Cheese Weed

The many delicious varieties of wild greens arrive with warmer weather and longer days.  They are popping up in the desert now. Those of you living at higher elevations will see them as the temperatures warm up in your areas.  The cheese weed (Malva parviflor, M. neglecta) is a European import that shows up uninvited in gardens and other disturbed places.  The leaves, shaped like geranium leaves but smaller, are a little hairy and slightly coarse, but they have a mild flavor and hold up in stir-frys and soups.  The seed pods are round and look a bit like wheels of cheese, thus the common name.  The seed pods make good additions to salads as a substitute for capers if they are soaked overnight in a strong salt solution then pickled with any ordinary pickling solution. Let them cure for three months before using.

See "cheeses" at lower left

Linda McKittrick inspects a comb being made by her bees.

Today’s post is by a guest blogger, Linda McKittrick who is an urban farmer. On her large lot in one of Tucson’s historic districts, she raises chickens, bees and grows vegetables.  You can watch a short video of Linda with her bees “My Girls: the buzz on urban hives.”  Then read what she has to say:

For almost 15 years now I have been “kept” by bees.  Most people who call themselves “beekeepers” practice the art and craft of keeping honeybees, Apis Mellifera , in wooden or clay structures,  and of course there is truth to that claim.  Yet, feeling as smitten with the winged creatures as I do, it is probably more accurate to say that they keep me.  After years of relationship with them, I am still surprised how much they teach me on a daily basis. When you live with bees, you find your senses sharpen, you learn to listen to how a hive sounds as you open it; how it smells, what plants are at their “ honey flow” at what time of the year.  One’s awareness of the natural world sharpens.

 Bees embody just how intimately we are interconnected with other kingdoms.  It is inspiring to be reminded that the relationship between plants and their pollinators began evolving over 100 MILLION years ago, (!) when flowering plants, emerged as a life form on earth. Richard Brusca, of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, writes,  “the relationship between flowering plants and their pollinators is so intimate that should pollinator populations decline (or worse yet, go extinct), the impact on their plant associates would be immediate and profound. Because pollinators are species upon which the lives of so many other species depend, they are regarded as ‘keystone species’ Pollinators are thus essential to the stability of the global ecosystem itself.” 

 We can, in our very own yards, and on the grounds of our offices and schools, encourage habitat for bees. It is as simple as planting bee-friendly plants, reduce use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, provide clean water, and allow some bare ground to remain for solitary bees to nest in.  These simple acts create a healthy habitat for both native bees and honeybees.

 For those people who are interested in keeping just one or two hives, please do! It is satisfying to see bees create a hive as they make fresh white wax from their own bodies, tend their young, store honey, and forage — and all the while contributing to biodiversity.  It is my personal feeling that if several thousand people kept just one or two hives, (a common practice in this country just a few generations ago), rather than a few individuals keeping thousands of hives, both bees and our food supply would be healthier for it.

Dan Rather has reported extensively on various reasons for colony collapse disease that has killed many bees.  You can watch a shortened version of one of his stories here.

A bee goes to work

The mesquite pods are gone and the spring greens are still a few weeks away. In mid-winter there isn’t too much to gather in the desert, but barrel cactus fruits are ripe and ready for gathering.  They are easy to collect,  just a twist will remove them from the plant. Watch out for the spines.  The scientific name Ferocactus, from the word “fierce” is certainly appropriate.  The fruit tastes light and lemony and the shiny black seeds are easily dislodged.   My book Cooking the Wild Southwest includes a number of recipes for the fruit from cake to salsa to marmalade.  But it was very exciting to me when before a recent presentation at Native Seeds/SEARCH a woman came up and presented me with a pint of homemade barrel cactus salsa of her devise (photo below).  I was thrilled because she had really gotten my message:  read my book to learn about the plants and how to prepare them, look at my recipes, and then invent something of your own!   We all have favorite family recipes and using these healthful (and free) desert plants can be as simple as substituting one of them for something similar.

The seeds of the barrel cactus are great to use for snacks.  Grind them with other spices (I suggest mustard and cumin seed and black pepper) and sprinkle them on pita bread or regular bread. Great to accompany a salad for lunch.

Get ready for the spring gathering season. Cooking the Wild Southwest can be purchased at your local independent bookstore or ordered online.

Barrel Cactus Salsa and seeds

Sampling delicious foods at the Native Seeds/SEARCH demonstration this week.

