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Flavored Salts Can Enhance Your Kitchen Creations

Flavored salts can add a new dimension to your food, adding punch and spice, zest and depth to boost the flavor of a dish. From the ingredients you use to the foods you choose to season, flavored salts are wide open to your imagination. They are easy to make for yourself or as edible gifts for friends. Start with a flaky or coarse salt. Add herbs, spices, fruits, vegetables or condiments to give you a quick and unique way to season most anything. Take inspiration from the bounty of your garden and use flavored salts on meats, seafood, eggs, vegetables, cheese, even desserts!  Use as a finishing touch on soups or salads or as a topping for popcorn or roasted vegetables. Make your own celery or garlic salt, or try something more exotic like sriracha lime salt on French fries, mushroom salt on buttered pasta and herb citrus salt on chicken or fish.

Coarser, flakier salts are preferable for their texture and appearance when used as a finishing salt. The larger grains aren’t overpowered by the flavor you are incorporating. Try kosher salt, Maldon salt, coarse sea salt or fleur de sel. If all you have is regular table salt, you can use that with a higher proportion of flavorings (increase by a teaspoon or two).

You can flavor salts with wet or dry ingredients. When using dry flavorings you simply mix and store. When using wet flavorings you need to dry the mixture before storing. Read more Flavored Salts Can Enhance Your Kitchen Creations

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Eating Flowers

I’ve heard it said that we eat with all our senses and I whole-heartedly believe this is true. In no case is this truth more evident than in the consumption of flowers. From sturdy blossoms to the most delicate of petals, these colorful beauties are delicious. There are, however, rules that must be followed (see below).

Start simple, with plants you may already be familiar with. My family has always grown marigolds, nasturtiums, pansies, and violets, so that’s what I have my personal experience with. As I researched this article, I discovered many more flowers that I hadn’t known about. Hurrah! New flavors are on my horizon.

While you learn your way through eating blossoms, keep some notes. Here’s a starter for you, based on my favorites. Read more Eating Flowers

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Foraging for edible and medicinal plants during Medieval week at Farm Day Camp

Last week, the Farm Day Campers learned about wild edible and medicinal plants during Medieval Week at the Extension Learning Farm. Lessons about Medieval times can favor the 1% – the knights and royalty of that era. While it’s true that armor and castles played a big role, I wanted to talk about peasant farming and about the plants that humans depended on in those times. 

The vast majority of people in Medieval Europe were rural peasants living on isolated farms or small villages. For these people, plants held the key to nutrition, healing, and a modicum of hygiene. Without books to consult, or even the ability to read, these peasants shared and handed down knowledge of plants and their uses.

First, I set the stage. Imagine there are no grocery stores with their coolers and fridges and endless packages of the same products year-round. There are no hospitals, or drugstores, no antibiotics. Imagine there are no showers, toothpaste, deodorant, bug spray, sunscreen, and you often see mice and rats in the fields and even your living quarters. Imagine you need to store food for winter without canning jars, or freezers. Your garden and your knowledge of wild plants is essential for survival.

You’re a peasant, one of the lucky ones who hasn’t fallen victim to the plague that killed 35 million people. You can’t read or write so you have to learn all you can from others and remember it. You tend a kitchen garden for vegetables and herbs and an infirmary garden for plants used in medicine. You also collect herbs for use in the home as dyes, for tanning leather, deterring vermin, and covering up odors. Read more Foraging for edible and medicinal plants during Medieval week at Farm Day Camp