Lemons, photo by Katerha

When I visited author, gardener and cook, Judy Barrett, at her home  in Taylor, Texas, she had just made a batch of Lemon Sesame Cookies. She used lemons she’d harvested from her lemon tree the day before. Even if you don’t have a lemon tree growing in your yard, give these tasty cookies a try. You won’t be disappointed.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon zest
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds, toasted
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Directions

1. Toast sesame seeds in dry skillet or in the oven on a dry pan until they are lightly brown.
2. Melt butter and let cool a little bit. Stir in the rest of the ingredients.
3. Drop by rounded 1/2 teaspoon measuring spoon onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 375*F for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack.

Butternut Squash for Vegetable Pie

Once a week I go through my refrigerator and assess what produce is still waiting for my attention. This time of year, I usually find enough winter vegetables and greens to make a great soup, or vegetable pie.

This pie recipe changes every single time I make it. So if you decide to try it, use it as a guideline and not as gospel. I offer measurements but they are really just guesses–sorry. Use the vegetables that you have on hand.

Ingredients:

Use prepared or homemade pie crust, enough for two 9-inch deep dish crusts; you can also only use one crust and make a tart, instead. This time I used pie dough I picked up from Colleen Sommers of Pie Fixes Everything.

• 6 thick slices of bacon (optional)
• 1 lb. Brussels sprouts, cleaned and halved
• 1 medium Rutabaga, peeled and large dice
• 1 large Parsnip, peeled and large dice
• 4 Carrots, peeled and large dice
• 2 cups butternut squash, peeled and large dice
• 1 large onion, peeled and large chop
• 4 cups spinach, washed and drained
• 1/2 pound mushrooms, cleaned and halved
• 1 can garbanzo beans
• 8 ounces feta cheese
• 2 Lg.Cloves garlic, roasted peeled and chopped
• 1/2 cup lightly toasted Breadcrumbs
• 1 tsp. nutmeg
• Balsamic vinegar
• 2 tsp. toasted sesame seeds
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cover a large jelly roll pan with foil, and lay bacon flat and bake in the oven until crisp.
3. While the bacon cooks, prepare your vegetables.
4. When the bacon has crisped, remove it and drain on paper towels. Crumble when it cools.
5. Place diced Brussels sprouts, carrots, rutabaga, parsnip, squash and onion on the cookie sheet with the bacon fat. Do not crowd. You may have to do this in batches, otherwise the vegetables will steam. Lightly salt and pepper and roast in t he oven until caramelized.
6. While vegetables roast, prepare your crust.
7. Remove vegetables from the oven when a fork goes through pieces without resistance.
8. Remove from oven and place in a large bowl. Add the spinach, nutmeg and crumbled bacon, right away and let the heat of the roasted vegetables wilt the leaves.
9. Next add the sliced mushrooms, garbanzo beans, bread crumbs, garlic. Salt and pepper to taste.
10. Put the vegetable mixture into the pie shell and cover with crumbled  feta and give everything a light drizzle of balsamic vinegar; cover with other crust. Cut vents into the top crust and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.
11. Place in the oven and Bake at 350 degrees for 30 – 35 minutes or until the crust turns brown.

Allow it to sit for at least 5 minutes before serving. Serves 4 to 6 as an entree, or 6 to 8 as a side dish.

NOTE: You use olive oil instead of bacon, and omit the feta to make this a vegetarian and vegan friendly dish.

Artichoke in Bloom

If you eat you owe it to yourself to cultivate horticultural skills to enhance your culinary explorations, and to save vegetables and fruits from jet-lag, or worse yet– road rage!

Recipes are only as good as the ingredients used in them, and fresh, ripe, homegrown produce that’s neither tired nor angry is the gold standard.

Not prepared to dig up lawn? A pot of culinary herbs such as basil, oregano, and chives is a good beginning, with a caveat: culinary herbs are gateway edibles and may lead to a full-blown gardening addiction.

Besides, gardening is a soul-satisfying occupation. It feeds the spirit and the body and will give back to you more than you ever put into it.

