Mallow (Malva parviflora) an Edible Friend

February 21, 2008

...ves as a substitute for grape leaves for making dolmas. Modern Mexicans also make a green sauce with the leaves. If any of you readers have recipes, please send them along. If that ain’t enough, the mucilaginous nature of the plant can be exploited by making a decoction of the leaves and roots to use as a shampoo, hair softener, and treatment for dandruff. And yet, like so many other gardening books, the oh-so-bourgeois Sunset Garden Guide only te...

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Easy Scandinavian-Style Bread

Mrs. Homegrown

October 8, 2015

Food, Recipes

7 Comments

...ough starter, take on the mantle (or apron?) of Household Baker, and start making these loaves myself, but I’m already taking on extra chores with him off his feet, so I’m not inclined to take up this one as well. Yet we can’t live two months without good bread. What to do? Fortunately, I’ve found a solution to our bread crisis: a perfectly good yeasted recipe which makes a dense whole grain loaf with minimal effort. No starter. No kneading. No ri...

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Solar Oven Triumph: Fluffy Egg Strata

Mrs. Homegrown

July 5, 2016

Recipes, Solar, Solar Oven Summer

10 Comments

...how long any dish should spend in the oven. Imagine if back when you were making your first batch of cookies, your mom’s old Betty Crocker told you they would be done anywhere between one and four hours. Or perhaps the recipe would not even include a time or temperature recommendation, but just said the cookies would be done when they were done. Can you imagine your tears? Welcome to solar cooking. Recipes are guidelines or even hints rather than...

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Straw Bale Garden Part V: Growing Vegetables

Mr. Homegrown

June 18, 2013

Gardening, Straw Bale Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

23 Comments

...seedlings. Others, like this cucumber, I sowed directly into the bales by making a little hole and putting in the seed with some home made seedling mix. Again, the vegetables in the bales are doing better than veggies in my two remaining raised beds. The reason, I believe, is that the beds are depleted and the compost I added to them was low quality. While more resource intensive than growing in the ground or raised bed, straw bale gardening has...

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Vegetable Gardening for the Lazy

Mr. Homegrown

May 28, 2008

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

13 Comments

...you know of a good source either local or mail order. We’ll definitely be making some cuttings, as it would be nice to have more than one. 2. Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus). A member of the sunflower family, this North American native produces an edible tuber that, while hard to clean, is worth the effort. It’s invasive which, from the perspective of the martini swilling gardener, is a plus since it means never having to propagate mor...

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