desert foods

Harvest-time Happenings at Mission Garden

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Tohono O’odham ha:l–the traditional desert pumpkin with its corky attachment and rich orange center–is ripening in autumn heat at Mission Garden…..

A colorful harvest is happening at Tucson’s Mission Garden, and it’s time to celebrate!   Tia Marta here with an invitation:   Every Saturday for the weeks of autumn there will be foodie festivities to enjoy at Mission Garden. Come masked and socially-distanced for open-air learning, tasting, photography and fun.  There’s a big one this coming Saturday Oct.17, 2020 not to miss!

O’odham tepary beans hold the record for desert adaptation, high nutrition, rich flavor, and long sustainable cultivation right here in the Sonoran Desert.  Come get a taste of this rich heirloom Sat.Oct.17.

This colorful heirloom bean mix, known as Tom’s Mix, is like a multi-cultural metaphor–bringing the agricultural wisdom of 14 different Southwestern cultures together in one incredibly delectable soup. You can taste it Oct.17 at Mission Garden!

Tohono O’odham 60-day corn could be the fastest maturing and most desert-adapted corn known. It was domesticated by the Desert People long ago. Mission Garden’s volunteers are honoring it and helping to bring it into wider cultivation. Come taste a tortilla made with this ancient and nutritious desert crop!

Ancient Chapalote corn (known from 4100-year-old archaological sites in the Tucson area) and pre-Columbian Tohono O’odham 60-day corn are celebrated at Mission Garden. What a beautiful way to pay proper respect on Indigenous Peoples’ Day! Our mutual thanks to Native ancestors for these gifts from the past which can help us into an unsure future!

All of these Three Sisters–Corn, Beans and Squash–are grown together at Mission Garden in traditional ways, demonstrated in different “time-line” gardens.  Come observe and learn how you might plan your own garden next summer season.

As the evenings get cooler, it will be time to plant a winter/spring crop of ancient White Sonora Wheat, a golden, low-gluten wheat-berry introduced to our area by Padre Kino over 300 years ago. It will be packaged and available for sale at the Mission Garden’s Oct.17 gastronomy book launch event.

Tastes of the Southwestern heirloom bean Tom’s Mix soup and tastes of traditional O’odham Tepary Beans will be available at Mission Garden, Saturday, October 17, 10am-12noon.  Look for the Flor de Mayo table under the north ramada that day.  Also available will be packaged White Sonora Wheatberries with recipes for cooking them for pilaf or for marinated wheatberry salad.  For more wheatberry recipes check out this post.   A portion of the Oct.17 sale of these heirloom foods will go to support Mission Garden’s programs.

Author Carolyn Niethammer and her latest Southwestern foods book will be in the limelight this Saturday Oct.17 at Mission Garden. A DESERT FEAST describes in delicious detail a 4100-year history of foodways in Tucson, Arizona–named UNESCO’s first International City of Gastronomy!

All of Carolyn Niethammer’s books are gastronomic inspirations, but THIS one —A Desert Feast–bears the crown!  It is rich in history and recipes.  Come get your copy signed Oct.17 and discuss traditional foods–wild and domestic– with the author herself.

You can find many fantastic recipes for tepary beans, Tom’s Mix, and wheat berries in this SavortheSouthwest.blog archive using the search box.  Try some of the great recipes on the link SavortheSouthwest post written for healthy menus and specialized diets.  Tom’s Mix and Teparies make fabulously flavorful bean salads, dips, stews, and hummus.  These bean mixes and white Sonora Wheatberries are also available online at www.NativeSeeds.org and at www.flordemayoarts.com .  Also check Tohono Chul Park, Tucson Presidio and Old Town Artisans for Flor de Mayo heirloom foods.

For a full schedule of Mission Garden weekend events, the Membrillo Fest, 60-day corn tortillo demos etc, please see the website www.tucsonsbirthplace.org.

 

Prickly Pear Coconut Frozen Pops

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Hello friends, it’s Amy here with my new favorite late summer treat. Pink prickly pear pops are creamy and easy to bite, yet vegan using coconut milk. For a prickly pear peach sorbet using cream and honey, try Carolyn’s recipe from last season. Also, try Tia Marta’s Prickly Pear-Mesquite-White Sonora Wheat Muffins (Ihbhai c Kui Wihog Pas-tihl).

