Hello friends, Amy here enjoying another great year for the wolfberry bush (Lycium fremontii …I think) in my yard. Tucson’s native species of the Chinese goji berry, they are similarly packed with antioxidants and health benefits. In the tomato family, it’s called tomatillo in Spanish, not to be confused in size, shape, color or taste to the garden variety of husked ground cherries that go by that name. Wolfberries taste somewhat like tomatoes and work well in sweet and savory dishes, when I manage to harvest more than I eat raw from the bush. Thriving on only rainwater, one huge plant produces plenty of fruit for me and the resident phainopeplas.
Inspired by this recipe for millet balls, I used fresh wolfberries in place of dried Turkish barberries.
It was delicious! It reminded me of falafel, crispy on the outside and grainy on the inside. A simple cilantro, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil chutney complimented them perfectly.
So the next time, I decided to use amaranth seeds. I bought this from the store, but you can harvest your own from wild or cultivated plants in the late summer if you’re ambitious.
I toasted them in oil until they became a shade darker and a few of them popped open.
I added water, three times the volume of amaranth seed, and cooked in the solar oven until it was creamy. Then I mixed in fresh wolfberries and enough flour to make a soft dough.
The dough was muuuuch stickier, so I added significantly more flour than for the millet balls and still they looked shaggy. (I used all purpose wheat flour but next time will try amaranth flour).
The toasted flavor came though and I’m glad the only seasoning I used was salt and wolfberries. The dough certainly didn’t need any egg or flax egg to hold together! They baked up just as well as the millet version, but with the texture of a cookie. Next I’ll try them sweetened!
I served them with a lemon pickle but that tomatillo salsa would be good. I took the rest to a picnic among the wildflowers. Happy spring!
Caption: Faces behind the blog–the SavorSisters left to right: Mano y Metate Molera Amy Valdes Schwemm, Author/Culinary Artist/Hostess Extraordinaire Carolyn Niethammer, and Flor de Mayo Prickly Harvester/Frijol Aficionada Martha Ames Burgess
[Esteemed SavortheSouthwest Blog Readers: Our friend, colleague, desert foods philosopher, orchardist, inspirational instigator of culinary action, and author Gary Paul Nabhan asked to be interviewed. We were super-honored to learn he is such a fan of our blog! Here are his shared off-the-cuff remarks.]
Author Gary Paul Nabhan, with local beef and lamb grower Dennis Moroney, owner/founder of Sky Island Brand Meats (enjoying a concert by musician- grasslands botanist-author Jim Koweek in Sonoita, AZ)
INTERVIEW FOLLOWS
Question from a SavortheSouthwest.blog Fan: So Gary, why are you eager to celebrate these Southwest foodies’ lifework, that of Carolyn Niethammer, Martha Ames Burgess, and Amy Valdés Schwemm?
Gary: Aside from the fact that they have had enormous influence, not just on me but our whole community, each of them has been a remarkable pioneer or innovator with Southwest foods. I value their friendships –but also their brightness.
Question: When and how did you get to know each of them?
Gary: When I moved to Tucson in 1975 or so, both Kit Schweitzer and Lloyd Finley heard of my interest in food ethnobotany and said I had to meet Carri. She was probably working on her book American Indian Food and Lore by then, which was one of the first regional books on Indigenous cuisine in the Southwest. We did some field harvesting workshops together on seasonal wild foods in the Tucson area, calling it “Gary and Carri’s Thorny Food Review.” Next we worked together on Pima County Public Library’s amazingly innovative live-talk series, the Sonoran Heritage Program.
With Muffin, in the 1970s we were both engaged with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and with Tumamoc Hill’s Mescal,Marching,&Menudo Society. As fellow grad-students, we’d practice our research findings on each other with presentations and potlucks. Later, we were conserving seeds and traditional planting know-how with NativeSeedsSEARCH [the organization Gary co-founded] and shared by Indigenous farmer friends. To this day, no single educator of nature and culture has eclipsed Muffin’s capacity to bring Tucsonans out for hands-on experiential programs. I recall an event that she organized, a Desert Museum program with Tucson explorer Tad Nichols showing his 1943-44 film of flying over the newly-exploding Paricutin volcano. Over 600 people were attracted to Tad’s presentation thanks to Muffin’s enthusiasm. We both had friendships with Tohono O’odham Elder women on the Nation, so traveled out there together a lot, learning from them. She actually was a model for one of the characters in my first book.
[Nabhan’s book The Desert Smells like Rain, a Naturalist in O’odham Country, first published in 1982, has been reprinted recently by University of Arizona Press!]
