Beta-carotene, lycopene, lutein and anthocyanins are four types of phytonutrients. One phytonutrient found in kale and other brassicas called diindolylmethane is actually so helpful it may assist healthy by inhibiting cervial dysplasia and boosting immune systems.

Anthocyanins are in dark purple and blue foods including cocoa, red wine, purple tomatillos, and chard. This chemical may help reverse cancer, reduce inflammation and regulate diabetes.

This rainbow chard is full of phytonutrients, and we enjoy it growing happily in our backyard. Not only is it beautiful, but rich in vitamins and minerals. I have many dishes, some good for you, and some bad. I usually make it sliced finely with garlic and onion on sourdough toast.

A finer way to use rainbow chard is in a tomato chard pie. You make a pate brisee, and add sauteed chard, onions, cheese and tomato. Bake and serve.

I hope you are enjoying your harvests for the health benefits as well as for the fun.

Venec delighted in the purple tomatillos, as you can see here. This gave me a moment to tell him about phytonutrients and now important they are (more information here: http://www.nutrition.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=11&tax_level=2&tax_subject=388&topic_id=1668&placement_default=0)

I had been trying to make this salsa since some dear friends who used to make it had moved away. Mark and Linda made this salsa with the peppers and tomatillos that they grew in their backyard. I have never seen purple tomatillos for sale. Last year I grew some, but because of the year, they never turned purple. This year they grew, and they turned purple!

This weekend I finally had enough to make the salsa Mark and Linda used to make. I bought a habanero.

This salsa involves raw, sweet tomatillos. They are unlike any other flavor I have ever tasted. Mouth wateringly sweet and tart and crunchy, this is a very delicious produce item. Mixing it with habanero, lime, onion, and salt, is all you really need for a perfect salsa.

This challah was delivered to us one night, still warm, on a school night. It was delicious. This was the best, most authentic challah I have eaten outside of New York City. And my amazing neighbors made it.

Thank you Matt and Holly! You made our house smell great, our bellies warm, and our hearts full of love.

Addition from Matt – Like most recipes I have worked on this is courtesy of my mother. I felt that my braid was particularly creative. I am fortunate to have amazing neighbors to share life with. It means a great deal to me.

I just made some homemade salsa that includes: jalapenos, tomatoes*, garlic powder, and lime juice.

*The tomatoes include: Sungolds, Siletz Reds, and Siletz Yellows.

It is delicious.

All ingredients are from our garden, except lime juice and garlic powder.

Someone in my family grew these fine peaches. We had several and I thought, peach pie? Canned peaches? What will I do? But then I discovered the best snack dessert on earth.

Slice a peach in half and remove the seed.

Take fresh, local honey, and drizzle the honey on top.

Toast some filberts in a dry pan until toasted, then crush them.

Sprinkle the honey topped peaches with the toasted filberts.

Eat about twenty of them, because food cannot possibly get any fresher than this. Have you noticed the harvest moon color?

I cooked some garbanzo beans from scratch and made chana masala for dinner this week. We had gobs and gobs of yellow tomatoes that were ripe and ready, which complimented the turmeric spice quite well.

Curry is just one of many kinds of masalas that are made and enjoyed in India. This masala contained ginger, cumin, coriander, salt, black pepper and other spices designed to compliment the flavor mixture of fresh tomatoes and garbanzo beans. We enjoyed this over jasmine brown rice.

Plum jam requires a lot of sugar. I made it anyway, with the beautiful golden, blush plums that grow in our backyard. To eat them fresh is like sunshine. The sugary juice drips between your fingers after one bite. These are the best plums I have ever had.

So I made two batches of plum jam because we had buckets of plums. If you have been around me the past few years, you may recall how often I’ve spoken about trying to get my plum trees to produce fruit. We carefully trimmed them, and finally hit paydirt on year number three! The center of the tree is open, and there plums are plentiful.

Back to the jam… The first batch had all of the sugar we needed, and it turned out great. The second one, I either did not cook it long enough, or didn’t add enough sugar.

As it turns out, if you mess up jam, the best thing you can do is open up the cans, pour them into a pot, reheat it, and add more to it to fix the error.