 

With the drought, there are very few prickly pears out in the wild this year.

However, the young plants in my yard near water harvesting basins set a decent amount of fruit, especially for their size.

Even though the fruit may look purple sooner, I usually wait until September to harvest. If picked before total ripeness, the firm flesh holds onto the juice and it is more difficult to extract. To check, I simply pluck them off the plant with kitchen tongs. Ideally, the fruit separates easily from the plant and the skin with no tinge of green at the base tears the fruit open a bit (see the holes in the bottoms of the fruit in the photo below). If juice runs where the tongs squeeze the flesh, it’s definitely ready!!!! 

I then blend the whole fruit, spines and all.

The hard seeds remain intact, while the pulp and skins are pureed. Then I strain the slurry through a cloth napkin or other piece of fabric. Cheese cloth is not fine enough.

This strains out the seeds, pulp, pieces of skin, spines and the tiny, skin-irritating glochids.

It drains slowly, so sometimes I tie the ends of the fabric, hanging it to drip in the refrigerator. 

The clear juice is ready to make treats or savory food right away, or freeze for later. As an extra precaution, I let the juice stand, then pour the clear liquid from the top, sacrificing the bottom inch from the vessel to leave behind any sediment.

To make pops, I heated some juice with lemon and sugar, then thickened it slightly with cornstarch to make a thin syrup.

After taking it off the heat, I added a can of coconut milk. Add a little lemon or orange extract, if you like.

When completely chilled in the refrigerator over night, it is ready to be frozen in an ice cream maker.

If you just pour the mixture into the pop molds, it will freeze as hard as ice. But this method makes pops that are easy to bite.

Of course, it can be eaten now as soft serve or frozen in one container to enjoy as a sorbet. But spooned into reusable pop molds, it is portion controlled!!!

Prickly pear coconut frozen pops (or sorbet) 

By Amy Valdes Schwemm

1 cup prickly pear juice

1 ½ cups sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup lemon juice

1 tablespoon cornstarch

13-15 oz coconut milk

lemon or orange extract (commercial or 100 proof vodka infused with zest) to taste

Bring first four ingredients to a gentle boil. Dissolve cornstarch in 2 tablespoons water in a small dish. Add to pan, and simmer for one minute. Add coconut milk and extract. Remove from heat to cool and refrigerate until well chilled. Pour into ice cream maker and freeze. Firm in freezer, either in pop molds or a lidded container. Enjoy!

Mesquite and Chocolate: A Love Story

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Mesquite Chocolate Mousse for two

 

Cooks and those they cook for all love chocolate. It’s Carolyn today and I see in other food blogs I follow that people light up for chocolate recipes. Our readers loved Amy’s recipe for Chocolate Mole Dulce Cake a few weeks ago. Today I’m going to give you a recipe for combining chocolate and mesquite. The two flavors enhance each other perfectly, making for creamy, caramel-y, chocolate-y deliciousness. And rich. You always want rich with chocolate.

I usually make my mesquite broth starting with pods. Most mesquite pods appear in late June to early July, but there is usually a small fall crop as well. Even with our very scanty rains this year, I see lots of new mesquite pods on trees in our neighborhood. The crop is much smaller than the early summer crop, but you can probably find enough pods to make this recipe. If all you have is the mesquite meal from a previous year, that will work as well.

For the liqueur in the recipe, which is optional, you can use coffee liqueur (like Kahlua), maybe hazelnut, or whatever you have on hand and like. Or you might even substitute a little strong coffee.

Gather a basket of mesquite pods. Remember to gather only from the tree, never from the ground. Some people say the ones with red stripes are sweeter. I can’t tell the difference myself.

Mesquite Broth

To make mesquite broth, slowly simmer 2 cups of broken pods in 4 cups of water for about an hour until they are very soft. When cool, wring and tear them (hands in!) to release the sweet goodness into the water. Strain.  You can get more details in my previous post on mesquite broth here. If you don’t have the pods, you can make broth with mesquite meal. For this recipe, combine 1/2 cup mesquite meal with 1 1/2 cups water and stir until completely dissolved. You may have to use a whisk. If your mesquite meal is coarse and doesn’t totally dissolve, strain before making the Mesquite Mousse.

