Tag Archives: food

Pickled Turnips and You

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When my wife and I decided to join our local CSA, I knew that I would be able to score some hipster points. Not only has this CSA allowed me to be more frugal, but is has also given me many opportunities to mention offhandedly how I do my part to support local farmers, eat organically and seasonally, and stave off climate change by not needing to buy produce that is shipped using carbon fuels.

What I didn’t expect was all the roots. I’ve definitely made the most out of the situation over the past two months, being the good house husband and preparing all sorts of interesting dishes. This past week, though, I definitely earned some hipster bonus points. Hipsters have a weird thing about self-sustainability: I like to grow my own food, make my own cleaning products, brew my own beer, and build my own furniture. It’s as if every hipster is secretly or subconsciously preparing for Y2K to actually happen.

Of course, in order to survive more than just the summer months, hipsters must also master either the art of dumpster diving or the art of food preservation (or both). With my recent unexpected abundance of turnips, I knew I needed to find a way to make them last longer than their natural freshness. When it comes to food preservation, there are four basic ways to make your fresh food last longer: drying, freezing, fermenting, and canning. Of course, within each category there exists subcategories: smoking, curing, jamming, and our topic today: pickling. Pickling is an interesting mix between the disciplines of fermenting and canning, and is a great way to infuse your vegetables with new flavors while making them last past their local growing seasons.

When it comes to turnips, there are only so many turnips that one man and wife can eat within a two month period. I knew I needed to spread the turnip love throughout the year, and thus the google searching began. “Turnip recipes” turned to “what to do with turnips” turned to “preserving turnips” and eventually I stumbled upon this recipe for pickled turnips. I became inspired.

The only tweaks that I made to the recipe he lays out are threefold: I didn’t add a bay leaf (I didn’t have one); I added a lot more garlic; and I also added a few shallots that I happened to have on hand. Oh, and I threw in some peppercorns.

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It was difficult to let the week go by in which these white wonders turned to pink pretties, but it was well worth the wait. I figured that I’d be able to put a handful of these in my packed lunches every day for a couple of weeks, but as soon as the jar was open they were gone within a three day period. Besides all the hipster points earned in this endeavor, I now have a new favorite snack that I know is locally and organically grown!

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What’s in my Window #5: Sage

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There are many ways to hipsterfy yourself around a particular topic. The most common way to is to find obscure things and make them part of your everyday routine (such as mopeds and mustache wax). Alternately, you can use more common things in a very obscure ways (bicycle polo and stemmed beer glasses). For the very artful hipster, however, doing the obscure thing is way too hipster-mainstream.

Take for example the humble sage plant. Hipsters of course have found the most historic and obscure uses for this herb and made it part of their routine: brewing it in tea, burning it as incense, using it as a natural preservative, and even naming their babies after it. This is one instance where I like to pull a reverse-hipster: since any hipster can do something obscure; it’s even more hipster to do something absolutely common with sage. I like to cook with it.

Sage has been a staple in our garden since I first heard Simon and Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair. Cut fresh, I’ll throw it into stews and soups. Fresh chopped sage mixed with a little olive oil and fresh cracked pepper makes an excellent wet rub for grilled chicken. In order to keep a ready supply of sage year-round, it’s important to be able to harvest and preserve sage properly. Because the sage leaf is more fibrous, I find that it takes a little extra effort to dry it out fully.

Fresh lungwort hangs between bunches of sage that have been hanging for a week or more.

Fresh lungwort hangs between bunches of sage that have been hanging for a week or more.

This year I did a two-step drying process. First, I tied bunches of larger branches to hang dry in the window until the leaves were mostly dry. Second, I removed the leaves from the stems and branches and allowed them to further dry by placing them in my Costa Rican seed-drying gourd and hanging it in my window for another week or so. This little gourd was a gift from my in-laws, bought from a farmers’ market in Costa Rica. (If you don’t have a Costa Rican seed-drying gourd, you can alternatively use a brown paper bag with holes poked in it).

Dried Sage

After further hanging in the drying gourd, this sage leaf is ready to be processed.

When I am convinced that the sage has dried sufficiently, it goes into the mortar and pestle. To maintain an even consistency, I push my crushed sage through a sieve before storing it in a spice jar (similar to the way I harvest basil).