The result is beautiful jam that is high in sugar content, but perfect. A gorgeous color and delicious to spread. It is perfect on challah with some butter, or even on vanilla ice cream.

This database is THE SOURCE for finding out important, historical, accurate information about most foods, including foraged foods, and their benefits.

This can be used to find out about a weed in your backyard, such as lamsquarters, or even just raspberry. You’ll notice that there are citations for each listed benefit, as well as a link the USDA Plants database that I often use for edible plants.

Here is an example citation, for lambsquarters:

Chenopodium album L.
Lambsquarters; Chenopodiaceae
Eskimo, Inupiat Drug (Carminative)
Leaves and stems cooked with beans to reduce the intestinal gas from eating the beans.
Jones, Anore 1983 Nauriat Niginaqtuat = Plants That We Eat. Kotzebue, Alaska. Maniilaq Association Traditional Nutrition Program (p. 64)

I am sure that some of you will find this useful, others not so much. It’s a great database to help when your friend tells you something about how Native Americans used any plant. This is a great resource to help get to the bottom line.

For another example, try Arrowleaf Balsamroot. This is a popular flower in the Boise Foothills, but has over 100 citations for uses! These range from…

• Root smudge smoke inhaled for body aches.
• Infusion of leaves, roots and stems taken for stomach pains and headaches.
• Poultice of chewed roots applied to blisters and sores.
• Root chewed and saliva allowed to run down throat for sore mouth and throat.

A reader would like to know where to find cassava, or yuca, root in Boise. Others want to know what it is and how to make it. Here’s some information on this tasty, healthy vegetable!

This photo is from a US Aid for East Africa US Government site and depicts a man with a large crop of yuca, or cassava root: http://eastafrica.usaid.gov/en/USAID/Article/1154/ASARECA_Begins_Regional_Cassava_MegaProject

This photo is from research.gov and this is what a cassava root looks like up close.

Yuca, or cassava root, is basically a waxy, starchy vegetable.

The best places to find it locally are Mexican grocers. They run out of stock on it quite quickly. They sell it at WINCO, but the stock is often molding, and has flies landing on it… mushy and with blue mold? Don’t buy that yuca! If you go to Campos Market on Orchard, they have the best stuff.

Now, how do you use it?

First you have to use a peeler to take off the waxy exterior. Next, you need to chop it into smaller, bite sized bits, about 1 inch squares, if possible. The root itself is so lumpy that this is hard to accomplish.

Important: there is a woody center! You must also take that out. It will be a terrible texture to chew if you leave it in. Look at the center of the root. It should be obvious where the woody center is. Remove it!

Boil the 1 inch squares in water for about 30 minutes. Remove from the water and drain.

Toss them with lime juice, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and cayenne to taste. This is the way I learned to eat it, and it is Cuban style. If you have heard another variation, please comment below!

Enjoy!

Today we made Yucatecan Street Corn and turkey burgers. This was a well deserved lunch after an incredible mountain bike ride. We plan to visit the Yucatan this year in December, and making this corn plate is just one thing that we are doing as a family to get excited and prepare for the trip.

Though the recipe I used is from the book Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson, I have long worshiped Diane Kennedy’s book the Essential Cuisines of Mexico for the sheer breadth and perfect recipes from all over Mexico, including the Yucatan. You can find Diane Kennedy’s book at your local public library here. And you can find Super Natural Cooking at your local public library here.

This is how we roll in our backyard in Spring, Summer and Fall. It is often ten degrees cooler in our backyard because of the trees, and the shade that they provide.

Yucatecan street corn involves cooking the corn (usually grilling, but we just boiled in this case), then spreading crema and grated cotija on the corn. Looks pretty good already, right? Crema Mexicana is a high fat content sour cream. If you don’t have cotija or crema, you can use parmesan or sour cream, but the taste is not quite the same.

Once you’re ready to eat the corn, take a slice of lime and dip it into powdered cayenne pepper. Then squeeze the lime so that the lime juice mixes with the cayenne to create a spicy and sour mixture that drips onto your corn.

So perfect for the summertime.