Bean and Corn Cakes with Mole

November 20, 2015November 21, 2015 / Savor Blog Partners / 1 Comment

Hello, Amy Valdés Schwemm here. When I want to offer people several varieties of mole to taste, I make small batches of each sauce and serve them in mini electric crocs. Guests can spoon mole over servings of turkey or these bean and corn cakes. They make a perfect vegetarian main course or a hearty side.

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If you want a taste, meet me at The Food Conspiracy Co-op Saturday, November 21, 4-7pm. There will be other samples, including wine, and everyone (not just members) gets 10% off everything.

The recipe for Bean and Chicos Dinner Cakes was published in Furrow to Fire: Recipes from the Native Seeds/SEARCH Community, its author unknown to the editors. Chicos are New Mexican corn kernels roasted when still fresh, then dried. Sometimes they have a smokey taste that can almost be a seasoning if you cook a handful with a pot of beans. I often substitute Tohono O’odham gai’iwsa or Mexican posole. Using a bean with a creamy texture helps to hold the patties together. I’ve made it countless times, sometimes substituting ingredients wildly. They hold in a warm oven perfectly until ready to serve.

The photo above used lots of white posole and some canario beans. For tomorrow’s tasting, I’m using plenty of pintos and a little yellow polenta. No need to measure or time the polenta, as this recipe is so forgiving. Kneading in dry cornmeal when forming the patties (instead of just mixing it in) will fix the mixture at the perfect consistency.

I like to carefully reduce the bean cooking liquid, affectionately referred to as bean juice in our family, because I can’t imagine draining it.

Pulse everything in the food processor or mash by hand, and season to taste. Make big or small cakes to suit the occasion.

1/2 cup chicos

1 cup beans, cooked and drained

2 tablespoons cornmeal

1 I’itoi or green onion, minced

salt to taste

Options:

1/4 teaspoon Mexican oregano

1 teaspoon chile powder (or substitute Mano Y Metate Adobo powder)

Place chicos and enough water to cover in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for about one hour, until chicos are fairly soft. Cool slightly, then drain and coarsely chop. Set aside.

Combine beans, cornmeal, onion and chile powder and either mash by hand or whirl briefly in a food processor. Combine with the chicos, adding salt and adjusting seasoning to taste. Shape into about 1/3 inch thick patties.

In a lightly oiled skillet over medium heat, brown dinner cakes on each side. Serve with mole, pipián, or salsa.

My Aunt Bertie has shaped and browned lots of these little things with me. Here she is taking a break from flipping during a cooking class my family taught. We love to cook together!

Heirloom Grains & Heirloom Fruits marry in a Holiday Pie

November 16, 2015November 16, 2015 / Savor Blog Partners / Leave a comment

Padre Kino's Membrillo Fruit with Slide Rock Star King Old Fashioned Double Delicious Apples

An Heirloom Fruit Harvest: Padre Kino’s Membrillo Fruit from my garden with Star King Old Fashioned Double Delicious Apples from Slide Rock State Park heirloom orchard (MABurgess photo)

In both the low Sonoran Desert and in the higher Southwest, fruits are hanging on the trees ready for harvest. At Mission Garden the quince trees, better known as membrillo, are bearing their last sturdy fruits. Mission Garden was the site of a wonderful celebration of membrillo in October with talented cook Josefina demonstrating how to make cajeta de membrillo, our sweet autumn dessert delicacy.

Membrillo (Quince) trees heavy with fruit at Mission Garden Tucson, near A-Mountain

Membrillo (Quince) trees heavy with fruit at Mission Garden in Tucson, Arizona, near A-Mountain–Come visit any Saturday morning!

Membrillo is a perfect food-giving tree for low desert as it can can handle heat–great for a kitchen garden

Tia Marta here to share what is happening in my kitchen these days, bringing together some of my most admired heirloom grain and fruit ingredients–both cultivated and wild–knowing that I have guests coming for the holidays who need a little taste of LOCAL!

It is pie time in our household. And today it is Membrillo-Apple Pie with White Sonora Wheat-Mesquite pie crust! I mean, how much more local can one get?

