Take One BIG Zucchini...

I like a recipe that starts: "Take one big zucchini..." Or, you might say, "Prenez une grande courgette..." because this recipe is from France. It was included in a tourist brochure I picked up somewhere in the south of France in 1998. Wow, almost twenty years and I've been making this savoury zucchini loaf every summer since. It serves as a nice side dish

Don't cha wanna Eggplant Parmigiana?

My little backyard pot of basil rendered service to dinner tonight. Well, it needed thinning, don't you agree? (Check it out below.) Eggplant Parmigiana was on the menu. Luckily for me, I was able to buy locally-grown eggplant and tomatoes at the Saskatoon Farmers' Market to pair with my locally-grown basil. And that lovely chunk of bread was

Basil Cubes

Garden processing has begun! Today's task: make ice cubes with basil and olive oil. Next: dry oregano.

Pesto Pizza

Presto! Or is that, Pesto! My mission to clean out the freezer has procured two containers of pesto made last year with basil from my garden in Saskatoon. I always grow enough for fresh eating and a batch of pesto.

One of my favourite uses for my homemade pesto is pizza, replacing the more traditional tomato sauce. Toppings that go well with pesto include feta cheese, black olives, thinly sliced onion and crumbled bacon.

Tip: pesto is strong in flavour so I recommend spreading it more thinly than you would tomato sauce.

Basil grows very well from seed in prairie gardens. It's not too late to plant it now. If you're the impatient sort, buy a few seedlings and get them into your garden or a pot pdq!

A summer favourite - PASTA NORMA

Rumor has it this Sicilian dish was named for Bellini's opera Norma, first performed in 1831, which tells the story of a tragic love affair between a Roman official and a Druid high priestess. It is to die for!

I only make it when I find eggplant at the farmers' market, thanks to Diane and Rick at the Goodlife Greenhouse.

1-2 eggplants
olive oil
2 cloves garlic
4-5 plum tomatoes
6 basil leaves, plus extra for garnish
salt and pepper
ricotta or parmesan cheese
pasta of your choice

Slice the eggplant in rounds. Coat each side with olive oil, place on a baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and broil on the second level of the oven until soft and brown, turning to cook both sides.

Sauté garlic in 2 tbsp olive oil. Stir in chopped tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until tomatoes are softened, then stir in chopped basil. Simmer for 15 min. In the meantime, cook the pasta.

Cut each slice of eggplant into quareters. Add to the tomatoes. To serve, top a bowl of pasta with the tomato-eggplant mixture and sprinkle with cheese. Garnish with extra fresh basil, if you like.

Stop and smell - er- eat the flowers STUFFED ZUCCHINI FLOWERS

This article first appeared in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix on 27 August 2007.

Summer is not over yet, so there’s still time to stop and eat the flowers. That’s right – some flowers are just as lovely on the palate as on the nose. Just imagine, if they look pretty in the garden, how charming flowers can be in a salad, sprinkled on strawberry shortcake or stirred into a sauce.

Take, for instance, those little carnations called pinks. Recently, I made devilled eggs for a backyard party and topped each one with a pretty pink. It turned an ordinary appetizer into a conversation piece. I also throw pinks into green salads, along with tiny tangerine marigolds, peppery nasturtiums and beautiful blue borage flowers. Perhaps the radishes and arugula in your garden are past their prime? You can get a second harvest from them – a harvest of flowers. In fact, the flowers of many herbs and vegetables are edible, such as the flowers of basil, scarlet runner beans and summer squash.

A couple of summers ago, I ventured into the Nesbit Forest south of Prince Albert to pick wild rose petals with Marie Symes-Grehan, who turns them into lovely pink jellies and syrups. We picked the rose petals in the morning, after the dew had lifted, dropping them into soft cotton bags and later, we sorted out the leaves and broken petals on Marie’s big kitchen table. That evening, she made a batch of jelly full of suspended pink petals. Marie sells her syrups and conserves under the label Lily Plain Summer, which are particularly popular at the Granville Island Market in Vancouver. (http://www.lilyplain.com/).

Rose petals have a long tradition in Middle Eastern cuisine for flavouring syrups and pastries. Edible flowers were also popular in Victorian times but fell out of favour until now, when they’re making a comeback on swank dinner tables from London to L.A. The list of edible flowers includes some popular garden varieties such as pansies, day lilies, roses and tulips, this latter described on one website as tasting of “sweet lettuce, fresh baby peas.” A word of caution: Not all flowers taste good and some are not good for you. Please do your own research before experimenting with edible flowers, and never eat a flower from a flower shop or one that may have been sprayed with a chemical.

My favourite culinary flower is the zucchini. In Mediterranean cuisine, they may be stuffed and deep-fried, laid decoratively on top of a quiche or stirred into risotto. Pick them in the morning when they’re open so it’s easier to remove the stamen or pistil inside the flower. Sometimes, I pick baby zucchini when the flower is still attached and cook them together. This also cuts down on the number of giant zucchini to contend with later. As always, I try as much as possible, to set my table with the foods of Saskatchewan and that includes flowers – both in a vase and on my plate.

DEEP FRIED ZUCCHINI FLOWERS
1 slice good dry bread
1 cup milk
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
Fat 1/2 cup water
Scant 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 zucchini flowers
Canola oil

Cut the crusts off the bread and tear it into small pieces. Cover the bread with milk and soak 30 minutes. Drain and discard the milk, squeeze out the bread and mix it with the basil and cheese.
Meanwhile, stir together the water, flour, baking powder and salt. Add more water if needed to reach the consistency of a thin pancake batter. Let sit 30 minutes.
Carefully spoon a bit of the bread mixture into each flower. Twist the tips of the flower to close.
Heat the oil on medium high. Use enough oil so the flowers will float and not stick to the bottom of the pan. When the oil is shimmering, roll the flowers in the batter, drain excess and drop into the oil. Do this in batches so the flowers don’t stick together. Brown on both sides and remove to a paper towel. Sprinkle with salt and enjoy.