I got to know Amy later through her work with Mano y Metate and Desert Harvesters. Her Mano y Metate moles—which she re-created from scratch when NativeSeedsSEARCH’s Mexican mole source vanished–have always been extraordinary in both honoring tradition–and in kicking fragrances up a notch. Amy agreed to cater one of the first dinners we had in Patagonia when I founded the national network on rare food conservation called Renewing America’s Food Traditions. Our guests from all over–Deborah Madison from Santa Fe, leaders in Chefs Collaborative, and Slow Food USA–loved her creativity as much as I did.
[Amy’s Mole mixes make being a gourmet cook almost instantly possible!]
Question: What do you think these three Savor-Sisters have in common, in terms of values and strategies for promoting Southwestern foods?
Gary: That’s easy to respond to: They all have deeply listened to Indigenous and traditional home cooks, rather than –excuse my Espanglish—simply sitting on their nalgas in front of their desks to make up mierda without any tangible ties to historic traditions. Carolyn’s first book was really a food ethnography acknowledging dozens of Southwest Native women and their traditional foodways. Muffin has done the same with Tohono O’odham women–listening and participating in food harvesting and preparation with elders. And Amy has continued the traditions of her own grandmothers. Not every writer or chef takes that time: each of these three Tucsonans stands in the tradition of Paula Wolfert, Diana Kennedy and Lois Ellen Frank.
Question: Any other thoughts you dare share about these Three Mesquiteers?
Gary: Actually yes–one more thing: One of the aspirations that Jonathan Mabry, head of Tucson’s City of Gastronomy program, and I had when we were submitting the proposal to make Tucson the first UNESCO City of Gastronomy in the U.S. was this: to continue the elaboration and celebration of the unique gastronomy of this place and its many cultures. Shortly after getting that designation, I knocked on Carri’s door and said, “Tag, you’re it! No one else can offer the detailed overview of Tucson’s complex culinary legacy in print better than you. What still needs to happen is to create or articulate a collective identity for a Sonoran Desert cuisine that is identifiable, unique—as it is in New Orleans, Charleston, Boston, or Santa Fe. So, it’s up to you to express what a distinctive regional cuisine means for us, and illustrate it with great sample dishes, sample menus.”
That’s really a huge task—larger than what one book can ever do—but she started that process. She had Tucson’s home cooks, chefs, growers–young, veteran, Indigenous—even brewers and distillers all understand what they, as a community, have to build on– that no one in Phoenix, El Paso or Albuquerque can touch. The result was her latest book A Desert Feast: Celebrating Tucson’s Culinary Traditions.
Each of Carolyn’s books is a treasure trove of local food delights, ideas and info.
Question: Okay, so what are you up to these days as Extinguished Professor Nabhan? We’ve heard a rumor that you sometimes write books in the middle of the night.
Gary: Yeah, sleeplessness is my only real asset. Of course, I’m still rambling around festivals promoting Agave Spirits, my latest book coauthored with David Suro. But I’m also at work on a book with James Beard-award-winning chef and food writer Beth Dooley on the links between and benefits of desert cuisines from around the world in this time of rapid climate change. We’re showing a commonality between what people grow and how they prepare foods from the deserts of India and Persia, through the Middle East and North African “Maghreb”, to the Canaries, Caribbean, northern Mexico and the U.S. Southwest. These will be recipes so aromatic and full of healthful antioxidants that no one will ever say again that living well and eating sustainably in a hot dry world is difficult–if not impossible. And most hopeful, these deserts’ foods can even buffer us from heat stress, dehydration and damaging solar radiation… So stay tuned!
[The Savor-Sisters thank you, Gary, for your candid thoughts and perspectives about us and our mission in sharing what we do via this blog. Indeed all of us, dear blog readers included, are anticipating Gary’s next book. (We can hardly keep up with his blistering writing rate.) Bravo to him for continuing to share his significant desert stories, and to inspire us resiliently into hotter, drier times! With appreciation, Carri, Amy, and Muff]
Hello friends, Amy here celebrating the harvest. At Tucson CSA this fall we had several batches of gorgeous, fleshy, green chiles! Farmer Frank of Crooked Sky Farm has been supplying us for years and years. The smell of charring them at home reminds me of doing it with my grandfather.
First things first, I made my great grandmother’s chiles rellenos with my family. Stuffed with cumin spiced beef, fried with a light egg batter and toped with a mild tomato sauce, these must be eaten immediately after they’re done. Yes, at the beginning only one person is eating a relleno at a time.
We also made chiles en nogada, filled with a complex pork and raisin filing, topped with walnut and almond sauce.
