Herbal Frogspawn

WALKING home from school one morning after heavy rain, Alexander and I noticed something strange on our morning "snack bush". This is a huge lemon basil plant at the front of a neighbour's garden, which never seems to mind sparing a leaf or two as we breeze past. This day, however, it seemed to have been showered with frog spawn. The strange gelatinous lumps with a black speck in the middle were sprinkled all over the leaves, and piled in masses on the ground beneath the plant. We thought they might be some insect eggs, then on a hunch I checked the basil plants in our garden. Nothing like that to be seen on the regular Italian basil, but yes - the Thai basil and lemon basil both had the same frog spawn. To the internet I went a-running! Turns out the seeds swell with water (rain). In fact, they can be used to make a delicious drink by mixing the seeds with water and sweetening with a little sugar or honey to taste. Naturally we had to try it, and we found it was similar to drinking chia seeds in water, or bubble tea, which uses tapioca. Apparently this drink is common in Thailand, where it is also sold in cans. "Thai basil seed drink" is not especially original, but it does sound more appetizing than "frog spawn drink".

Summer Breakfast

ONE of the best things about school holidays is that there's no rush in the morning! That means there's plenty of time to prepare a breakfast feast. One morning Emma fancied fruit salad "with all the fixin's" and, oblivious to the fact that it was still dark, set to work preparing it, her sous-chef by her side.



Unable to contain my curiosity any longer, I peeked into the kitchen and was crossly dispatched back to my bedroom. It was worth the wait.




A delightful healthy breakfast, beautifully presented and prepared with pride by an almost-6 and almost-3 year old, awaited the family on the dining table.

Rainbow Nice Cake

THE stall turnout at the outdoor market was disappointing. But in the car park I spotted some bushes laden with fruit. Perhaps we wouldn't go home quite empty handed after all. They were wild plums, about the size of cherry tomatoes, and very delicious. We picked several bags full. After snacking on them all day, the haul yielded four jars of ginger plum chutney.

The next week we went back again, this time prepared with fruit baskets. This time they made a delicious dessert. We simmered the tart plums with a splash of sherry (orange liqueur would have been even better), cinnamon and sweetened with agave. When cooled and thickened, the fruit was layered with a mixture of cream cheese, homemade yoghurt, orange peel and honey, then refrigerated for a few hours to let the flavours meld. Yum! We served it to guests that evening and voted on the best name for our concoction. Emma's won: Rainbow Nice Cake.

Wood Sorrel Tea

WOOD sorrel, with its lemony flavour, is said to make good tea. So we decided to try that out. Gathering enough wood sorrel in our garden was not a problem, and we soon had a large bunch simmering away. Add sweetener (we used honey), pour into a glass and... well what do you know, it's red! Bear in mind that this was a green plant with a yellow flower. But it was very refreshing, especially cold with ice.

Ice Lollies

WHEN it's so hot all you really want to do is get in the pool or drink something really cold. Ice lollies are good too so I went out hunting for lollipop moulds. Who would have thought a simple mould would be so hard to find? I could have had a set of planes or flowers or Dora the Explorer or all manner of themes, but no simple, small shapes. So I bought a packet of mini craft sticks and we went with ice cube trays, which were just the right size for a little icy snack. We had fun pureeing fruit and making our own lollies... but waiting for them to freeze was hard. Finally they were ready! We had blueberry and raspberry, which I think could have done with a touch of sweetener; peach strawberry was the clear winner for the children but I enjoyed the freshness of watermelon with lemon basil.

First Steps in Fermenting

I learned about the health benefits of the age-old tradition of culturing or fermenting foods this summer. Examples of these are sauerkraut, kim chee, kefir and yoghurt. Then I wanted to learn how to make them for myself. Over two classes, we covered fermented vegetables - like sauerkraut - yoghurt, dairy kefir and young coconut kefir. The last is most intriguing. The water from inside coconuts is especially rich in potassium and other minerals, while fermenting turns the acidic sugar into bubbles, creating a refreshing frothy soda-like beverage. For all that, I have to say it's not our favourite.

However, yoghurt and dairy kefir have been a big hit in our family and I can't make them fast enough. I've been using culture starter, but will soon be using grains to make kefir. Stay tuned to hear how this turns out!

Veggie Reclamation

ANOTHER successful reclamation from the landfill! Actually, from the compost heap this time. I have discovered a new love, which most people throw away - watermelon rinds. A long time ago I enjoyed watermelon rind pickles in Japan and have looked for a recipe several times since then. It turns out these are also a southern US delicacy, but there are other things to make with a watermelon rind too! In fact, there is a whole website dedicated to this: http://www.watermelonrind.com/ ! Today I enjoyed a watermelon smoothie (flesh and rind together). It was naturally sweet and very refreshing. It was a little too textured for my taste, but a few turns through a cheesecloth fixed that. Watermelon rind salad was delicious and crunchy. Will try my hand at the pickles tomorrow, I think.

Roots, Fruits & Leaves

WE'RE deep into an Autumn bounty that spans the gamut from fruits to seeds to leaves to roots, including some late summer crops. In recent weeks we've brought home from the farmers' market: sweet potatoes, apples, turnips, all manner of greens and herbs, beans, field peas, pecans, aubergine, peppers, muscadines, squashes, kohl rabi, pumpkins and more.

