foothills palo verde

Curry puffs with cholla and palo verde

/ Savor Blog Partners / 3 Comments

Hello! Amy here playing with the cholla buds I just harvested! NOW is the time to harvest and our own Tia Marta is teaching a workshop THURSDAY, April 22 on Earth Day! Register here.

The unopened flower buds of the cholla cactus are a real favorite, and one annual harvest I collect every year no matter how busy life gets. It is a very narrow harvesting window, usually in April, depending on the year and elevation. Simply bush off the spines with a bouquet of creosote or bursage, pluck with tongs and boil in water for 5 minutes. They taste tart with a slightest hint of internal texture like nopalitos. But that doesn’t convey how delicious they are.

Plentiful in the desert, harvesting does not hinder its reproduction, which is usually from “cuttings”. But this is the first year my backyard had enough to harvest! Grown with no irrigation at all, it is totally sustainable, low maintenance agriculture. Plus beautiful in the yard!

There are countless ways to enjoy cholla buds, but yesterday I snuck them in Chinese curry pastries, a treat I remember from childhood, from the tiny Chinese bakery that was near my house.

I started with ground beef, onion and garlic. Of course, mixed veggies could be used instead.

Then I added beautiful Tucson CSA carrots and Chinese curry powder. I’m sure any curry powder would work perfectly.

I had some young foothills palo verde seeds from last spring in the freezer. I blanched the harvest and stashed for another day. Learn more about them here.

The delicious, sweet immature seeds taste like young green peas…and also take as much work to shell as green peas.

The filling complete, I folded a spoonful into premade puff pastry.

Gilding with beaten egg is essential to make them look like how I remember them at Lai Wah bakery.

After a few minutes in the oven, it smelled unbelievable.

I can hardly wait to make them for my sister and brother.

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 .

Fu Yung with Local Veggies

/ Savor Blog Partners / Leave a comment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No matter how beautiful local veggies are, dreaming up something new and exciting to make with the same characters over and over again can be a challenge. Amy here with my latest attempt to use beautiful Tucson CSA napa cabbage (Sleeping Frog Farm) and summer squash (Crooked Sky Farm). And what to do when you have only ONE tiny ear of sweet corn? I also had ripe serrano chiles from a friend and a handful of blanched tender Foothills Palo Verde seeds. See Martha’s post for more on desert legumes.

This week’s inspiration came from my mom, who remembered the Fu Yung we used to make in our family Chinese feasts. Aunts, uncles and cousins would cook all day to make complicated meals from many world cuisines. I’ve been attempting recipes in this book since I was in high school. Following and diverting from this and a handful of other recipes is how I learned to cook.

I also had lots of eggs from watching the neighbor’s chickens. Perfect!

The first step to not skip in this recipe is to marinate thinly sliced meat in soy sauce, rice wine and cornstarch for at least 15 minutes. It calls for beef but I used half that amount of pork.

Instead of meat, strongly flavored dried Chinese mushrooms are excellent. Just soak in water, cut in tiny strips and add them with the rest of the veggies. Save the mushroom soaking liquid to make the sauce. Yum!

Cut all the veggies. This is not the dish to start cooking the longer cooking items before you cut the others. The original recipe called for spring onion and a little fresh ginger. I used carrot, cabbage, golden zucchini, young onion tops and bottoms, sweet corn and tender blanched palo verde seeds. For spice, I used garlic, ripe serrano and lots of ginger.

Then beat eggs, cornstarch and a splash of water. Next time I’ll mix the cornstarch and water before the eggs to prevent difficult to remove lumps.

In a small saucepan, measure all the sauce ingredients and set aside: chicken or mushroom broth, oyster sauce (or mushroom sauce), rice wine, sesame oil and cornstarch.

Bring everything close to the stove.

In place of a wok, I use a very large skillet on high to cook the meat in a little oil. When browned but not necessarily cooked through, remove from the pan and set aside.

Add a little more oil and cook the garlic, ginger and chile. Add the veggies and stir fry for just a minute!

Gently heat a well seasoned cast iron or nonstick pan with low or rounded sides. Splash on a bit of cooking oil and toasted sesame oil. Add the meat and veggies in an even layer and pour the eggs over all. Cook gently until almost set and browning on the bottom. Slide onto a plate. Cover with a another plate and invert. Slide back onto the pan and cook through. If there are more veggies than the eggs can hold together, it will be messy. The book suggests cutting in wedges and flipping each, but it is not as pretty.

