Plants) I also threw a Bok Choi stem in there because someone said you can do that too. We'll see. 

The Onion Adventure:

Just after "planting": 

Bok Choi stem on left, Vidalia Onion on right 

Supposedly, what happens is that the bottom of each will start to create little roots and that the top of the circle clusters of the onion will start to create green shoots (no idea what the Bok Choi will do). 

Two days after start:

I think I can see 2 little green shoots starting on the bottom cluster but maybe it's just wishful thinking... we'll see.

Four days after start:

Are the green circles greener? I'd like to think so but it could also just be a wish-induced mirage.

One week after start:

It's like weird Shrinky-Dinks. 

10 days after start:

That bottom section is totally getting greener... right? 

Stay tuned for updates on the Great Onion Caper (Adventure)!

Foil Packet (Grilled) Lemon-Thyme Chicken

One of the best ways to get great flavor into chicken without adding a lot of fat is obviously grilling, but it's really easy to either dry out the chicken or undercook it. Plus, you can't marinate and cook the chicken with many herbs as they'll just burn and you'll have charcoal-crusted chicken instead of a tasty herb-y chicken. 

Foil packet chicken is a fantastic way to nix all of those issues. I love throwing citrus, tomatoes, or onions in the packet so that the flavor gets infused into the chicken and (bonus!) keeps it from drying out. 

Ingredients:

1-2 lbs bone-in kosher or local, free-range chicken, skinned & large pieces butterflied for even cooking

1-2 lemons, wedged

1 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme (I used lemon thyme which has a more floral aroma)

3-4 Tbsp olive oil or equal parts butter & olive oil

Salt & Pepper

(You can add onions, mushrooms, garlic, and other veggies that roast well for a complete meal)

Directions:

1. Pre-heat grill 
2. Double-layer foil (or single-layer heavy duty foil) sheets about 18-24" long, depending on how much chicken you've got
3. Lightly grease the top layer of foil with olive oil
4. In a small bowl, combine remaining olive oil, chopped thyme, the juice of 2 wedges of lemon, salt and pepper
5. Rub or baste each piece of chicken on both sides and arrange on the foil, placing remaining wedges between chicken pieces throughout. Add other veggies if desired.
6. Pull ends of foil together and wrap together creating a tent
7. Roll other sides of foil together so that the packet is as air-tight as possible but with room to steam (don't push down on the top of the foil so that you can feel the chicken through it)
8. Grill on one side about 10-12 minutes
9. Flip, and grill other side for 4-5 minutes
10. Remove from heat, CAREFULLY unroll foil using oven mitts and check temperature of chicken- done when it reaches 170 degrees. If larger pieces aren't quite there, remove small ones, re-wrap large pieces and return to the grill for 5-6 more minutes. 

Serve with rice, Israeli couscous, or other hearty grain. Enjoy!

Penne with Polenta, Corn & Arugula

Summer means fresh, local corn (at least in the Midwest) and tasty garden greens. It also means that I am NOT turning on the oven unless I'm being held captive by hippies in exchange for some sort of baked good. 


This is a great way to enjoy your seasonal produce in a light but satisfying pasta dish. Plus it can easily be adjusted for a vegan or gluten free crowd. 

Ingredients:

1 lb penne pasta (whole grain pasta works nicely)
1 polenta log
2 ears of corn (preferably already grilled or roasted) 
A big handful of arugula (you can add or substitute whatever greens are currently available in your garden or fridge. I tossed some chopped chard in with mine. Kale, thinly sliced Collards, or even Basil leaves would also be great.)
1/2 onion, sliced 1/4" lengthwise 
3-4 garlic cloves, chopped
4 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups white wine
2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese
4 oz fresh Mozzarella (I used ciliegine)
A few pinches of red pepper flakes (optional)
2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley or chives
Salt, onion powder, or garlic powder to taste

**Dietary Restriction Tips: 

• Make it vegan by omitting the cheese
• Make it gluten free by omitting the pasta and doubling the polenta

Directions:

1. Slice corn kernels off of cob and set aside 
2. Slice the polenta into 1/2" thick rounds 
3. Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in pan on med-high and cook polenta until one side is golden brown and the sides have started to turn deeper yellow more than halfway through, about 5-6 minutes 
4. Drizzle 1 Tbsp olive oil over polenta and flip so that they don't stick. The second side will only take 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat and once cooled, slice each round into 1/2" to 1" slices and arrange on dinner plates. These will go below/around the pasta to pick up extra sauce that the pasta leaves behind.
5. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Drain & return to pot, drizzling with a tiny bit of olive oil to keep from sticking. 
6. While the pasta is cooking, heat the remaining oil in a medium skillet or small pot over medium-high heat and saute chopped garlic, onion, parsley or chives, and a pinch of salt until translucent, about 5 minutes
7. Deglaze with wine and add corn kernels and parmesan. Simmer 4-5 minutes until wine is reduced by about 75%
8. Slice Mozzarella balls into sections about half as big as the sliced polenta wedges.
9. Stir corn & wine mixture into cooked pasta along with arugula. 
10. Place pasta on top of polenta layer and garnish with Mozzarella slices and red pepper flakes, if desired. 
11. Enjoy!

This recipe was inspired by Real Simple's Creamy Fettuccine With Corn and Arugula

Garden Progress, aka Weird Decisions

A few weeks after planting/transplanting seeds and seedlings, this is what I had:

Not bad! I was a little surprised that the marigolds hadn't done better but I'll do some research for next year. I wanted to intersperse them with the veggies to keep pests away but that may have been to their detriment as far as light and soil needs. 

