Showing posts with label Side Dish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Side Dish. Show all posts

Monday, January 31, 2011

~ Garden Plans ~

I love this article on Food Freedom about growing plants vertically to maximize your gardening space thus maximizing yields. We created tipis last year for our pole beans and they were so pretty. We used Ironwood trees for our poles and twine strung from one side to another for extra supports. We had 28 plants on each tipi. The mistake I made was planting one variety too close to another and they cross pollinated so I couldn't really save seeds. We did get very interesting looking beans! This is a close up of the flowers that adorned our tipis. This particular one is from a Scarlett Runner Pole Bean. We also planted Rattlesnake Pole Beans and Hidatsa Pole Beans. The Rattlesnakes had lavender flowers and the Hidatsa had light pink flowers. These would be absolutely gorgeous growing up the side of a house. They will grow between 10 to 12 feet so they wouldn't really work for a front yard fence. You could grow peas that grow around 32" on a front yard fence and get the benefits of flowers, pretty greenery, and food! What more could you ask for? This is one of my favorite green bean recipes. The original recipe comes from Laurel's Kitchen, I have change it just a bit to our taste preferences.

Creamy Sesame Beans and Celery

3 c green beans, 3/4" length
1 c celery, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
2 tbsp arrow root powder
1 tsp of sea salt
1 c raw milk yogurt
1/2 c full fat cottage cheese
1/8 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp oregano dash of garlic powder
1/4 c toasted sesame seeds, ground
1/4 to 1/2 cup sourdough bread crumbs
1 tbsp of butter

Cook green beans, celery, and onion in a small amount of stock until barely tender. Drain and reserve liquid to mix with arrowroot powder. Mix stock, sea salt, and arrowroot powder and mix with veggies. Add yogurt and stir; place in a deep casserole pan. Mix seasoning with cottage cheese and spread over vegetables. Melt butter and add sesame seeds and breadcrumbs, then spread them over the cottage cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. This post is shared at :

Monday, November 22, 2010

~ Sweet Potato Pie ~

This post is part of The Nourishing Gourmet's: Whole Foods for the Holidays: Side Dish Carnival

 This has got to be one of my most favorite dishes in the whole wide world. I eat it for breakfast its that good. When I was little the sweet potatoes were always candied, with those gross little marshmallows on top and no one could ever figure out why I wouldn't eat them. "They are good, they are like candy"

Even has a five year old I knew that candy was not supposed to be a side dish. I don't have a picture for you just yet, the last one was devoured by the members of our 4H club at the Thanksgiving Family Dinner before I got a picture of it.

 9" baked ww pie shell or coconut crust (1/2 cup melted butter and 2 cups unsweetened coconut meat, finely shredded;mix and bake at 300 for 30 minutes)
5 cups of mash sweet potatoes or winter squash or mixture of both
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup rapadura sugar or honey
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbsp unsulphured molasses
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp all spice

2 tbsp butter
3/4 cup crispy pecans

 Bake sweet potatoes and/or squash till tender. Use food processor to blend until smooth, add everything else but the extra butter and pecans. Pour into pie shell. Melt butter and pour over top. Sprinkle with pecans. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Enjoy!