These wine glasses contain a rather large serving of this rich dessert. But it is so delicious, you’ll probably finish it off anyhow.

Mesquite Mousse

2 cups mesquite broth

1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk

½ cup water

6 tablespoons cornstarch

2 beaten eggs

¼ cup liqueur (optional)

¼ cup cocoa

¼ cup sugar

Combine mesquite broth and milk in saucepan. In small bowl, combine water and cornstarch and stir until smooth. Add to mesquite mixture. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickness of pancake batter. Turn off heat and let cool for about eight minutes. Stir occasionally to keep skin from forming. If it has a few lumps, beat with a whisk until smooth. Meanwhile beat eggs in small bowl.

Please follow the next step carefully. If you try to rush, you will end up with bits of scrambled eggs. Here we go: When mesquite mixture has cooled somewhat, add about a fourth cup of mesquite mixture to the beaten eggs and stir. Add another fourth cup and stir, and then add a half cup. Add egg-mesquite mixture to the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly for about four minutes.

Divide the mixture, taking out half which is about two cups. Put it in another saucepan, and stir in ¼ cup cocoa and ¼ cup sugar. Stir over low heat until cocoa is incorporated, about 2 minutes.

Layer mesquite and chocolate mixtures in small wine glasses and chill until set.

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In just two weeks my new book A Desert Feast: Celebrating Tucson’s Culinary Heritage will have the official publication date. It’s already in the warehouse and ready to ship. Five years ago Tucson was named a UNESCO City of Gastronomy and this is the story of why a desert town received that honor. All history is a series of stories and A Desert Feast tells in lively stories how the residents of the Santa Cruz Valley developed from hunter-gatherers to corn growers to cattle raisers to today’s sophisticated consumers where prickly pear even goes in our local craft beer. We’re going to have a big rollout party in October, but if you can’t wait, ask your local bookstore to order it for you. For more mesquite recipes, check out Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants. 

Peanut Butter Bellota Bars

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As we are sequestering, we Sonoran Desertofiles should all be out harvesting juicy tunas, ok more on that later, because….

It’s also bellota time!  In mid-August, we went on a bellota quest. Three of us set out, socially distanced, up into Arizona’s oak woodland near the border.  Two inspiring foodie-pals, Dr.Letitia McCune “BotanyDoc.com” and Mission Garden mover-shaker Emily Rockey, y yo–Tia Marta–were on a treasure hunt to relocate the wonderful, giving trees where my Tohono O’odham mentor Juanita Ahil used to gather wi-yo:thi.  Our quarry:  the little acorns of Emory oak.

Socially distanced bellota-rustlers under giant Emory oaks near the border

Yes we found them, with thanks–Ah such plenty!  Fruit of Quercus emoryi  are the only acorns I know of in the world that don’t need to be leached of their tannins before eating.  You can eat them fresh off the tree.

Quick-wash the dust off your bellota harvest

…then quick-dry or “roast” your bellotas in the hot sunshine

Bellotas are increditbly nutritious– full of complex carbs that help balance blood sugar and almost 50% rich oil similar in quality to olive oil.

But they require some work, and can be difficult to de-hull to extract each little morsel of goodness inside–the nutmeat.

Always check for holes–We aren’t the only ones who eat bellota.  Nature needs to feed all her creatures.

There are lots of ways to crack the shell.  I  like to crack them ever-so-gently when placed longitudinally between opposite molars, then manually remove the shell.  Jesus Garcia, the Desert Museum’s primo ethnobotanist, demonstrates the “traditional Sonoran” method using his incisors to cut a “waistline” around the midriff of the acorn so two perfect half-cups of shell release a perfect nutmeat.  Experiment to find your own favorite method.

Don’t use the rolling pin method unless your bellota shells are very brittle–or you’ll be hunter/gatherer once again, indoors.

…A tedious process no matter what. Hey, try shelling bellotas while listening to audiobooks or good music.

As with your molars, if you’re careful, cracking bellota shells with pliers can yield perfect nutmeats.