Next I wanted to try something new… I started with sweet potatoes from my CSA.
I loved how the mixture didn’t fall out of the chiles like the other fillings did!
Also, I loved the color combination of orange and green so I overstuffed them to let it show.
To finish, I gently heated ghee and more Pipian Picante powder.
Then drizzled it over the still warm chiles. Since these chiles were so mild, I really welcomed extra spice. (Pipian Picante is medium spicy). If my chiles were hotter, I would have chosen the milder Pipian Rojo powder.
The filling and topping were so good I can imagine eating it without the chile if they were not on hand. Or chopping the chile and mixing it in to the sweet potatoes. Enjoy the chile until the frost!
We’ll be selling mole powders at Holiday Nights, so come visit with us at Tohono Chul in Tucson, Friday and Saturdays Dec 8, 9, 15, 16 from 530-830pm.
Amy here, on a hot, hot morning, sitting the shade. Have you seen Desert Harvester’s new edition of the cookbook??? It is 400 pages! with lots of color photographs and original art. It really is worth getting the book for the art alone.
But today I want to highlight the ethics in book. It starts with a poem by Ofelia Zepeda, followed by a land acknowledgement, and a Desert Harvesters ManiFEASTO in English and Spanish. There is a recipe for Abundance and a detailed primer on Reciprocity, elaborating on “Get to Know vs Grab and Go” and “Rewild vs Defiled” and a whole other section on living and eating in place. So yes, even if you don’t live in the desert where these plants grow, and even if you never plan to cook, this is still a tremendous resource and inspiration.
As the title declares, Desert Harvesters has morphed from mesquite milling focused to offering intimate portraits and recipes of over 20 desert ingredients. Have you harvested: mesquite, ironwood, saguaro, acorn, devil’s claw, wolfberry, hackberry, mushrooms, chiltepin, barrel cactus, prickly pear pads and fruit, cholla, chia, agave, palo verde, yucca, ocotillo, globe mallow, purslane, packrats, grasshoppers or cicadas? With detailed harvesting instructions, seasonal timing and expert tips, a novice harvesters can actually get out there and try! Many desert plants offer multiple delicacies, such as ironwood tree as green seeds, mature seeds, flowers and seed sprouts.
There are a LOT of recipes, some easy and some taking days or longer to make. I didn’t count how many recipes are in the book, but it says only 80 of them are bilingual, English and Spanish and 65 are new to this edition. There are a few medicine recipes, too. This book really does have something new for even the most seasoned harvester. The recipes are contributed and tested by community members far and wide, encompassing ancient wisdom and modern innovation from many cultures. It also includes many recipes from us Savor Sisters, Carolyn, Tia Marta and I.
If you still aren’t convinced to buy this book or find it in the library, go to Desert Harvesters Facebook page. There you will see recipes for Seed Balls for planting and Saguaro Fruit Truffles for eating. Don’t mix them up!
In Tucson the mesquite trees have fresh new leaves and bags of grapefruits are looking for homes. Happy Spring! Amy here using grapefruits a way I learned from my friend and mentor Barbara Rose of Beantree Farm. You can find the original recipe as well as so much other inspiration in a new edition of the Desert Harvesters Cookbook available to preorder now.
Salsa is commonly made with tomatoes or tomatillos, but when fresh tomatoes are months away, grapefruit are plentiful, juicy, sour and pulpy with a hint of sweet. Yum! Start by cutting the stem end and blossom ends of the fruit.
Then cut down the sides to remove the peel, including the pith. Candy the rinds if you like!
With a paring knife, cut along both sides of each segment to release the pulp in wedges. This goes more quickly than it sounds.
I don’t worry about getting every little piece of pulp since I squeeze the juice out of the membranes left behind.
Remove the seeds and drink some of the excess juice. A mix of different colored grapefruit or even oranges is fun. Use what you have!
I’itois bunching onion tops have a unique onion flavor but any color onion will work: bulbous white, red or yellow, green spring onion tops, shallots… whatever you have.
Besides a smashed clove of garlic, a splash of cooking oil (any kind), a pinch of salt, and rubbed Mexican oregano, the not so secret ingredient is crushed chiltepin! Use as few or many as you like. Allow the salsa flavors of blend and the chiltepin and oregano to rehydrate.
Wanting something to go with the salsa, I made tostadas. Sautéed onion and cooked pink beans are a great base.
Mashed beans stick to tostadas better.
Fry corn tortillas in oil until crispy. In order to not set off the smoke detector, frying outside is the best, especially in beautiful spring weather.
Lettuce or most any green or sprout can all liven up tostadas. Wild mustard greens, like arugula, add a peppery bite.