Following are a few tips to get you started:

Start small. Most folks are more optimistic about their abilities and dedication than they have a right to be when they begin their fist vegetable garden, and often bite off more than they can chew. So start small. Maybe even with just a few pots of herbs. Once you’ve mastered those, move on to one or two other plants.

Choose an area that receives LOTS of sun. The majority of vegetable and her plants require 6 to 8 (often more) hours of direct sunlight a day to be productive. Be careful if you have trees in your yard. If you choose a garden site in spring when the trees still have bare branches,  you will get a false sense of the available sunlight. Once the trees leaf out,  your sunny plot may become a shady plot. In places where the sun is unrelenting, a little shade late in the day may be helpful, but too much shade and you may get foliage, but  not vegetable production.

Remove grass and weeds from the planting area. If you plant a raised bed garden or surface garden, be sure to remove all grass and weeds from the area in question. If you install a raised bed garden, placing cardboard, or 10 layers of damp newspaper on the area where you build the raised bed, will help suppress weed and grass growth.

Plant what you will eat. There’s no point spending time and money growing vegetables you won’t eat just because the plant looks “cool” or “weird”. Use your precious garden real estate for crops that you and your family will enjoy.

Plant near a water source. My first garden in Texas was fraught with many issues, including a Texas summer of multiple 100 degree days in a row. That wouldn’t have been a problem had we not planted the garden farther away from the faucet than any hose could reach. And since we were broke at the time, buying more hose was out of the question. Carrying buckets of water to the garden lost its appeal after the first week. That garden went to the great compost pile in the sky, and we learned a valuable lesson.

Water appropriately. When the garden is newly planted, you will need to water deeply several times a week until the plants are established. Once they are established–which means they’ve taken root and have started to grow–then you should water less frequently, but still deeply. The infrequent, deep watering will encourage plants to extend their roots deeper into the soil, making them stronger and more drought tolerant.

Spend time in your garden. The more time  you spend in  your garden, the more you’ll get to know how it looks when it is healthy, or beginning to decline. You will catch pest problems early before they become devastating. You will feel a bond with your garden the more time  you spend in it.  Your time in the garden will start to become the best part of your day.

Judy Barrett

I’ve known of Judy Barrett for years, but had not met her until our interview for our show about removing the intimidation of growing a food garden. I found Judy to be gracious, funny, charming and generous.

Exactly how you’d imagine someone who loves to garden and cook.

Her gardening roots run deep, as she comes from a long line of family members who tilled the soil. She started growing colorful zinnias and nasturtiums as a girl, and as she grew up, her interest in food gardening grew, too.

There’s a lot to Judy Barrett; the following is from her website:

Judy Barrett was the founding editor and publisher of HOMEGROWN: Good Sense Organic Living for Texas, which was published for 12 years.  She was previously the editor of The New Garden Journal and one of the hosts of the public television series, The New Garden.  A long-time organic gardener, Judy writes for various regional and national gardening publications.

She is also the author of several gardening books including Tomatillos:  A Gardener’s Dream A Cook’s Delight and How To Become An Organic Gardener in 7 Easy Steps.   She is now an occasional columnist on gardening for Edible Austin, Acres U.S.A., Harris Old Farmer’s Almanac and other publications.

Judy speaks to groups about gardening across the South and Southwest regions, including garden clubs, events, nurseries, herb societies,  Master Gardener and Expert Gardener training. If you are interested in Judy’s schedule, check the link at the top of the page. If you’d like her to come speak to your group, email her at HomegrownTexas@Yahoo.com.

Her book: What Can I Do With My Herbs? was published by Texas A&M Press in the spring of 2009.  Her new book, What’s So Great About Heirloom Plants? was published by Texas A&M Press in October, 2010.

She holds BA and MA degrees in English from the University of Texas at Austin and has edited books on a variety of subjects, including gardening, business, medicine and other topics.

Garden Herbs, photo by Judy Barrett

Cultivating a home vegetable garden isn’t exactly a new idea. Back when most people grew some of their own food, they did so not because it was trendy, but because it was necessary for survival.