Ingredients you’ll need for Peanut Butter Bellota Bars (shelled bellotas to left, mesquite flour to right)

This easy recipe combines sweets, like mesquite pod flour and piñon nuts, with the excitingly bitter notes of bellotas.  Bellota Bars, with chocolate, are a decadent dessert served with ice-cream.  Without chocolate (less melt-able), they are an energizing bar great for hikes and picnics.

RECIPE — Tia Marta’s Peanut Butter Bellota Bars —

Ingredients:

1/2 C chunky organic peanut butter

1/3 C butter

1   C sugar

1/2  C  brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1  C  flour (any flour combo works–I used 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour & 1/2 cup barley flour)

1/4 C  mesquite flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 C  shelled pinyon nuts. (optional)

1/2  C high cacao chocolate morsels (optional)

Topping:   1/4  C shelled bellotas (Quercus emoryi acorn nutmeats)

As you sprinkle bellotas on top, pat the dough evenly into all corners of your pyrex baking dish.

Recipe Directions:  Preheat oven to 350F.  Cream peanut butter and butter.  Add sugar and brown sugar.  Beat in eggs.  Add vanilla and beat until smooth.  Separately, sift flours, baking powder and salt together.  Mix these dry ingredients into wet ingredients thoroughly.  Add optional pinyones and/or chocolate morsels according to your “richness palette.”  Press dough into a 8×8″ greased pyrex pan.  Sprinkle bellotas as “topping”.  Bake 30-35 minutes.  Cool, then cut into delectable chewy energy bars.

When cool, cut into small squares, as they are super-rich and energy-packed.

If you can’t harvest your own bellotas, you can buy them this time of year, before Dia de San Francisco in October, at most Mexican markets or along the road to Magdalena, Sonora.  They will keep a long time in your frig or freezer for future joyful cracking.  Nature’s wild bounty is so diverse in our borderlands desert!

Find many of our Southwest traditional foods respectfully captured in my artwork at www.flordemayoarts.com for all to enjoy.

Check our SavortheSouthwest blog archive for other bellota recipe ideas and anecdotes.

Delicious Desert Sweets: Pindo Palm Fruit

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These days I find myself looking for comfort from sweets. It’s Carolyn here today and what I hear from others, I’m not alone in my cravings. Mother Nature must have anticipated our longings, because she has provided us with some natural sweets. There are many species of palms and the fruits are usually sweet. Some like dates are really succulent; others are rather dry.

I was cooling off in a friend’s swimming pool, when round orange fruits were bouncing off a beautiful palm tree next to the pool. I couldn’t resist biting into one and found it fibrous with a large seed but really sweet. It had some of the tropical flavor of a mango, a touch of lemon, and another element, sort of dusky, all its own. My friend said it was a Pindo palm. I gathered a bag full.

The Pindo Palm fruits sometimes hide inside the tree.

At home, I felt the same excitement of discovery I felt years ago when I first started playing with unusual plants and fruits. It turns out lots of people have been using Pindo palm fruits and sometimes it is even called the Jelly Palm. For my jam, I decided to combine the Pindo juice with some peach and mango. And since everything was already so sweet, I decided to use Pomona’s Pectin so I could use way less sugar. I discussed Pomona’s Pectin in a previous post here.

Here are the palm fruits in my kitchen. I started experimenting.

Pindo Palm Jam

For palm juice

2-4 cups of Pindo  palm fruits

Water to cover

Using a large saucepan, simmer the palm fruits in the water until soft, about 15 minutes. Cool. Then plunge in your hands and squish, squish, squish until the fruit is separated from the seeds. It will be very soft and sort of dissolve into the water. Place a strainer over a large bowl and strain the liquid. Return the residue to the saucepan, add some water, and swish the fruit residue around to get the rest of the fruit. This second rinsing will recover a lot more juice. You can use a cup of the juice for the jam.  Use the rest for a drink, straight or with sparkling water or combined in a cocktail.

This is what it will look like when you squish the fruits into the cooking water.

For jam

1 soft ripe mango

1 soft ripe peach

Approximately 1 cup palm juice

2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice

2 teaspoons calcium water

½ cup sugar

1 ½ teaspoons Pomona’s pectin powder

Cut the mango flesh from the seed and chop finely. Do the same with the peach. Put chopped fruit in a 2-cup glass measuring cup and add palm juice to bring it up to 2 cups. Transfer fruit and juice to a saucepan. Add lemon juice and calcium water.