This was the year that our five-year-old quince tree, which we purchased from Desert Survivors Nursery Kino Fruit-tree Project, and which we planted a couple of years ago in our backyard, decided to flower and set fruit–just enough this time to make a couple of pies. We look forward to the amazing productivity in future years that the Mission Garden quince trees are already showing. Quince or membrillo fruits look like a cross between yellow apples and pears but are far more sturdy than either of those. Before ripening they are covered with fuzz and, as they lose it and become shinier and more yellow, you know they are ripening.

Because they are harder than other fruit, be sure to cut membrillo very carefully. Expect them to come out with not-so -symmetrical slices.

Because they are harder than other fruit, be sure to cut membrillo with extra care. Expect this to result in not-so -symmetrical slices–no problem inside a pie.

Even when this aromatic rose-family fruit is ripe, its somewhat sweet tissue never really softens. They may feel and taste granular, similar to some pear varieties. But they are substantial food, full of good potassium, vitamin C, dietary fiber, and iron. In other regions, quince has been used with apples to make jellies as it aids the gelling process. Since the time of the missionaries into Pimeria Alta, the traditional way of preparing membrillo here is to cook it down with raw sugarcane sugar to make the cajeta confection. (A detailed report of cajeta de membrillo will make a neat separate post.)

I chose to mix membrillo with its sweet cousin, heirloom local apples, to create a Southwestern version of the all-American pie. From the neat old Pendley Homestead at Slide Rock State Park in Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona, I obtained the deep maroon-skinned apples shown above from a 1912 orchard. From the English Family Orchards at Willcox I added a few little galas. Don’t ever be ashamed to ask orchardists at farmers’ markets if they have any “rejects” for sale. Many a tasty apple gets tossed because it has a blemish or knick. Such apples can become a rewarding gift in pies, apple-brown-betty, or applesauce.

Pressing mesquite/whiteSonora wheat dough into pie pan

rolling mesquite white Son wheat pie dough

Mesquite meal and white Sonora wheat make a fabulous pie-crust! It is not as elastic as store-bought crusts so be careful in rolling it onto your pie pan. Shown here is a very flat spatula I use as an assist.

Next step, after growing, harvesting, slicing the heirloom fruits, is getting dusted by making my local heirloom Mesquite/White Sonora Wheat Pie Crust (recipe following):

[Kids, don’t try this culinary photographic technique at home. Your one-handed iPhone will get really sticky. Mine will never be the same.]

Ingredients for heirloom wheat pie crust:

1 1/2 cups freshly milled whole, organic White Sonora Wheat flour*

1/2 cup freshly milled local velvet mesquite meal**

1 tsp Real-salt or sea salt

2/3 cup shortening (I use organic butter)

5-7 Tbsp ice water

*Organic, fresh-milled white Sonora wheat flour is available for your holiday baking from our Flor de Mayo booth at Sunday St Philips Farmers Market, or by contacting us at info@flordemayoarts.com or 520-907-9471 to order it ahead. **Freshly-milled velvet mesquite pod meal (flour) is available via the same Flor de Mayo contacts above. Both kinds of heirloom flour are available at a special Heirloom Grains event this coming SATURDAY November 21 at the NativeSeeds/SEARCH store, 3061 N Campbell, Tucson–the public is invited 10am-2pm.

Pinching a tall edge of my mesquite/heirloom wheat pie crust

Pinching a tall scalloped edge of my mesquite/heirloom wheat pie crust–This provides a retaining wall so juicy filling will not overflow while cooking.

Directions for heirloom wheat pie crust (lattice top):

Sift dry ingredients. Cut in shortening into small pea size lumps. Sprinkle in tablespoons of ice water gradually, mixing with a fork. Form 2 balls of dough. Dust each ball with more white Sonoran wheat flour. Flatten each out on a well floured board and roll with rolling pin or bottle. Use rolling pin as in the illustration, to lift lower pie crust dough onto pie pan. Press in with fingers. Keep second ball of dough for working on after pie filling has filled the lower crust. [See recipe for Membrillo/Apple Pie Filling below.]

With second dough ball, roll out as before then cut in 1/2 inch wide strips to lay in basket-weave pattern atop the pie filling to allow filling to lower as it cooks.