Butternut squash soup, wild rice pilaf, Asian garlic greens, sweet potato-lentil casserole, kale and sausage stew, kasha-aubergine patties... aah delicious. We have a new family favourite: roasted apples and sweet potatoes with maple glaze, served with a salad of fresh greens, dried cranberries, chili-toasted pecans and goat cheese with a lime-yoghurt dressing. YUM!

Wild Jam

WE missed the picking seasons for strawberries and blueberries to make jam, but a cycle ride to pick blackberries was something worth waiting for. Emma found the brambles too prickly so was happy to be in charge of the basket. Back at Oma's house, we set to work washing, picking over, heating and juicing, simmering with sugar and gelatine and finally pouring the delicious hot syrup into jars. We had all kinds of fun ideas for decorating the jars once we got home to Atlanta, however sadly the jam had a different destiny and didn't make it onto the plane.

We came home to find muscadine grapes ripe in the garden. Four. Since four grapes do not a jam jar make, we were happy to find an abundance of muscadines and scuppernongs at the farmers market. Once again the house was filled with the sweet scent of cooked fruit and we had fun pressing the pulp through the sieve and watching the pink liquid drip down. These little grapes have a unique taste and make a wonderfully refreshing sorbet! Here's where I found the recipe (called Scuppernong Grape Ice).

No Short Shrift in these Pancakes

IT is celebrated all around the world: Mardi Gras, Karnevale, Karnival, Shrove Tuesday, or in the UK plain old Pancake Day. Historically, this day marked the beginning of the 40-day Lenten fasting period when the faithful were forbidden by the church to consume meat, butter, eggs or milk. Thus people would use up these goodies in a last big party before the solemn fasting time began.

We marked the occasion first with a Karnival party at Emma's German school. As three years is the Great Age of Opinion, she decided not to wear the costume neatly laid out the night before. Instead, a pair of too-small pyjamas would be perfect to make a blue dog. So with a blue scarf-tail and ears hastily sewn on a hat in the car, Emma The Blue Dog was born. With sweets, balloons and oompah music, we enjoyed our own little piece of German revelry.

My family's tradition is simply eating crepe-style pancakes, so on Shrove Tuesday we had fun mixing up a sticky batter. The problem with Pancake Day is that it comes but once a year, and my pancake-making skills do tend to regress over that period. Luckily Thomas arrived home just in time and saved the batter from a fate infinitely worse than frying. My culinary prowess was redeemed the next day when we enjoyed German-style potato pancakes with delicious homemade applesauce.

Mix a pancake,
Stir a pancake,
Pop it in the pan;
Fry the pancake;
Toss the pancake,
Catch it if you can.
Christina Rossetti

From CSA to Soup

AH harvest time! Our CSA (community supported agriculture) box has been filled with earthy goodness these past weeks and with abundant crops of the same vegetables, has forced me to get creative with finding new recipes. Here's what we've been enjoying recently:

Baked cheese grits - made from locally stone ground corn
Sauteed radish tops with garlic and a splash of balsamic vinegar, as a side vegetable
Roasted root vegetables - radishes, butternut and acorn squashes, sweet potato and turnip
Turnip and turnip green risotto (described by one reviewer as "a South Carolinan on holiday in Italy" but extremely tasty!)
Caribbean sweet potato and black bean stew
Butternut squash soup with cider cream
Baked butternut squash, apple and dried cranberries
Radish top soup
Baked sweet potato
Apple and pear chutney
Winter vegetable curry
Roasted spiced squash seeds (eat as a snack, like pumpkin seeds)

Farfalle with butternut squash, mushrooms and spinach (I guess I'll substitute turnip greens)

Time to look into some more harvest songs.

Peas in a Pod

I'VE never been a huge fan of southern cuisine, but the exception has to be some of the summer dishes when peas, tomatoes, corn on the cob, zucchini (courgette) and even okra are at their finest. We hold a CSA (community supported agriculture) share, where we pay a set price to a local farm co-op every week and receive a share of the crop. It's kind of pricey, so we actually only do it every other week supplementing with regular old veggies from the shops. But the CSA is all organic, it supports local and small businesses, and the produce isn't ueber-refrigerated and shipped half way around the world. Best of all, we never know what's going to be in our box so it's kind of exciting wondering what we'll get this week!

Purple pink-eyed hull peas. I'm glad that this particular bag was labelled, because I with my urban ways would have probably cooked them as beans and then wondered why they were so tough. Then it struck me that I had never actually shelled peas before. Many a country grandma would have probably watched with a mixture of horror and disbelief as my fingers - so skilled on the computer, so nimble on the piano and so good at shoulder massages - painstakingly pried the obstinate pea pods open. By the time there were only four left in the bag, I had figured out that you just need to squeeze and they pop right out. Sigh... live and learn.

Onto the corn. Ah, a familiar vegetable. Well Emma and I fixed a delicious fresh summer dinner of corn and tomato casserole with peas and bacon. The southern Grandma would have been proud. One of the ears of corn didn't quite make it into the casserole - this is how I found my daughter after I left the kitchen for a moment. Yes, the corn was raw but it didn't seem to bother her.