Serve the prettiest side up, you decide. Sometime while waiting for the eggs to set, heat the sauce while whisking, until thick. Keep warm.

Cut in wedges with a pizza cutter and serve with the sauce. Of course it is best right away, but it makes a great cold breakfast or lunch. Enjoy!

Veggie and Pork (or Chinese Mushroom) Fu Yung

 

1 1/2 oz thinly sliced pork or dried, soaked Chinese mushrooms

 

Marinate for at least 15 minutes in:

2 teaspoons light soy sauce

1 teaspoon rice wine or dry sherry

1 1/2 teaspoons corn starch

 

Veggies:

Your choice! About 1 cup after stir frying

Fresh ginger, garlic and green onion to taste

 

Egg mixture:

5 large eggs

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 tablespoon water

 

Sauce:

1/4 cup chicken broth or mushroom soaking liquid from above

2 teaspoons light soy sauce

1 tablespoon oyster (or mushroom) sauce

1 teaspoon rice wine or dry sherry

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

 

For frying:

Mild cooking oil, like canola or peanut

Toasted sesame oil

 

Promise, Preparedness, Present Fulfillment–with Fruits of the Desert

/ Savor Blog Partners / 1 Comment

small fishhook Mammillaria microcarpa celebration the monsoon with a promise of future fruitlets (MABurgess photo)

Fishhook Mammillaria microcarpa celebrating the monsoon with a promise of future fruitlets (MABurgess photo)

Crowns of Mammillaria flowers make pink arches like miniature 4th of July fireworks now suddenly visible among desert rocks and under greening bursage.  They are rain celebrations–the PROMISES of fruits to come!  In a few weeks the little fishhook pincushions will sport a crown of shiny red fruitlets.  Keep watch for them.  Known in Sonora as pitayita de raton (little mouse’s pitaya), each long red droplet will give you a sweet tangy zing– like a mini-organpipe-cactus fruit.  Tia Marta here to share ways of enjoying the cornucopia that is beginning to spill out flavorfully all around us in town and out in the desert in this monsoon time.

Late fruiting prickly pear--still green and full of promise

Late fruiting prickly pear–unripe green but full of promise this week (July 8)

Opuntia lendheimeri alba barely turning pink--more promises...

Opuntia lindheimeri alba barely turning pink this week–more promises…(July 8)

Opuntia engelmannii in first stages of ripening...

Opuntia engelmannii in first stages of ripening…not yet (week of July 8)

All around the desert and through every neighborhood, I see the promise of a good prickly pear harvest, inspired by our elongated spring and nurtured by good monsoon rain.  Each prickly pear seems to march to a different drummer.  Right now you can see every shade of color–unripe to ripening tunas–very green, to rosy, to deepening red.  These are PROMISES so don’t jump the gun!  They are not ready quite yet–but this is the signal to get your kitchen PREPARED.  Stay tuned–There will be more blog posts to detail prickly pear ideas in coming weeks.  Make space now in your freezer, and make time on your calendar for the August TUNA HARVEST.

 

Opuntia engelmannii in full ripening fruit--but not ready yet!

Opuntia engelmannii full of ripening fruit–But don’t salivate yet (week of July 8)!  Wait for a dark maroon color to extend all the way to the bottom attachment of the tuna AND through the tuna‘s entire interior before they are fully ripe and ready to eat or cook.

What a glorious monsoon our Sonoran Desert has enjoyed over the last couple of weeks!  The explosion of life in such a short time is astounding on the heels of record-breaking heat and drought.  This is when the desert shows its tropical heritage with a surge of energy, fecundity, productivity.  Isn’t it interesting that the “outsider’s” view of the desert is of hazardous scarcity?  More interesting instead is to understand and appreciate the waves of nutritious plenty that can erupt suddenly here in the Sonoran Desert.  Native People know how to rally, to harvest in the times of plenty and to store short-lived fruits of the desert against lean times–lessons worth exercising.   Plentiful foothills palo verde seeds (Parkinsonia microphylla) are a case in point.

Mature dry pods of foothills paloverde--They have potential for making flour!

Mature dry pods of foothills paloverde–with potential for making nutritious flour!