Membrillo/Apple Pie Filling ingredients:

(Cook ahead slices and chunks of 4-5 membrillo fruits, washed, then cut with or without skin. Boil in good drinking water for 20 minutes or until soft. I am one of those crazies who thinks fruit skins are healthy and full of phytonutrients, so I leave the colorful fruit skins on.)

2 cups sliced membrillo fruit, pre-cooked (reserve liquid for other gelled salads)

2 cups thinly sliced heirloom apples

1/2 cup organic cane sugar

1/2 cup organic brown sugar

2 Tbsp organic heirloom white Sonora Wheat flour

1/2-1 tsp ground cinnamon

dash sea salt

1-2 Tbsp organic butter

juice of one small heirloom sweet lime (I got mine from the Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace Mission Garden booth at the Thursday Santa Cruz farmers market at the Mercado San Agustin, West Congress, Tucson)

Membrillo/apple pie filling in shell ready to bake. Check out the heirloom sweet lime adjacent–with the dimple–this one from Mission Garden.

Membrillo/Apple Pie-Filling Directions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine sugars, flour, cinnamon, salt, then mix with the sliced apples. Fill uncooked pastry crust (shell) with mixture. Squeeze the sweet lime juice over the filling and place dollups of butter on top. Place lattice strips of the mesquite/whiteSonorawheat dough across the top of the filling as in picture below. BAKE for 40-50 minutes or until the crust looks golden brown. Note: mesquite meal has natural complex sugars which may caramelize or brown faster than white flour so keep an eye on it after 40 minutes. The one in my photo got a little too done for my taste, but it will still be fabulous.

Membrillo/heirloom apple pie with mesquite/white Sonora wheat crust--hot and ready to serve

Membrillo/heirloom apple pie with lattice crust of mesquite/white Sonora wheat –hot and ready to serve–To the left in photo is flour milled from BKWFarms wheat-berries.

There will be several ancient grains available at our upcoming Celebration of Heirloom Grains this SATURDAY at the NativeSeeds/SEARCH Store. Put it on your calendar and dig out your favorite recipes!

Heirloom purple prairie barley available at Flor de Mayo booth,St Philips Farmers Market and at the NSS Grain Event Saturday!

In addition to our native Mesquite Flour, there will be such fresh lovely grains as organic Hard Red Wheat grown by BKW Farms in Marana which is superb for breads. Our organic white Sonora wheat is the best for pastries. Also available will be the ancient Purple Prairie Barley originally from Afghanistan, now from Hayden Mills.

For the knowing baker, milling the whole grain fresh creates a totally different and wondrous effect to breads and pastries because the enzymes and other constituents in the grain remain “lively” for only a few days after milling. Come enjoy the milling process right before your eyes and feel the vitality of the flour you can take home to bake with!

Our thanks go to the caring padres who first brought the grains to the desert Southwest, to the generations of farmers who continued to grow and save the grain, to NSS for “rediscovering” and conserving them so carefully for the future, and to new farmers like San Xavier Farm Coop, BKWFarmsInc, Ramona Farms, and Hayden Flour Mills for multiplying them for our nutrition, enjoyment, and sustainable desert living!

For more info please call NativeSeeds/SEARCH at 520-622-5561 or Flor de Mayo at 520-907-9471. See you at the Milling and our Celebration of the Heirloom Grains!!

Magdalena heirloom barley grown at Mission Garden, Tucson

A savory pilaf made with heirloom purple prairie barley--watch for future recipes--Grain available at the Flor de Mayo booth, Sunday St Philips market

A savory pilaf made with heirloom purple prairie barley–watch for future recipes–Whole grain available at the Flor de Mayo booth, Sunday St Philips market, and at Saturday’s Heirloom Grain Celebration

Taste Buds Ready to “Rejoice in Local”–at Mission Garden!

October 15, 2015October 20, 2015 / Savor Blog Partners / 1 Comment

Gluten-free black tepary brownie-cockaigne for a desert dessert!

Yum!–Gluten-free Akimel O’odham Black Tepary Bean brownies with pinyones — a truly desert dessert served at the Farm-to-Table Picnic Feast at Mission Garden

Indeed, there is no doubt Tucson should be given the designation as an International City of Gastronomy! Where else in the world could we enjoy a finer, more diverse, perfectly indigenous, more delectable and nutritious PICNIC-FEAST than here in Tucson? Delicious dishes were the pieces de resistance by some of Tucson’s most renowned chefs for……the first-ever Farm-to-Table Picnic at Tucson’s Mission Garden.