In a small bowl, combine sugar and pectin powder and stir well.

Bring fruit mixture to a full boil over high heat, stirring well. Slowly add sugar-pectin mixture, stirring constantly for 1 to 2 minutes to dissolve sugar. When jam is at a full boil, turn off the heat.

Ladle into 3 half-pint sterilized jars. Refrigerate or cover with water and boil for 10 minutes. If you are new to canning, you can find full instructions for how to do this many places on-line.

Here are two jars of jam and a center pint of Pindo Palm juice that we’ll use in cocktails. I had three jars of jam but gave one away before I took the photo.

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If you are interested in edible wild plants of the Southwest and Southwest food, check out my books Cooking the Wild Southwest, Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants, The New Southwest Cookbook, a compilation of recipes from the Southwest’s top chefs, and The Prickly Pear Cookbook, with great recipes for both pads and fruits. And remember Eat Mesquite and More: A Cookbook for Sonoran Desert Foods. In September, I’ll have a new title: A Desert Feast: Celebrating Tucson’s Culinary Heritage. There is more information about my books at www.cniethammer.com.

Buy copies on line or order from your favorite local bookstore. They will love you for it.

Tomatillo Mustard Seed Chutney

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Hello there, Amy here with too many tomatillos! I had eaten plenty of salsa this season and was ready for something different from the bounty of my Tucson Community Supported Agriculture share.

 

I remembered my friend making an East Indian tomato chutney with mustard seeds and curry leaves, and a hint of tamarind for tartness. Tomatillos are already more tart than tomatoes, so this seemed perfect.

 

I collected the ingredients, including urad dahl, a dry black lentil, spilt and peeled. Feel free to omit. Also asafetida, a strong smelling spice that is totally optional, and curry leaves, which I grow in a pot. 

 

After washing the tomatillos, I prepared everything else.

I fried the urad dahl in coconut oil until golden brown.

Then I added chopped onion, garlic, jalapeno and a pinch of salt, and cooked until soft.

I cooked and smashed the tomatilos to a paste and transferred to a blender, but it would be just as good chunky.

In more coconut oil, I fried the mustard seeds until they were popped, followed by curry leaves and a pinch of asafetida.

In went the puree and I simmered it with the water that rinsed out the blender. After it thickened a bit, it was ready. One batch I made included mostly ripe tomatillos and suited my taste perfectly. The second batch was very firm, green tomatillos, so in went a pinch of sugar and another spoon of coconut oil.  I enjoyed with mung beans and rice. Happy summer!

 

1 teaspoon urad dahl

1 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 jalapeno, chopped or dried red chiles, or chile powder (to taste)

1 basket (or 2) tomatillos, well rinsed and chopped

2 teaspoons mustard seeds

Curry leaves (leaflets from 2 leaves stripped from the mid-vein)

A pinch of asafetida

Coconut oil

Salt to taste

Fry the urad dahl in coconut oil until well browned. Add onion, garlic, and jalapenos and cook until soft. Add tomatillos and salt to taste. Simmer until saucy then puree in a blender.

In more coconut oil, fry the mustard seeds until they mostly finish popping. Add curry leaves and fry until crisp. Add asafetida and stir for few seconds before adding puree. Rinse out the blender with a few tablespoons water and add to the pot. Cook for a few minutes to thicken and for flavors to combine. Cool and enjoy.

 

An Exultation of Figs!

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Fig alert!–They are ripening all over Baja Arizona!  Salivating allowed– Figs provide much more than yummy fruit and blessed shade.  Come learn more about their super nutrition, their lore and history, and their gentle medicine traditions at Tucson’s Mission Garden–read on!

Find your favorite fig in Tucson’s most productive orchard, perhaps have a taste, and if you crave to grow one of your own edible tree, visit TODAY and TOMORROW, July 17 and 18, at Mission Garden for the Monsoon Plant Sale!  It’s right at the base of A-Mountain on Mission Road from 8am-noon.  (Come masked, social-distanced, and honoring each other’s safety.)