Foothills palo verde seed milled raw for baking

Foothills palo verde seed milled raw for baking

Seeds of foothills palo verde dry and hard as little stones

Seeds of foothills palo verde– dry and hard as little stones

 

At PRESENT, lasting perhaps through July, there are copious “fruits-of-the-desert” hanging on foothills palo verde trees (aka little-leaf paloverde) covering desert hillsides.  In early June, palo verde pods were offering soft sweetpeas for fresh picking (described in the June13,2015 Savor blog on this site).   Now in July, palo verde pods are rattling with shrunken stone-hard seeds.  When ground, or when toasted and milled, these little dry seeds can produce two fabulous gluten-free flours for adding to baked goods, hot cereal, gravies etc.

Dry foothills palo verde seed milled raw on L, toasted and milled fine in center, toasted coarse-milled on R

Dry foothills palo verde seeds:  milled raw-Left; toasted and milled fine-Center; toasted & coarse-milled-Right

Foothills palo verde seed toasting in a dry iron skillet

Foothills palo verde seed toasting in a dry iron skillet

Oh how I wish that technology could keep up with our needs for scratch, sniff, and taste in this blog!!  The distinctly different flavors and textures of these two flours are so pleasant.  Desert People traditionally parched and ground these seeds in bedrock mortars.  I used a coffee mill to grind them.  The raw flour has a wonderful bean-i-ness bouquet coming through.  Then I toasted (parched) a separate batch of seeds in an un-greased skillet before milling, and WOW the roasty aroma of this gluten-free flour is rich.  I am using it to add flavor –not to mention high protein and complex carbs–to multigrain breads and biscuits.  So FULFILLING!  A friend who tried these different preparations for palo verde flour even wants to use it as a spice or seasoning!

With the monsoon (and with the help of many hummingbird pollinators) has come another edible surprise to my desert garden–octopus cactus fruit–that I just have to share with you:

Stenocereus alamosensis with hummer- and perhaps ant-pollinated flower, June26,2016 (MABurgess photo)

Stenocereus alamosensis with hummer- and perhaps ant-pollinated flower, June26,2016.  Note happy ant on petal.  (MABurgess photo)

Fruit of octopus cactus Stenocereus alamosensis, ripe and splitting July 4, 2016

Fruit of octopus cactus Stenocereus alamosensis, ripe and splitting July 4, 2016 (MABurgess photo)

Sliced octopus cactus fruit on palo chino bowl (MABurgess photo)

Juicy sliced octopus cactus fruit (Stenocereus alamosensis) on palo chino bowl (MABurgess photo)

Years ago I collected seed for it near Alamos, Sonora, and grew it out in Tucson.  Surviving frosty winters, and flowering in previous years, it never bore fruit before.  This year, fertilization happened at last, and voila–there are sensational, gently sweet delicacies to eat right off the cactus.  The fruit’s fresh crispy texture is like watermelon and its seeds are tiny protein crunches.  [Light bulb idea]–With climate change, this flavorful cactus fruit–and others like it–could become an appropriate specialty food to grow locally.

Keep your eyes peeled and prepare for more harvests from the latest new “promises” blooming for multiple times this season in the desert…..Check out these potential edibles:

This is the third bloom of saguaros this season--with pollination may give another fruit harvest

This is the third bloom of saguaros this season–if  pollinated may give yet another fruit harvest

Green swelling Padre Kino fig--watch for preparing heirloom fruit ideas next month….

Green swelling Padre Kino fig–Young trees are available next week at the NSS plant sale!

A new wave of mesquite flowers and green pods promise a second harvest this season.

A new wave of mesquite flowers and green pods promise a second harvest this season.

Don’t miss the NativeSeeds/SEARCH Monsoon Plant Sale this next weekend, Friday-Sunday, July 15-17, 2016!  For your own garden-to-table promises and preparations, check out the many starts of NSS heirloom summer vegetables and monsoon wildflowers.  There will be tomatillo plants, heirloom chile varieties, cucumber, many squash and melon varieties to give your garden a jump-start.  A few 5-gallon  Father Kino fig trees propagated at Mission Garden will be available for sale, so come early.

For well-seasoned ideas for desert cookery, two fabulously useful books continue to inspire:    Tucsonan Sandal English’s cookbook from the 1970’s Fruits of the Desert published by the Arizona Daily Star, and desert-foods aficionado (& Blog-Sister) Carolyn Niethammer’s book Cooking the Wild Southwest published by University of Arizona Press.  Borrow or buy, and use them with joy.

I wish you happy harvesting as the desert’s present promises become a cornucopia of fulfilling plenty!

[For anyone seeking heirloom foods and products made with wild foods, check out http://www.flordemayoarts.com and http://www.nativeseeds.org, or visit the Baggesen Family booth at Sunday St Philips farmers market.]