Native-foods cook and author Carolyn Niethammer picking heirloom figs at the Mission Garden for the Farm to Table Feast for her gone-to-heaven fig-bar postre.

At the base of our landmark A-Mountain–the very birthplace of Schuuck-shon–set in a scene of verdant orchard trees heavy with fruit, and heirloom vegetables bearing their colorful autumn harvest, we feasted this past Sunday, October 18, on the tried and true fruits of our desert land. The community registered for this edible fundraiser via the two hosts of the Farm-to-Table Picnic Feast–our Tucson-born-and-bred organizations– Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace and NativeSeeds/SEARCH. The cost of $75 covered a magnificent repast–not just a dainty little taste of hors d’oeuvres but a sumptuous serving of at least 7 gourmet entrees, plus a variety of hand-made desserts and some locally fermented beverages! Either website can guide you to ways of supporting or volunteering for these worthy outfits–http://www.tucsonsbirthplace.org or http://www.nativeseeds.org.

At our special outdoor feast, we learned and appreciated where every single bite comes from! Every ingredient was LOCAL–grown on our own Baja Arizona soil, bathed by our own Arizona sun, watered by our own Pleistocene aquifer, tended by our own neighbors’ hands not to mention those of Mission Garden and NSS volunteers and staff.

To recognize them from the source….the beautiful Native Tohono O’odham Ha:l squashes, grown at the NativeSeeds/SEARCH Conservation Farm, in combo with I’itoi’s Onions and other heirloom veggies, morphed into betacarotene-rich chile with Loew’s Ventana Canyon‘s Chef Ken Harvey’s magic. Mission Garden’s heirloom pumpkins and greens transformed by Chef Doug Levy at Feast Tucson to a superb salad-supreme.

Traditional and delicious--Tohono O'odham Ha:l winter squash with magic inside--and curry pumpkins (MABphoto)

Traditional and delicious–Tohono O’odham Ha:l winter squash with magic inside of them–with curry pumpkins (MABphoto)

Akimel O’odham pearly black teparies from Pima farmer Ramona Button‘s fields and locally-harvested cholla buds transformed with culinary sorcery by Chef Janos Wilder’s Downtown Kitchen into the most gourmet vegetarian delight.

Padre Kino’s White Sonora Wheat from BKWFarms‘ organic fields became the most flavorful and delicately marinated wheat-berry salad by the hand of Chef Rebecca Ramey at Blue Willow Restaurant. And speaking of transformation, BKWFarms’ organic white Sonora wheat, with the magic of friendly microbes at Dragoon Brewery, became a festive brew with an amazing back-story to delight all samplers.

Ripened seed heads of organic heirloom Padre Kino White Sonora Wheat from BKWFarms in Marana (MABurgess photo)

Farmer Frank’s Crooked Sky Farms‘ GMO-free fresh corn expressed itself in a fresh-from-the garden casserole by Proper’s Chef Kris Vrolijk. Tohono O’odham traditional melon with other fresh corn and tomato, evolved into a gourmet gazpacho created by the Chef at Desert Diamond Casino, our major event sponsor.

Tia Marta here thanking ALL who came to the Table–the Farm-to-Table outdoor Picnic Feast at Mission Garden–to enjoy this enriching experience of Tucson’s traditional foods, cultivated with love in our own “desert terroir.”* THANKS TO ALL our local–yet world-famous–culinary talent who prepared these sacred foods with care and dedication! THANKS ALSO to the supporters and volunteers who made this event such a success! Was it a sign of its significance at that moving moment culminating the feast when the heavens blessed us with a glorious sunset?

The public is invited to visit the ever-changing setting of this feast–the very garden and orchard where many of the heirloom foods are still hanging on fruit-tree boughs or ripening on the vine. The Mission Garden is open for tours every Saturday with knowledgeable guides to take you through this special desert oasis–a living agricultural history museum. (For info see http://www.tucsonsbirthplace.org).