Hello friends! Amy here celebrating the harvest on the Autumn Equinox.
At Mexican Raspado places, I never order the shaved ice with sweet syrup, fruit, ice cream, etc. I always get Coctel de Elote, a corn soup served hot and it is DELICIOUS even in hot weather. It can be made with very immature flour or dent corn varieties also known as starchy “field corn” varieties. These are the same corn varieties that are allowed to mature dry on the plant and made into tortillas, tamales and countless other creations. But elote for coctel de elote can also be sweet corn and that’s what I had from my share at Tucson Community Supported Agriculture.
I started by cutting the kernels off the cob, with a sharp little knife within a big bowl.
The kernels can be cut pretty deeply, and the juicy insides scraped into the bowl with the rest.
Then the kernels are boiled in just enough water to cover, with a dash of salt. The cobs go in to extract every bit of their goodness to the soup and to add their own distinctive flavor to the broth.
After simmering for a few minutes, the corn was tender. I poured my soup for one into a small jar to serve, leaving the cobs behind. Then, butter!
At the raspado place, they will ask what toppings would you like, but the only answer is everything, the works!
I started with some Mano Y Metate Mole Powder, Pipian Picante. I think any mole powder would be great here, and the traditional would be plain chile powder or a dash of hot sauce.
I then juiced a lime into the glass. But this wasn’t enough and I resorted to lemon juice I had frozen in quantity from the spring. Also, homemade mayonnaise (just an egg yolk with mild oil whisked into it until it is thick), store bought creama (Mexican sour cream). Basically, just keep adding and tasting until it is irresistible. Then a final sprinkling of fresh cheese (in this case, homemade goat cheese) sprinkled on top.
Enjoy with a long spoon in the short, hot afternoon.
Hello Friends, I’ve always wanted to try mole with scallops since I saw saw it in a book. It paired a very modern white chocolate mole with scallops. Wanting to treat myself to a special meal today, I thought I would give it a go with my own mole.
Happy November full moon! Amy here today experimenting with roast poultry.
I wanted to make a roast chicken with mole as a seasoning, rather than as a sauce. Something exciting but still traditional enough for a roast chicken or turkey. Also, I couldn’t decide which variety of mole to use. So I separately mixed some Mano Y Metate Adobo and Mole Negro powders with olive oil and rubbed them one on each side of a chicken. I slid some under the skin and in the cavity. I sprinkled a little salt everywhere, too.
I trussed the wings and legs with dental floss.
I let it marinate uncovered in the refrigerator for 36 hours. Supposedly this helps the skin get crisp when baking.
In that time the mole dyed the skin a deep color, but it looked dull. So I moistened it with a little more olive oil and set in a 375 degrees F oven.
As it baked, I basted it a few times with its own drippings.
After it was almost to temperature (160 degrees F) I cranked the oven to 400 to crisp the skin for the last few minutes. Then I removed it from the oven, and while resting ensured the breast temperature climbed over 165F.
The skin was crisp and spicy! The meat was savory, flavorful and complex but less spicy. It was bold and special without feeling wild and crazy, or that the sides needed to work around the mole theme.
As for Mole Negro vs Adobo, I think the extra heat of the Mole Negro was my favorite, but the Adobo made the prettier crust and would be my choice for a serving a crowd.
I considered making mole sauce to spoon on the plate, but instead put some of the drippings into and on top of the mashed potatoes. Delicious!!!!!
The bones and drippings made an incredibly rich colored broth with hints of mole. It was spicier than I thought it would be. I can’t wait to make it into soups, the best part of roasting a bird. Enjoy the weather and happy cooking!
Amy here, sharing a classic dish that I’ve made several times recently. Years ago my young niece showed me how she made nachos. I didn’t grow up with them, and had never before gotten into making or eating nachos. Ava’s authoritative recipe in the microwave was such a delight that afternoon. So even if I make my own version now, I always think of her when I do.
I like to start with corn tortillas. Thin ones are best, and if they’re dried out a little, even better.
I fry them in a shallow layer of neutral oil until crispy and brown.
Then sprinkle them generously with salt right after coming out of the oil.
Freshly grated cheese is a must. I like jack, but of course anything that melts is good!
My niece used leftover beans and so did I. These are mayocoba beans cooked with just water, garlic and salt.
For sauce and spice, I made some Pipian Picante with my Mano Y Metate mole powder and the oil left after frying tortillas.
Then I added some leftover carnitas to it!
Since it is chile season, I roasted some from the Tucson CSA over the gas stove inside. After evenly charring, I put them in a lidded dry, cold saucepan, allowing them to steam in their own heat. Then the skins slip off easily.