Tia Marta here inviting you to also join me by Zoom next Tuesday July 21, 2020, for an online Fig Workshop.   Take a deep dive into the gifts that figs have provided for people here in the Sonoran Desert for centuries, and in the Old World for millennia.  Fig traditions are so rich.  A diversity of recipes abound for the domestic fig (Ficus carica), not only for the sweet fruits but also for leaves.  And do you know how many ailments can be alleviated with the versatile fig?  We will learn to identify the 7 heirloom varieties of figs growing productively at Mission Garden, discuss their heritage and share amazing recipes.

Figs ripen fast and action is needed to preserve their goodness for later.

It’s like the legendary zucchini drops in Vermont at the height of zucchini season.  When your neighbor drops a bushel of figs on your doorstep, preserving them any way you can is in order.  Try sun-drying them under insect protection such as this picnic net “umbrella”  or in a solar oven with the lid propped open 1/2 inch to let moisture escape.

For a fancy and fast dessert, wash & chill fresh figs with stems on, dip in fudge sauce then in your favorite crushed nutmeats. Set on a platter in frig until celebration time!

 

When Padre Kino introduced the fig, higo, and higuera (fig tree in Spanish), to the O’odham of the Pimeria Alta, it was adopted right away and given the name su:na. Su:na je’e (fig tree) was planted in many Native gardens.

At our Zoom Fig Workshop we will present Hispanic, Anglo and nouvelle recipes for making delicious entrees, preserves, compotes, cookies, and even your own fig “mead elixir”!  We’ll discuss fig anatomy, insect relationships, cultivation, culture….

This is a tantalizing taste of things to come in our Fig Workshop– Agave-Caramelized Figs with Yogurt!

Muff’s Agave-caramelized Figs with Yogurt

Directions:

“Poach” halved figs in 2-3 Tbsp agave nectar with sprigs of rosemary for ca 5 minutes each side.

On a serving of plain yogurt, sprinkle chia seed, then spoon caramelized figs and sauce over yogurt.  Serve warm or chilled.  Enjoy the fig bounty!

For lots of ideas go also to other archived posts on this www.savorthesouthwest.blog such as Carolyn’s Fig Jam or Amy’s pickled fig recipes or enter “figs” on the search box.

Full, illustrated recipe instructions for many of our Mission Garden heirloom figs will be shared at the Zoom Workshop July 21, 2020.   Tia Marta hopes to see you at the Zoom Workshop or at the Mission Garden Monsoon Plant Sale SOON!

[For complete instructions on the planting and care of your new fig tree, or other edible trees in your landscape, check out the instructional video at the SWAAN website Southwest Agroforestry Action Network, a good resource.]

Note:  There are many amazing fig (Ficus) species in warm parts of our Sonoran Desert in Sonora and Baja California, and in other parts of the New World, which were used and appreciated by Indigenous People–but that is another story in itself for later….!

 

 

Sonoran Plant-Power Treats

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Rosy, ripe Bahidaj — saguaro cactus fruit–is calling from the tops of giant saguaros all across the Sonoran Desert–attracting whitewing doves and venturesome, thankful harvesters…….(MABurgess photo)

Saguaro chuñ and chocolate pair nicely–especially when they are topping home-made mango ice-cream!

The bahidaj harvest heralds the Sonoran Desert New Year, a time of celebration and prayers for rain by the First People here–the Tohono O’odham who keep traditions actively benefitting all.

Tia Marta here to share ideas for bringing bahidaj from your own yard or desert landscape to your table and taste buds.

Wild desert fruit and seed harvests, when packed into these Sonoran Plant-Power Treat energy bars, harnesses their solar-powered nutrition into kinetic energy when you need a tasty boost!

Toward the end of the saguaro harvest season–before monsoon rains arrive–many fruits will drop from cactus tips and hang to dry in the branches of their palo verde nurse trees.  My mentor Tohono O’odham Elder Juanita Ahil called these sweet crunchy delicacies chuñ (pronounced choooñ.)  You can pick them right from the tree branches to eat as a snack like dried figs, or take them home for serving in desserts or–tah-dah– in Tia Marta’s Sonoran Plant-Power Treats!