If you are shopping for tepary  beans, mesquite flour, prickly pear syrup, quinoa — or even something as exotic as dried cholla buds, the Native Seeds/SEARCH shop is the place to head.  Now settled in a beautiful new store at 3061 N. Campbell, with plentiful parking, Native Seeds/SEARCH has all those  foods and more.  They’ll also sell you the books that will tell you how to prepare what you buy including my books Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants and The Prickly Pear Cookbook.  And of course, true to their original calling, they offer a wide selection of seeds, mostly for food, that have been adapted over the centuries to do well in the harsh growing conditions in the Southwest. They also produce a terrific catalog so folks who can’t visit the store can shop

On January 16, Janet Taylor, author of The Healthy Southwest Cookbook, and I shared the stage at the monthly Native Seeds/ SEARCH salon, demonstrating how to cook some of the healthy bounty sold in the store.  I made a yummy prickly pear salad dressing with walnut oil, raspberry vinegar and prickly pear syrup. Perfect over a salad of greens, winter pears, red grapes and walnuts.  I also demonstrated a snack I call Aztec Delight, after reading in a book called Chia how the Aztecs combined ground amaranth and chia seeds and moistened the mixture with black maguey syrup. I figured that modern agave syrup would do, and it is indeed delicious.  Not leaving well enough alone, I rolled the balls in melted semisweet chocolate (that’s Aztec, too!)  Janet cooked teparies and blue cornbread and spoke about their health properties. After the talks, we treated our guests to a real feast. 

Aztec Delight: amaranth, chia, agave syrup and chocolate

Cheri Romanoski making prickly pear cactus candy in her Tucson factory

Cheri Romanoski – petite, always charming, and incredibly inventive – is the reigning queen of prickly pear in Southern Arizona.  Back in the early 1980s, she began preserving fruit such as prickly pear and the citrus that grew near her Tucson home. By 1985, she had rented a small facility and began her business, Cheri’s Desert Harvest. Cheri makes a range of delicious jams, candies and jellies, but what she is most known for is her prickly pear jelly, syrup and candy.

            Every fall, Cheri’s staff harvests 70,000 pounds of the deep magenta Englemann prickly pears. Of course she can’t process all that right away, so the harvest is frozen and cooked throughout the year. Then it is shipped throughout the country to gift shops, grocery stores and top-end restaurants. Famous chef Bobby Flay uses Cheri’s prickly pear syrup in margaritas at this Burger Palace and Mesa Grill.  Customers who can’t buy her products locally can order off of her Cheris Desert  Harvest website.

            Cheri generously shared her recipe for her Arizona Sunrise Muffins with me for use in The Prickly Pear Cookbook

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1 – 8 ounce jar Cheri’s Prickly Pear Cactus Jelly

Preheat oven to 400 (375 for convection oven). Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together and set aside. Mix oil, egg and milk and add to dry ingredients. Stir until moistened. Batter will be lumpy. Fill greased muffin tins half full. Place 1 teaspoon of jelly in the exact center of each muffin, with jelly not touching edges. Add remaining batter, covering jelly, so the tins are two-thirds full. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Prickly pear syrup combined with fresh juices makes delicious holiday cocktails.

 Prickly pear syrup, either something you’ve made yourself or one of the wonderful commercial products, adds a special Southwestern touch to your holiday cocktails. And cocktails are big this year!  My husband Ford and I attended a cocktail class at Tucson Botanical Gardens last summer and we’ve had great fun concocting our special blends. The class was taught by the bartender from Scott & Co., a popular downtown Tucson drinking spot. We learned that the most important key to a delicious cocktail is fresh juices.  We’re lucky that we have orange, tangelo and lime trees in our yard, but citrus is widely available in the supermarket or farmer’s markets.  You also need something to give the juices a little edge, such as bitters or ginger syrup.  To make ginger syrup, I grate a 5-inch piece of fresh ginger and simmer for 30 minutes in a cup of water.  Strain out ginger and reduce liquid to a half cup.  Add a half cup sugar or agave syrup and cook a few minutes to dissolve sugar.

Now the fun starts. Tasting as you go, blend some fresh  juices, add some bottled cranberry juice at this time of year, add a little prickly pear syrup and a dollop of ginger syrup.  Tequila, vodka or run all work well for the alcohol. I go light on alcohol since these drinks are so good people tend to slurp them down.  Your cocktail may look something like the one in the martini glass in the photo.

To make a classic Tequila Sunset, like the drink on the right in the photo, mix orange juice and tequila. Add prickly pear syrup and it will settle on the bottom making a beautiful sunset in a glass.  The recipe for this and  other delicious prickly pear drinks can be found in The Prickly Pear Cookbook.  Cooking the Wild Southwest, delicious recipes for desert plants includes a great recipe for Prickly Pear Sangria.  Both books are available from your local independent bookstore or by mail from Tucson Botanical Garden’s on-line store or  Cheri’s Desert Harvest 

There are lots of places to get prickly pear syrup if you haven’t laid in a supply of your own. Cheri’s Desert Harvest syrup is available throughout the Southwest.    Jeau Allen sells prickly pear syrup on-line and at farmer’s markets throughout the Tucson Valley.