I also realized that the eggplant is going to get WAY big. Like small tree big. Sorry, neighbor plants. No sun for you. 

3 months after planting, we're having some crowding issues

The vining plants obviously want to escape.

The eggplant TREE doesn't want to stay up but does want to steal everyone else's sunshine. 

The tomatoes, which are all along the back row are either going crazy (cherry & "Mortgage Lifter") or pouting ("Cherokee Purple"). Perhaps next year I will consider a raised container for Mr. Pouty Purple.

The zucchini and squash are both going totally insane and I'm trying to train them to go over the railing of the container.

The cucumbers and (surprise, surprise) cantaloupe are vining like they have somewhere to be for dinner.

I need to build some sort of cushioned retaining area so they don't get all over the ground, which is certain to have all sorts of chemicals on it. 


What I learned:

• Tomatoes, Eggplant, and Peppers get SUPER TALL. Put them in the back or side edges.
• Cucumbers and Cantaloupe will vine out a lot. Plant them next to some sort of trellis so that they can be trained to go up. Cantaloupe will need a hammock or other support once they have fruit growing
• Zucchini and Squash will crowd out all other plants and will take their sunshine. Plant away from short, full-sun-needing plants.
• Basil and Mint do very nicely as container-sharing buddies.

So this one day I built a garden...

I love food. And growing things. And making things out of the food that I’ve grown. The trouble is, I haven’t lived in a place that allowed for any sort of gardening in over 10 years, so while I’m a pretty decent cook (most dwellings do allow for a certain amount of cooking…) I am a fairly novice gardener. Last year I appropriated a sizable portion of our bike storage lockup area with some large pots, but this year I'm going big.

 This is what I'm graduating up from. 

Teeny tiny, but all mine. 

Equipped with the basic knowledge of how to dead-head marigolds (thanks, Nana!), mixing different types of soils (thanks, Dad!), try to water in the morning, and make sure to plant for the amount of sun available (thanks to spending one summer working for a plant nursery in Michigan), I decided to go for it. Ooh, did I mention that I wanted to do it basically for free? Yeah, this is gonna be fun. 

Thanks to some free scrap lumber (someone crashed into the wooden patios next to our building and they had to be rebuilt, yielding plenty of scraps that would have otherwise made their way to the landfill- don’t worry, nobody was hurt) I built a 4’x6’ box and lined the bottom with extra boards and newspaper to prevent seeping  in of ground chemicals. I did have to spend a little $ on the proper dirt mix and some small plants from Home Depot. Let’s be honest, you can only plant so much from seed (see Adventures in Seedlings). 

My thought in placing the plants and veggies like I did was that I know that Marigolds and certain herbs can naturally deter pests, especially from tomatoes, and that maybe if I planted the hot peppers on the outside of the box the neighborhood bunny wouldn’t be too interested after trying to nibble the first time. Zucchini, cucumbers, and squash have a tendency to spread so I tried to plant them near the edge of the box. We have full sun so the tomatoes go absolutely bonkers, which is why they ended up at the back of the box. And, full disclosure, I planted the flowers and ground cover plants in between the seedlings because I wanted it to look neat and couldn’t wait for all the stuff to start growing. 

This was definitely an experiment. Straight up. I fully anticipate that I will make some major changes next year, depending on how this turns out. (see Garden Progress, aka Weird Decisions)

And now we play the waiting game…

Adventures in Seedlings

Planting from seed is pretty ambitious. There’s a lot of research, planning, and equipment to commit to and invest in if you’re going to do it properly.

I didn’t do any of that. Truth be told, I’ll typically research how to do something until the point where I go “Oh, I can totally do this” and promptly stop reading and just start the project. Then, when it inevitably doesn’t go quite as planned, I’ll read endless blogs and articles about what I should have done, and plan accordingly for next time. Here’s what happened when I decided to plant seeds. 

I chose the things I would like to eat: Rainbow Chard, Peppers, Tomatoes (cherry & yellow pear), Kale, Cucumber, Green Peppers, Jalapeno, Basil and the things I would like to look at: Marigolds, Black Eyed Susans, & Sunflowers.

These seedlings do not all want the same water, sun, or soil conditions. But I decided that the strong would survive and made them all greenhouse friends anyway. And by greenhouse I mean a cardboard box lined with a black trash bag and covered with a cardboard/saran wrap top. Very sophisticated. 

Some did well (Cucumbers, Sunflower Seeds, most Tomatoes, and Chard). Others never saw the light of day (Blackeyed Susans, Jalapeno, Green Pepper). The rest made some sort of appearance but shrunk during one particularly hot spring morning when I am pretty sure that leaving them in the greenhouse effectively steamed them. A coworker who gardens quite successfully told me that I probably had also shocked them by deciding to transition them from a partially shaded box to full sun and wind in about 24 hours. Lesson learned. 

I also have since found out that peppers are one of the hardest things to grow from seed and tomatoes are right up there too. Well, now I know. 

Things I learned: 

1. Make a chart of which seeds need which conditions and when they should be planted
2. Make seed neighborhoods rather than seed city based on needs and timing
3. Allow seeds to acclimate to actual weather starting with an hour a day
4. Let seedlings get pretty big (4"-6") before transplanting
5. Peppers are extremely hard to grow from seed. Tomatoes are also tough. Probably go ahead and buy these next year as small plants.
6. Zucchini, squash, cucumber, and cantaloupe are SUPER easy to direct sow and are serious about their territory. Plan ahead space-wise. 
7. Eggplant needs its own county.

Transplanting Seedlings to the Garden!