Sure, I don’t do any of the most obscure things that you can do with sage, but that’s just fine. You’d expect every hipster to do that, so instead I use my hand-picked organically-grown sage for common culinary uses. If it’s not obscure, at least it’s ironic.

What’s in my Window #4: Lungwort

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When I finished hanging a fresh harvest of lungwort leaves in my kitchen window this week, I came to three telling realizations.

#1: I realized that I’ve posted a few things already about what’s hanging in my kitchen window. First, I talked about basil seed; next, basil leaf; then stevia.

#2: I also realized that I have hung many things in my kitchen window the past few months that haven’t received a post: sage, roses, and my all new Costa Rican seed-saving gourd (more on those later, no doubt).

#3: My third realization was more poetic: this kitchen window often acts as a window into the Hipsterly habits of this House Husband. There’s always a frugal/industrious/resourceful reason for my efforts to preserve the various things that hang in my window. I have an obligation to share these things.

So starts this recurring “series” in which I will detail the items in my window and the ways I plan to use them.

Back to the lungwort. Over the winter, I was looking up different kinds of teas that we could add to our little rooftop garden in the spring. I found some information on lungwort, which grows in large quantities in our backyard already. I was taken aback by all the benefits that this plant offers when dealing with the ailments of the lung: coughs, congestion, asthma, etc. It can also be used as a poultice on open wounds. This is a plant all hipsters should love: it’s European in origin, and you’ve probably never even heard of it. In fact lungwort is given credit for helping to curb the Black Plague in Europe in the 1300s. Who knew? I do, now.

Frankly, I was skeptical, but it wasn’t until late April when my wife and I both caught a springtime flu that we were able to put this to the test. Both of us suffered from the flu-induced cough and congested lungs. What a prime opportunity to give this lungwort tea a try. As soon as it had begun to grow back in early spring, I had harvested a few handfuls of leaves and let them dry. To make tea, simply steep in boiling water for 10 minutes. While the flavor is unique, it isn’t bad. Honey helps, or even stevia if you have any of that growing. More importantly, it really helps reduce the cough! Awesome, now I make my own medicine. (Also, I should probably put in a disclaimer about not being a doctor and how you should always consult with a physician, etc.)

Lungwort flowering in early April in my backyard.

Fast forward 30 days, and the lungwort in our backyard is loving life and growing like crazy. This week I harvested a huge amount of large leaves and tied them like a ristra of chiles to proudly hang in my window. Now I can’t wait to get a cough again…and that’s what’s hanging in my kitchen window.

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Tacos and Styrofoam

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I like tacos. No, I really like tacos.

Reading this, you might think that we have something in common, but I’m still pretty sure that I like tacos more than you. This particular culinary curiosity has led me to be a bit of a taco snob. In terms of hipsterisms, being snobby isn’t something new. Lots of hipsters are beer snobs or coffee snobs or music snobs or technology snobs or bicycle snobs or etc etc. You get the point, right?

I’m going to say this here first: I am a taco snob before it is cool.

This taco snobbery has kept me in pursuit of the perfect taco: authentic, flavorful, meaty; juicy but not wet, loaded but not messy, soft but not chewy. I’m not talking about the kind wrapped in a Dorito shell or the “$1 taco Tuesdays” at the local pub. My taco has to have the right aroma, the right mouthfeel, the right finish.

The trouble is, all of the places where I have found the most flavorful and delicious tacos tend to be less environmentally minded and more focused on making great tacos. That’s all well and good until you order something To Go and you get a pile of styrofoam containers. As a responsible hipster, I can’t just throw a styrofoam container in the trash where it will end up in a landfill for thousands of years. My disdain for styrofoam even quashes my quest for taco goodness. And this is no isolated problem: gyros, falafels, curries, phos…all seem slated with the same styrofoam situation.

Worry no more, for this resourceful hipster has found a solution. Just because the curbside recycling won’t accept styrofoam doesn’t mean that I can’t recycle it. I just needed to put a little more effort into where I could go to get it recycled. After a little bit of research, I found a drop-off location not far from our apartment. In fact, the joy that I felt was so great, that I had to share this with the neighbors in our building. We printed out an announcement and distributed throughout our building. Now everyone recycles styrofoam!

My guilt-ridden taco-eating days are gone. I can enjoy my [warning: bad pun ahead] Hunt for Best Tacober free from the tyranny of the toxic container. Speaking of which, writing this post has made me really hungry for tacos. Gotta go.

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