A ton of tomatoes - MARGHERITA PIZZA

Nothing is prettier than a mix of tomatoes – red, yellow and orange. It turns a delicious salad into a pretty delicious salad. We bought big bags of red, yellow and orange tomatoes at the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market – just picked, vine ripe and tasting as good as they look.

This pizza recipe is a bit different because there is no sauce. It is simply heaped with fresh chopped tomatoes. It comes from the Silver Spoon cookbook, which has 1,200 pages of authentic Italian recipes. It’s perfect for that glorious moment in a Saskatchewan summer when you have more ripe tomatoes than you know what to do with!

MARGHERITA PIZZA
5-6 ripe tomatoes, chopped
(the recipe says to peel the tomatoes, but I didn't)
Olive oil for drizzling
6 fresh basil leaves, torn
1 ½ cups grated mozzarella cheese
Salt and pepper
1 homemade or purchased pizza dough

Roll out the pizza dough. Top with the chopped tomatoes. Drizzle with olive oil. Bake 15 min. at 425F. Take the pizza from the oven. Quickly sprinkle on the basil, season with salt and pepper, and top with the cheese. Bake another 7-8 minutes, until the cheese is melted.

Week 15 - TOMATO & BASIL SALAD

Saskatchewan Menu of the Week -- 26 July 2005

Breakfast -- Scrambled eggs with chopped tomato.
Lunch -- Cold sliced beef on a bun
Dinner -- Tomato and basil salad. Crusty bread.

TOMATO AND BASIL SALAD
No salad screams "summer" like a tomato and basil salad. Made with ripe tomatoes and fresh basil, it is the simplest and yummiest salad in the world. Basil grows like crazy in our climate, so I use lots.

Basil grows abundantly in our climate, so I always have a pot of basil close to the back door. My mom grows more basil in her garden on the farm, so I have plenty to preserve for winter cooking. I just love the aroma of basil in the middle of February - it sparks the distant memory of summer's heat. (See the recipe for BASIL CUBES on 19 March 2005.)

For the salad, slice or chop the tomatoes according to your preference. Chop or tear a handful of basil and sprinkle it onto the tomatoes. Make a vinaigrette with oil and vinegar (I use balsamic vinegar). Pour onto the tomatoes. Sprinkle on salt and pepper to your taste. For added variation, add tiny cubes of mozzarella cheese. Use the bread so soak up any vinaigrette left on your plate. Good to the last drop!

Week 6 - PIPERADE

Saskatchewan Menu of the Week - May 21.

Breakfast – Yogurt with preseved apples.
Lunch – Bread with mustard and sliced tomato.
Dinner – Piperade.

Piperade
Here’s a great French egg dish called Pipérade. From May to December, I can find every ingredient produced locally.

1 small green or red pepper (or both), sliced thinly
1 small onion, sliced
1 clove of garlic, crushed
4 tbsp butter
1/3 cup cooked ham or smoked pork, small dice
fresh basil leaves (or dried)
1 tomato, chopped
6 eggs

Sauté the pepper, onion and garlic in 2 tbsp of the butter until soft. Stir in the ham, tomatoes and basil, and season with salt and pepper. Cook through, place in a small bowl and keep warm.

Melt the other 2 tbsp of butter in the skillet. Mix the eggs and pour into the pan. Cook, stirring now and then, until the eggs begin to set. Spread the pepper mixture on top and cook until the eggs are done to your liking. (I prefer them soft and moist.) Serve in wedges garnished with a bit of fresh basil.

Sources: Bennett eggs; vegetables from the farmers' market.

Mediterranean Diet - BASIL ICE CUBES

Saskatchewan is a long way from the Mediterranean Sea, but amazingly, it is not so far on the culinary map. Many aspects of the Mediterranean diet can be created with foods grown in Saskatchewan.

Take, for instance, basil. A few years ago, I asked my mom to grow some basil for me on the farm. I gave her a packet of seeds. I had no idea if basil would grow here, especially in a big farm garden that is never watered. Could the darling of Mediterranean herbs fend for itself in Saskatchewan?

Mom called one day in July to say my basil was ready to pick. I drove out to the farm to discover she had not planted a few seeds – but the whole package. There before me was a 40-foot row of basil as tall as my knees and as lush as any basil kissed by the Mediterranean sun. I picked it into garbage bags, gave much away to friends and made a big batch of pesto for myself.

There is, however, one major Mediterranean ingredient I can't get here and I can't live without: olive oil. But as long as the other ingredients are from Saskatchewan, I won't worry about a bit of olive oil on my pasta, in pesto or a salad dressing. No matter how much I may wish it, the olive tree is one Mediterranean treasure that won’t show up in my mother’s garden.

Basil Ice Cubes
In a blender, mix together fresh basil and olive oil to form a paste. It should not be too thick nor too thin, so that you can scoop it with a spoon. Fill the cups of an ice cube tray and freeze. When the basil ice cubes are frozen, pop them into a zip lock bag. Use the basil ice cubes in the middle of winter in pasta sauces, soups and salad dressings – whenever you want a burst of summertime Mediterranean flavour.

Sources: garlic from Saskatoon Farmers' Market; basil from my garden.