For your own table, you too can source the heirloom foods served at the Picnic Feast, at the NativeSeeds/SEARCH Store, 3061 N Campbell, Tucson, http://www.nativeseeds.org, or at the Flor de Mayo booth (online at http://www.flordemayoarts.com) and other farm booths at Sunday’s St Philips Farmers’ Market (www.foodinroot.com).

Native Black Tepary Beans from Flor de Mayo at St Philips farmers market Sundays

Join NativeSeeds/SEARCH as a member and stay in touch with seed-savers, gardeners, and cooks as we keep these desert-adapted foods alive and well into an unknown future.

Yours truly, Tia Marta, have also honored these heirloom foods artistically by documenting them from my garden in their harvest splendor as watercolor images. I invite you to view them firsthand at two upcoming OPEN STUDIO events: ART TRAILS on Saturday, Oct 24, and the TPAC OPEN STUDIO weekend Nov.14-15 at Carolyn Leigh Studio. Search by my studio name, Flor de Mayo Studio, or by artist’s name, Martha Ames Burgess, at http://www.ArtTrails.org , and at http://www.tucsonpimaopenstudiotour.org for directions, and do come by for a visit. You can also check out some of my Southwest Native heirloom food images on my website gallery http://www.flordemayoarts.com — enjoy!

NativeSeeds/SEARCH heirloom Navajo Cushaw Squash watercolor by artist Martha Ames Burgess

NativeSeeds/SEARCH heirloom Navajo Cushaw watercolor by artist Martha Ames Burgess

What will Tucson's top chefs cook for the Heritage Picnic?

Tucson’s top chefs cook for the Farm-to-Table Heritage Foods Picnic Feast

*Desert Terroir, by renowned author and co-founder of NativeSeeds/SEARCH, available at the NSS store, is a great read about the deep significance of LOCAL. We can “internalize” his messages by shopping at farmers’ markets, growing our own, and honoring long-successful desert traditions, seeds, and foods.

Black Teparies Make a Come-Back!

September 12, 2015September 12, 2015 / Savor Blog Partners / 1 Comment

Rich black teary beans dried, ready to hydrate for cooking

Rich black tepary beans dried, ready to hydrate for cooking

In some light they are a dull charcoal difficult to spot if the pods shatter onto the ground. Sometimes they appear shiny black or opalescent. Somehow black teparies appear to have an antiquity about them–mysteriously harking back to a time rich in prehistory. Tia Marta here to tell you a little about the black tepary bean’s odyssey back into cultivation and into the cooking pots of Southwesterners once again.

Shiny black teparies close up

Back in 1912, before WWI and the rapid plunge the “remote” Southwest unavoidably took into East-Coast food fads, there was a crop survey done of the many types of tepary beans being grown and used by different Native American families and communities throughout the Borderlands. The diversity at that time was astounding—some 40+ different colors, forms, sizes, speckles, of tepary beans were reported. Within about a decade there remained only a couple of dominant tepary colors—“red” (an orangy-brown) and white. [For more history, check out Volume 5, No.1 of Desert Plants Journal published by the University of Arizona CALS. Specifically this issue is devoted to tepary beans, and includes an article by yours truly.]

The neat thing about cultivars that are still genetically close to their wild ancestors is that they still contain a diversity of genes that can “pop out” occasionally as visibly different seeds. In the case of the teparies, every so often in a harvest of white teparies, for example, there may turn up a few coral pink, or blue speckled, or even black beans. At the University of Arizona’s Maricopa Experimental Farm, an amazing crop researcher, Mike Sheedy, was, for several years growing teparies to isolate some of these genetic “sports”. He used assistance from his kids (In farming, child labor rules just can’t apply) to help pick out the odd-ball seeds from hundreds of pounds of harvested teparies. Over the years, he grew the separated colors in isolation from each other to preserve color purity. Before research funds ran out he had “re-created” an ancient lineage of black teparies—i.e. he has assisted the ancient genes to come again to the fore, to bring the “invisible” genotype back into the “visible” phenotypes. At termination of his research project he generously donated the black tepary collection to the traditional Pima farming family of Ramona and Terry Button.