Partnered with other high-energy desert seeds and fruits, we can store the bahidaj’s potential energy for future muscle-action.  Long ago my son got excited about my desert energy-bar inventions and wanted me to go into business, repeating Petey Mesquitey’s mantra, “We’re gonna be rich!”  Here–so YOU can be rich in your appreciation of desert gifts– are the steps for making my Sonoran Plant-Power Treats.  (Just remember when you start production and make your million, this is copyrighted):

step 1–Dust the bottom of a food mold, or dish, or shallow pan with mesquite flour (available at www.nativeseeds.org).  Find out about milling your own mesquite pod harvest at www.desertharvesters.org.

step 2–With your thumb, press dry or semi-dry chuñ into the mesquite flour and flatten it down.

step 3–Dust the flattened chuñ with more mesquite flour.

step 4–sprinkle with chia seed

step 5–add local honey (from Freddie Terry or San Xavier Coop Assoc.) or agave nectar to cover (but don’t use as much as I did here)

step 6–Cover with a dusting of local carob powder (available from Iskashitaa.org).

step 7a–Pop amaranth grain in a hot dry skillet (harvested wild or available at www.nativeseeds.org).

step 7b–Sprinkle popped or griddled amaranth seed

step 8–Sprinkle crunchy barrel cactus seed (wild harvestable) and sea salt (seed salt mix available from BeanTreeFarm) on top.

steps 9, 10, 11–Mix ingredients, set molds out to dry in the sun until mix is getting stiff, remove from mold. Pat out on mesquite- dusted board with fingers.

step 12–Cut into squares for additional drying in sun until firm. Enjoy the rich energy of Sonoran Plant-Power Treats in small bites!

Of course, to make your own Sonoran Plant-Power Treats, you can try any variation or combination of these delectable ingredients from the desert’s erratic bounty.  

As you add each one, name it with the grace of gratitude.  The plants need to hear our appreciation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rusty Makes Barrel Cactus Jam with Less Sugar

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Rusty Ramirez, cook at EXO, with one of the delicious breakfasts she serves with her homemade barrel cactus jam.

I just love to make jam. It’s Carolyn with you today and over the years in this blog I’ve shared with you lots of jam recipes, some with prickly pear, lots with citrus.  It does something to my soul to stand over a simmering pot of fruit and end up with glistening glass jars full of jewel-toned deliciousness. Today I want to talk about lemony-tasting barrel cactus jam.The issue with it and all jams is the sugar. Most jams take lots of sugar, at least as much sugar as fruit, sometimes more. Try reducing the sugar and you end up with runny jam.

But while doing research for my new book A Desert Feast: Celebrating Tucson’s Culinary Heritage, I had the opportunity to interview lots of professional cooks. What fun that was, and I always learned something.  From Rusty Ramirez, the breakfast cook at EXO Coffee Roasters here in Tucson, I learned there is a way to make jam with less sugar. You use a product called Pomona Low Sugar Pectin.

There is a book I found with recipes using this product, and if you’d like to begin making jams with less sugar, it might be a good idea to try some of these recipes before modifying them with different fruit. When I get inspired, I’ll see what I can do about prickly pear jam. If you are used to making jam the old-fashioned way, you’ll find this a somewhat different process.

 

Rusty did her own research and came up with a formula to use the Pomona Low Sugar Pectin to  make barrel cactus jam. EXO serves it for breakfast on the fabulous bread from Barrio Bread made with heritage grains.

Cut barrel cactus fruit ready to be sliced and cooked.

I won’t be able to share all the stories in A Desert Feast with you until September, but I’m going to give you a sneak peak with Rusty’s recipe now. Rusty includes the seeds in her jam. If you don’t want to do that, in a previous post, I gave you a great recipe to use the seeds in a cheesy-rich appetizer.

EXO Coffee Roasters Barrel Cactus Jam

25-30 ripe barrel cactus fruits

½ cup water

¼ cup lemon juice

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tablespoons of  Pomona Low Sugar Pectin

4 teaspoons calcium water (instructions on how to make it are included in the pectin box)

Rinse the fruits, cut off the tops and bottoms, and chop roughly. Place the chopped fruits into a heavy-bottomed 2-quart saucepan and add water to about an inch over the fruits. Bring the water to a hard boil, and then reduce the heat to a slow boil for 30 minutes.