It lost it’s necessity and mainstream appeal somewhere around the middle of the twentieth century, thanks to a robust economy and lots of newfangled convenience foods. Why get dirty growing food when you could pop an inexpensive TV dinner–that came in a in a shiny aluminum container–into the oven?

Everything old is new again. People nationwide are planting food in containers, in backyard garden plots, and in community spaces. For some it’s about being trendy, hip and cool, but for most, it’s about offsetting the rising cost of food in the grocery stores.

Despite a strong desire to grow food, there’s also a lot of trepidation.  But, as long-time organic vegetable gardener, author and home cook, Judy Barrett says, “Gardening isn’t as hard as some people might have you believe. Just start small and continue to add vegetables to your repertoire as you gain comfort and confidence.”

Judy has written four gardening books, published by Texas A & M Press, with another on it’s way in spring 2012 called Recipes From and for the Garden. She also curates the website, Judy Barrett’s Homegrown.

If you’re a cook, Judy recommends starting with some herbs in pots. “They basically grow themselves, and once you see how much fun it is to cook with the herbs you grew, you’ll be ready to move on to the next crop.”

Judy is all about helping take the intimidation out of gardening, and maybe after listening to this week’s show, you’ll be ready to break ground on a little food plot of your own.

Bud's Chocolate Chip Pie, photo Royer's Round Top Cafe

Royer’s Round Top Cafe in…well… Round Top, Texas…is a destination for pie lovers. Everyone who drives to the bucolic community from Austin or Houston–or parts farther afield–has their favorite: the pie they daydream about while making their trek.

If you love chocolate chip cookies and pie, then the recipe below generously provided by Bud “The Pieman” Royer, will satisfy  your craving.

BUD’S CHOCOLATE CHIP PIE

Yield:  8 servings

Ingredients

•  1 c sugar
• 1 c packed brown sugar
• 1 c all-purpose flour
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 sticks of melted unsalted butter
• 1/2 c coarsely chopped pecans
• 1/2 c chocolate chips
• 1 (10 inch) cafe pie shell (find a crust recipe here)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325°F
2. Mix sugar, brown sugar and flour together.
3. Stir in the eggs and then the butter, combining well.
4. Allow mixture to cool for 30 minutes then fold in the nuts and chocolate chips.
5. Spread in the prepared crust and bake at 325 degrees for 60 to 70 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

This pie freezes exceptionally well, if it lasts that long!

Coconut Cream Pie, photo by Pamela Nevarez-Fisher

Chef Pamela Nevarez-Fisher submitted this tasty recipe for Coconut Pie.

She tells us that the recipe is adapted from an old Fannie Farmer Cookbook. “I’ve put my own touch on it, and because I’m terrible at pie crust,  your listeners and readers should use their favorite basic pie crust.”

Consider this lovely buttermilk pie crust, or the vodka pie crust from this recipe.

Pamela adds that next to her husband Mark’s mother’s Luscious Coconut Cake, the Coconut Cream Pie is
his FAVORITE dessert of all time!

This recipe is for a 9-inch pie.

Ingredients

For pie:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3 cups milk
• 3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. coconut extract
• 1 pre-baked 9-inch pie shell

For creamy topping:

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 5 Tbsp. toasted shredded coconut

Directions

1. Combine sugar, flour, and salt in a heavy bottom saucepan.
2. Stir in the milk and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thick.
3. Add the egg yolks and continue to cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes or until it is nicely thickened.
4. Remove from the heat and stir in the coconut, butter, and vanilla.
5. Let the custard cool for about 15 minutes, and then pour it into a pre-baked pie shell.
6. Cover with plastic touching the top of the custard to avoid forming a ‘skin’ and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
7. When ready to serve, whip the heavy cream on high speed until thick.
8. Add the confectioner’s sugar and vanilla, and continue beating until it’s nice and thick, but not too stiff.
9. Remove the plastic from the custard, and spread the cream on top all the way to the edges, and don’t forget to swirl it to make it pretty!
10. Garnish with toasted coconut.