Native Black Tepary Beans & Flor de Mayo 1-lb pkg

Now—tah-dah!—at last black teparies are in agricultural production on ancestral lands! The public can purchase these little food gems of antiquity now at the NativeSeeds/SEARCH store (3061 N Campbell Ave, Tucson) www.nativeseeds.org , at the Flor de Mayo booth at Sunday St Philips Farmers Market www.flordemayoarts.com , or online via www.ramonafarms.com.

Black teparies are very different in taste from the red or white teparies—although all teparies are much richer than their more distant cousins like the common bean, lima or black-eye pea. Black tepary, schkug ba:wĭ of the Tohono and Akimel O’odham, is the deepest, nuttiest of all, with an earthy bouquet and a slightly bitter after-note reminiscent of coffee. Well, you will just have to try your own taste buds on them!

The public will have an exciting opportunity to taste black teparies prepared by none other than our beloved Tucson Chef Janos Wilder (of Downtown Kitchen fame) at the upcoming Farm to Table Picnic feast at Mission Garden, Sunday afternoon, October 18, 4-6:30pm. Janos is not letting on what his special black tepary recipe will be, but we can be sure it’ll be sensational. [The picnic is by pre-registration only so buy your tickets soon! Online purchase is via the Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace site www.tucsonsbirthplace.org.]

Potted blooming chiltepin plant for edible landscaping

All of the heirloom foods served at the Farm to Table Picnic are being grown (even as I write) locally in Baja Arizona, either at the NativeSeeds/SEARCH Conservation Farm in Patagonia, or at the Mission Garden itself, or by sponsoring farmers and ranchers such as BKWFarmsInc, the 47-Ranch, and Ramona Farms. Some of Tucson’s best chefs are donating their skill and time to prepare different dishes for us. It will be a great opportunity to put the fun in fundraising for two worthy local non-profits, to share the delicious tastes of our heirloom foods of the Borderlands, and to share community joy in what we are able to produce together locally.

For adventuresome cooks, dessert addicts, and chocoholics, I would like to share two variations on brownies made with—yes, you guessed it—black tepary beans! You will not believe how yummy these are.

Gluten-free Black Tepary Brownie-Cockaigne on cooling rack

First, cooking black teparies (as with all teparies) takes some time—and premeditation. The day before you want to use them, sort, wash, and pre-soak your black teparies. I hit them with a quick boil and let them sit overnight to hydrate slowly. Change the water the next day, adding fresh drinking water. Simmer until soft (it may take 2-3 hours on stovetop or 4-6 in crockpot). You want them beyond al dente in order to puree them in a blender or CuisinArt for the following recipes.

Muff’s Gluten-free Black Tepary Bean Brownies-Cockaigne

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked and pureed black tepary beans

1 stick butter= ¼ lb= ½ cup butter

5 Tbsp dark 100% cocoa powder, unsweetened (1 oz.)

¼ tsp sea salt

1 cup organic cane sugar

1 cup loose organic brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs well-beaten

¼- ½ cup nutmeats (I use pinyon nuts to keep the Southwest theme)

Directions for Muff’s Gluten-free Black Tepary Brownie-Cockaigne:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8×8” baking dish and place a wax paper cut to fit the bottom of pan. Melt butter (preferably in top of double boiler). Stir in thoroughly 5 Tbsp dark unsweetened cocoa powder. Let the mixture cool. Add sugars and sea salt to mixture and beat until creamy. Add vanilla. Beat 4 eggs and add to mixture stirring until uniform in color. Add 1 cup pureed black teparies and hand-mix. Pour batter into greased bake pan. Sprinkle top of batter with pinyones or other nutmeats. Bake 45-50 minutes until it tests done with toothpick. Cool pan on a rack. Cut in small squares to serve because it is so rich and moist. Enjoy their delicious flavors AND the healthy qualities of high protein/high complex carb teparies, protein-rich eggs, and the benefits of dark chocolate!

Gluten-free Black Tepary Brownie-Cockaigne ready to eat–wheat-free, light, nutritious and delicious!

My next black tepary brownie recipe was first inspired by food-writer and “Blog-sister” Carolyn Niethammer’s recipe found in her book Cooking the Wild Southwest (p.133)–a must-have in every SW cook’s kitchen shelf. Here I’ve made some interesting gastronomic additions…including the use of our fantastic local heirloom White Sonora Wheat flour, crushed wild chiltepines, and Mano y Metate’s fresh-ground Mole Dulce powder produced by our local Molera herself, Amy Valdes Schwemm.