Tucson CSA has had a good heirloom tomato year, so they go in whatever dish I’m making on the day they are ripe. And I sliced some white onion thinly.
I put the tortillas, cheese and beans to heat in the oven.
A thin layer of tortillas makes for more edges that can get crisp, but a full sheet pan with extra sauce and cheese is good, too! After baking, I top with the pork in Pipian Picante, tomato, onion and green chile. I recommend eating immediately like I did with my niece, enjoying the outdoors.
HU:Ñ PASTI:L aka PASTEL DE ELOTE — A most delectable treat inspired by corn-harvesting time (MABurgess photo)
So in case you are wondering…. Hu:ñ (pronounced HOOONya) is corn and Pasti:l (pronounced pasTEEEEra) is pie in O’odham language. The Spanish Pastel de Elote (passTELL day ay-LOW-tay) essentially means pie made of fresh corn. In English it goes by a more pedestrian name — sweet corn casserole–but it is just as delish.
It’s like a slightly sweet tamale pie or casserole–full of protein—easy to make! Tia Marta here to share a fun fast recipe using our local Native summer corn in its fresh and dried forms….
Heirloom O’odham 60-day corn ripe in the husk ready to harvest at San Xavier Coop Farm
This ancient and honorable 60-days-to-ripen corn was genetically selected long ago by the Desert People, and almost lost in the mid-20th Century due to agricultural “faddism.” Thanks to a few traditional gardening families and to NativeSeedsSEARCH gardeners and seed-bankers, a handful of kernels were saved and multiplied through that bottleneck of time, so that now seeds are available for many farms to grow this amazing corn. San Xavier Farm alone now has ACRES producing perhaps TONS of ears to feed a growing population–and a community also growing in appreciation of this amazingly nutritious and desert-adapted grain. Imagine a protein-packed grain that can handle the heat of the Sonoran Desert summer and can ripen in 60 days! In food production terms, that’s like zero to sixty in less than 10 seconds!
Mission Garden’s Garden Supervisor Emily Rockey cradles an armload of Tohono O’odham 60-day corn at San Xavier Coop Farm harvested for the community. (MABurgess photo)
A group of us volunteers from Mission Garden recently went to help hand-harvest traditional Tohono O’odham 60-day corn at a community picking in the productive fields of San Xavier Coop Farm. Harvesting this sacred corn together inspired me to prepare a dish to share with dear friends.
The recipe calls for fresh corn cut off the cob, but you can easily substitute canned corn. Since our household is trying to “go local” as much as possible, I used flour milled from BKWFarms’ organic white Sonora wheat, eggs from the happy chickens at Mission Garden, and local naturally-grown corn and cornmeal. I used a sunny day and a solar oven!
Muff’s Hu:ñ Pasti:l or Pastel de Elote Recipe:
Preheat solar oven or conventional oven to 350F degrees–(solar may be less).
Grease and lightly flour one large (or 2 smaller) baking dish(es) or iron skillet.
Cream together: 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter. and ½ cup agave syrup “nectar” or sugar
Beat in 4 eggs.
Add and mix thoroughly into the moist mixture:
1 cup homemade salsa, OR 1 can Herdez Salsa Casera, OR 1 cup diced green chiles
1 pint fresh corn kernels cut off the cob (ca.3 ears), OR 1 16oz. canned corn (I use organic non-GMO)
1 cup shredded longhorn/cheddar cheese
Sift together, then stir into the corn/cheese mixture:
1 cup white Sonora wheat flour (or other whole grain flour)
1 cup cornmeal (non-GMO)
4 tsp. baking powder
¼-1/2 tsp. sea salt
Pour mixture into greased and floured baking dish(es).
Reduce heat to 300F and Bake 50+ minutes in conventional or solar oven, or until “pie” tests done with toothpick. (Solar may take longer.)
This recipe serves 8 graciously, piping hot or chilled, for dinner, lunch or snack. Hu:ñ Pasti:l (Pastel de Elote) can be refrigerated for a week-plus, then sliced and re-zapped in microwave for quick easy servings. Or, it can be sealed and frozen for longer storage.
You can find fabulous local cornmeals roasted or made as pinole (that work great in this recipe) at Ramona Farms online and NativeSeedsSEARCH online store.
[Also check out a totally different dish of sweet mole cornbread–entirely different personality–made with many of these same maize ingredients by Savor-blog-Sister Amy in an earlier post.]
Enjoy these flavors and nutrition, and rejoice in a local monsoon desert crop!
Savor the Southwest: 