Lone Star Sugars, photo Austin Sugarworks

A sugar refinery director in Moravia—which is the present day Czech Republic—named Jakub Kryštof Rad created the sugar cube for his wife Juliana Radová in the mid 19th century.

Until that time, sugar was sold as molded cones.

To add sugar to one’s tea, for example, meant taking a knife to the sweetener and sawing or hacking off a piece—which was always messy and sometimes dangerous.

Legend has it that after cutting her finger while chopping at a cone of sugar, the director’s wife asked her husband: Why not precut the sugar?

Why not, indeed.

Her husband got busy creating the machinery to do just that, and by 1843, the cubes debuted in stores as “Vienna Sugar”…and they caught on with consumers.

For us in the US, sugar cubes haven’t changed much: they remain squares of compressed white sucrose crystals that…if we’re telling the truth…don’t fully dissolve in hot or cold liquids.

Enter Elayne Crain of Austin Sugarworks.  Now we have a game changer. Elayne turns humble sugar granules into  functional works of art. She hand molds sugar cubes “that are anything but cubes.” They may take the form of leaves, or snowflakes, or roses or even citrus wedges. She sometimes flavors them, too.

She discovered molded sugar while on a family trip to France and fell in love with them. Unable to find molded sugar on her return to the US, she decided to make them: first for herself, and then at the urging of friends and family—as a business.

After countless hours of experimentation with binding agents, colorants, flavorings and molding techniques, she finally developed the process she currently uses to make her decorative and delicious Café Sugars.

There’s about as much sugar in one of her molded sugars as one finds in a standard packet of the white crystals. Because she uses super fine sugar, the first sip of a hot or cold drink in which one stirs a Café Sugar is as sweet as the last.

Elayne Crain, photo Austin Sugarworks

Do you love sweets? If you answered yes, you already have one thing in the common with Austin Sugarworks founder Elayne Crain.

If you said no, she’s pretty sure she can convert you.

One of Elayne’s happiest childhood memories is going with her parents to Fat Man’s (yes, its real name), a store that sold penny candy in Augusta, Georgia, where she picked out her own candy from the overflowing bins. (For the record, Mary Janes were a particular favorite, though nowadays she avoids high-fructose corn syrup.)

Now she’s hoping to give others the same genuine satisfaction that only simple (sweet) pleasures can bring.

The result of her product development is a super functional and warm-fuzzy-inducing, all-natural sweetener product that is as kind to both the customer and the planet as possible. And taste so good, you might even just want to eat one or two on their own.

“I am very much inspired by the French style of dining. Real butter, real sugar, real everything…bought fresh and eaten in moderate amounts, with an emphasis on enjoyment.” – Elayne Crain, Founder, Austin Sugarworks.

Elayne earned a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Management from Carnegie Mellon University in 2000, and her MBA from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 2003. Most importantly, in seventh grade, she won second place for her California district in public speaking, giving a passionate speech on Debbi Fields, founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies.

Sugar Field Workers Puerto Rico 1941, Library of Congress

Taste is one of our five senses, and we’re able to recognize five tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami. Of those five, we’re born craving sweet. So is it any wonder we have a love affair with sugar?

Here are some other interesting facts about sugar (in no particular order):

• The average American consumes about 40 pounds of sugar a year.
• Sugar was called “White Gold”: Until the late 1700′s, sugar was a luxury that European nobility used to validate their rank and social power.
• During the 16th century, 1 tsp of sugar in London cost about $5.
• Sugar’s name originated from the Sanskrit word “Sharkara,” which means “material in a granule form.”
• Even though they might taste sour, lemons actually contain more sugar content than strawberries.
• Christopher Columbus introduced sugar to the New World in 1493 on his second voyage.
• Sugar cane stalks can reach 30 feet high!
• Although protein, carbohydrates, and fat also give us energy, our bodies take longer to digest these. Sugar, on the other hand, gives us immediate energy.
• In 327 BC, Alexander the Great discovered the sugar cane; it then spread through Persia and introduced it in the Mediterranean.