While the fruit is boiling, whisk together the sugar and pectin in a bowl and set aside.

When the fruit is cooked, remove from the heat and place into a fine mesh strainer or cheese cloth in a sink. You should have about 3 cups. Rinse the fruit with cold water until there isn’t much mucilage left in the fruits. They should be tender when you squeeze them.  The seeds will collect at the bottom, You can add them to the marmalade or dry them in the oven to snack on later.

Transfer the cooked and rinsed barrel cactus fruits back into the saucepan with 4 teaspoons of calcium water and the 1/4 cup of lemon juice. Stir well with a heat proof spatula. Bring the fruit to a soft boil and add the sugar/pectin mixture to the pot slowly while continuously stirring the fruit so that the pectin doesn’t clump. Before you remove the marmalade from the heat, make sure that all of the sugar/-pectin mixture has dissolved. Put your sterilized jars on a heat-resistant surface. Carefully ladle the marmalade into the jars, filling to the neck and leaving about a half inch at the top.

Cover with the lids and let the marmalade cool completely. Store in the refrigerator for up to three months.

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If you are interested in edible wild plants of the Southwest and Southwest food, check out my books Cooking the Wild Southwest, Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants, The New Southwest Cookbook, a complilation of recipes from the Southwest’s top chefs, and The Prickly Pear Cookbook, with great recipes for both pads and fruits.  In September, there will be a new title: A Desert Feast: Celebrating Tucson’s Culinary Heritage. There is more information about them at www.cniethammer.com.

Buy copies on line or order from your favorite local bookstore. They will love you for it.

The Palo Verde “Window”

/ Savor Blog Partners / 4 Comments

The foothills palo verde bloom-show in late April and early May of 2020 in the Tucson Mountains was a sight to behold, and promised a plentiful harvest…..

Yellow Moon (the April time that the Sonora Desert turns yellow with flowers) has now passed into to the bright green phase of early June when palo verde pods swell with sweet peas!  Bolster yourself for this small window of time to “jump through” for tasting a special Sonoran Desert treat.

Foothills –aka “little leaf” and kuk cuhudak in O’odham– paloverde pods are hanging on the trees for only a short few days in early June. This timing may change with global warming.

Tia Marta here, encouraging you to head out THIS WEEK into the desert with gloves and basket to pick plump pods of foothills palo verde while they are still in the sweet stage.

(Parkinsonia microphylla) Foothills paloverde pods are at their peak of sweetness in early June when they are still very green and the seeds inside have swelled to plumpness. You can eat them safely right off the tree. Peel back the pod covering and pop the peas right in your mouth–with thanks to the tree!

It won’t last long with the heat of June.  Timing is everything!  And NOW is IT.  Next week, when the pea-like seeds inside the pods are drying and turning to a stony chocolate-brown, they are still edible and nutritious–but that is a different ball game involving lots more culinary prep work.

Dry pods and hard dry seeds of foothills paloverde, harvestable by mid-June for milling into protein-rich flour.

Scroll back in this SavortheSouthwest.blog archive to my post about Luscious Legume Trees for some fun instructions and recipes.

This is an invitation to experience palo verdes from your comfortable and cool shut-in solitude–no masks needed:    Join me for an  enriching how-to online Zoom Workshop about our 3 Tucson area palo verdes, coming up SOON, June 2, 2020 at 2pm via Mission Garden.    You can sign up thru this “Palo Verde Window.”

With the Zoom format you will learn to identify our 3 different local palo verdes (blue, little leaf and Mexican), get to know which ones are edible, their rich nutrition, their ethnobotany, and recipe ideas.  As we share Mission Garden’s “Zoom kitchen” you’ll be able to ask questions in face-time.  See you there!

Note–if you can’t join the live Zoom Workshop June 2, you might still be able to register to “attend” via recorded Zoom thereafter.

Tia Marta peels open a foothills paloverde “pea” from its pod for a sweet and nutritious gift from the desert

Happy wild-harvesting –with thanks for the paloverde-plenty that surrounds us through this window of opportunity!

Find other Southwest heirloom foods available online at www.flordemayoarts.com and www.nativeseeds.org .