“Hot-Dam”* Black Tepary Brownie Bars [*in the best sense of the expression]

Ingredients:

5 Tbsp unsweetened 100% cocoa powder

½ stick (1/4 cup) melted butter

¾ cup organic cane sugar

¾ cup org brown sugar, not-packed

2 eggs, beaten

2 tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup pureed cooked black teparies

¾ cup organic heirloom White Sonora Wheat flour**

3 or 4+ crushed wild chiltepin peppers*** (number depends on your desired picante level)

¼ tsp sea salt

1-2 Tbsp Mano y Metate ground Mole Dulce powder

2 Tbsp raw pinyon nutmeats

Adding White Sonora Wheat flour and crushed chiltepin to molten chocolate mixture

** Freshly milled White Sonora Wheat is available at our Flor de Mayo booth, Sunday’s St Philips farmers market (www.foodinroot.com). Call ahead for quantities larger than 1 kilo—520-907-9471.

***whole wild-harvested Chiltepines are available at the NSS Store, 3061 N Campbell, and at Flor de Mayo booth, Sunday St Philips farmers mkt. Chiltepin plants to grow can be purchased at NSS plant sales.

Flavors to guild the lily--Wild chiltepin peppers, ironwood bear molinillo grinder, and Mole Dulce powder

Flavors to guild the lily–Wild chiltepin peppers, ironwood bear molinillo chiltepin grinder, and Mole Dulce powder (all available at NSS store and Flor de Mayo at St Philips farmers market)

Directions for “Hot-dam” Black Tepary Brownie Bars:

Pre-heat oven to 325F. Grease 8×8” baking pan with wax paper set in bottom. Melt butter and mix powdered cocoa in thoroughly. Add the brown sugar and organic white sugar and vanilla to the butter and cocoa, and beat. Beat 2 eggs and stir thoroughly into the choc/sugar mixture. Wisk in ¾ cup pureed black teparies. Sift together: ¾ C white Sonora wheat flour, ¼ tsp sea salt, and the well-crushed chiltepin peppers. Stir dry ingredients into liquid mixture. Add pinyon nutmeats. Pour batter into bake-pan. Sprinkle 1-2 Tbsp of Mole Dulce powder on top of the batter. Bake 25 minutes or until it tests done (when fingerprint pressed on top springs back). When cooled, cut into small bite-size squares to be served with hors d’oeuvre picks—you will see why…..(and don’t rub your eyes after eating.)

“Hot-dam” Black Tepary Brownies ready to enjoy!

Tia Marta is hoping you enjoy these fruits and flavors of the Sonoran Desert assisted by fruits of tropical North America—a marriage made in dessert-Heaven! With every bite we should be thanking ancient tepary farmers, and the recent ones who have brought back the Black Tepary from near genetic-oblivion.

Coming this week to Tucson is a food event not to miss: the Farmer to Chef Connection, this Wednesday, September 16, at Tucson Community Center, 12:00noon-5:30pm, sponsored by LocalFirstArizona. Google their site for tickets and come enjoy a smorgasbord of local tastes.

Also be sure to mark your calendar for October 18 and join NativeSeeds/SEARCH and Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace at the very heart of Tucson’s Birthplace –the Mission Garden at the base of A-Mountain—for the first-ever outdoor Farm to Table Picnic. It will be a feast to remember. Make reservations now and we’ll see you there for fun, flavor, history and friendship!

Fig Jam Ready for Farm to Table Picnic

July 17, 2015August 22, 2015 / Savor Blog Partners / 6 Comments

Picking figs at the Mission Garden operated by Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace.

The hottest weather of summer brings Tucson one of its sweetest treats, figs. The figs at the Mission Garden operated by Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace, are ripening now. Some of the trees have already produced and are beginning to grow their second crop. This is Carolyn today, and that is me picking figs from one of the trees in the lush recreated historic garden near the Santa Cruz River. The plan was to preserve the figs as jam to be used as an ingredient in cookies for the Farm to Table Picnic being organized by the Mission Garden and Native Seeds/ SEARCH. On the late afternoon of October 18, dinners will be able to picnic on Southern Arizona’s agricultural bounty at tables spread through the Garden. (Ticket detals next month).