Mesquite Ginger Cookies

2-inch piece of fresh ginger root

1 cup unsalted butter

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg

¾ cup honey

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup mesquite meal

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

            Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. and lightly grease cookie sheets.

            Grate ginger root. Beat together shortening, sugar, and egg until light and fluffy.  Add honey and ginger and beat until combined. Add flours, mesquite meal, salt and baking powder and beat well.

            Drop by teaspoons on greased cookie sheet. Dampen the end of a clean tea towel and wrap it around the end of a juice glass.  Use it to flatten each dab of cookie dough.

            Bake about 12 minutes until lightly browned. The cookies are soft and fragile when they come out of the oven but they firm up as they cool.

Muffin Burgess discusses beans with customers at the St. Phillips Farmers' Market

When I give demonstations involving tepary beans, people always want to know where to buy them.  One place is at the stand Muffin Burgess runs at the St. Phillips Farmer’s Market on Sundays in Tucson. You can also get them from Native Seeds SEARCH, both the store and on-line.  They are grown by San Xavier Cooperative Farm and the Tohono O’odham Community Action Farm, Ramona Farms in Sacaton, south of Phoenix, and Rancho Gordo in Stockton, California.

Teparies originally grew wild, but many generations ago the Tohono O’odham people domesticated them and grew them with the monsoon rains. They had many natural color variations, but when irrigation made possible the growing of pinto beans, farmers switch to the new crop and many of these varieties were lost. Working with native farmers, Native Seeds SEARCH has recovered some of the lost colors. 

Why are teparies important in the bean world? They rank slightly higher in protein and niacin and quite a lot higher in calcium. They also have a low glycemic index, which protects people eating them from a dangerously rapid rise in blood glucose levels. People who suffer from diabetes can reduce their need for insulin shots by eating plenty of teparies and other desert foods such as prickly pear pads and chia that have the gums and fibers useful in controlling blood sugar.

Tepary beans that have been stored for a while take a long time to cook — sometimes up to 14 hours in a crockpot.  Chef Doug Levy of the Tucson restaurant Feast! shortens the cooking time by soaking dried teparies for two days in cold water in the refrigerator.  And remember, never salt your beans until the end of the cooking time.

You can buy teparies by contacting Muffin at www.flordemayoarts.com.  You can find many delicious recipes for teparies in my latest book Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants. 

At holiday time we are often pressed to make a dessert to take to a potluck or to serve to guests.  A mesquite crisp is easy, delicious and interesting.  If your guests are out-of-towners, you can impress them with your knowledge of local food sources.

Start with about a quart of cut-up fruit — the easiest at this time of year is apples or pears.  It could even be canned peaches. Sprinkle them with sugar if needed and a little flour to thicken the juice.  Then combine in a bowl 1/2 cup mesquite meal, 1 cup raw oatmeal, 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.  Add 4 to 6 tablespoons of soft butter in little bits and distribute it throughout the other ingredients with your fingers.  Sprinkle on top of the fruit and bake at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes.  If you haven’t harvested your own mesquite pods and had them ground, look for mesquite meal at farmer’s markets or on-line.  

This recipe is from my new cookbook Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants. It includes about 150 recipes for 23 easily recognized desert plants, including 27 recipes for using mesquite meal.

You can watch me making this with Tucson TV host Mindy Blake at

http://www.kold.com/story/16033607/whats-for-lunch-mesquite-crisp-topping

Jeau Allen is ready to try one of her own prickly pops.

If you’d like to try cooking with desert foods, but  missed the harvest this year or don’t have the time or inclination to go out gathering, Jeau Allen has done the hard work for you. She and her husband Charlie live in the desert at the west end of Aravaipa Creek where they gather and prepare all manner of delicious wild edibles.  For from-scratch cooks, they sell five (yes!) kinds of mesquite meal, frozen prickly pear juice, blue corn meal, chia seed and tepary bean flour.  If you’d like some of the assembly already done for you, there are baking mixes with mesquite meal, mesquite jelly and syrup, and saguaro fruit spread. And oh, those frozen treats — on any day she might have prickly pear, mesquite, watermelon, pumpkin pie, Mexican chocolate or wherever her culinary whim carried her that week.

You can find Jeau and Charlie selling their wares  in Tucson at the Santa Cruz River Farmer’s Market on Thursdays from 3-6 p.m., at the Oro Valley Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings from 9 a.m.-1 p.m., and  at the Tucson Farmer’s Market at St. Philip’s Plaza Sundays from 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

Check out their websites for more intriguing foods at www.pricklypops.com and www.mesquiteflour.com.

If you need some recipes to use that delicious mesquite flour or prickly pear juice you get from Jeau, try my latest cookbook Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants available in local bookstores and on-line sources. For inspiration, watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQSh4pK56i4.