The brown figs at Mission Garden are living relics of trees brought to Southern Arizona by Father Kino. They were grown from twigs cut from plants behind the Sosa-Carrillo House. Historic records show that those trees came from cuttings of trees at San Xavier Mission. The green figs were grown from cuttings taken from trees at the settlements near the Ruby and Oro Blanco mines.

Plump figs from Mission Garden. The green ones are called “white” and some people think they are sweeter.

Generally in making jam the old-fashioned way without added commercial pectin, you measure an equal quantity of fruit and sugar and simmer until it is thick. Because these figs were incredibly sweet and because I plan to spread the jam over a base crust, I didn’t care if the jam set up like I would, say a plum or strawberry jam. So I thought it would be safe to use less sugar. Ultimately I used about 4 cups of sugar to 8 cups of chopped figs, about half the usual amount. Since I wanted a smooth product, I put the chopped figs through the blender. I could have also used my food processor.

Blending the chopped figs for a smooth product.

Next came the long slow cooking. In the picture below, you can see the large pot on the left where I was boiling the storage jars to sterilize them.

Cooking the jam.

In any jam making, you need to simmer the fruit and sugar until it reaches about 220 degrees F. This takes both time and careful watching to get the jam to a point where it is not too runny and not too stiff. In Tucson, because of our altitude, 218 degrees F usually gives a better product. Use too high a heat and the jam will burn on the bottom of the pot before it reaches the proper temperature.

To check the temperture, I used to use a traditional candy thermometer that looks like this and works with a column of mercury:

Traditional candy thermometer.

A couple of Christmases ago, however Santa brought me a digital thermometer that is good for roasting a turkey, cooking a thick steak and making jam. It has a probe that sticks in whatever you are cooking and gives you a readout. See the photo below. You can see this one has reached 212 degrees F. and the jam is almost done.:

Battery-operated digital cooking thermometer. The thin silver wire on the right is a probe that rested in the jam.

Once finished, the jam just needed to be ladled into the prepared jars, capped and processed for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. That’s a lot of jam, but I’ll be baking cookies for 200 ticket holders and a whole bunch of volunteers.

Five quarts of fig jam will wait until October to be made into fig bars for the Farm to Table Dinner.

I can’t show you a picture of the fig bars, because I haven’t made them yet. But I have used this recipe previously and it is great. It is a modification of a recipe in Fruits of the Desert by the late food writer Sandal English. If you have fresh figs and are looking for a way to showcase them, try this:

Layered Fig Bars

1 cup sifted flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup oatmeal, quick or old-fashioned

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup butter, melted

1-1/2 to 2 cups fig jam

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and line an 8-inch square pan with foil or parchment paper, leaving some extending over two sides as flaps.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Mix in the oatmeal and sugar. Stir in the melted butter and mix until crumbly. Firmly press 2/3 of the mixture in the bottom of the prepared pan. Spread fig jam evenly over the base layer. Top with remaining crumb mixture. Gently pat the top layer down. Bake in preheated overn for about 30 minutes. Cool, lift from the pan using the paper flaps, and cut into 24 bars.

Note: If you are making this for your family and don’t care that the bars come out perfectly shaped, you can skip the step of lining the pan.

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Looking for ideas for how to use desert fruits and vegetables? The Prickly Pear Cookbook has delicious recipes for both the fruit and pads and complete instructions for gathering and processing. Cooking the Wild Southwest gives directions for harvesting and cooking 23 easily gathered desert plants. Find both at the Native Seeds/SEARCH retail store on Campbell or at on-line sellers.

All That Bountiful Basil

June 26, 2015June 24, 2015 / Savor Blog Partners / Leave a comment

by Jacqueline A. Soule.

Last month I wrote about basil in these pages. In my Gardening With Soule Blog I wrote about how to grow basil in the desert. Now let’s look at more basil uses, and some plant care in our heat not discussed previously.

Hot Plants.

If you bought your basil plants at a big box store, chances are it is not an ideal variety of basil to grow here. In the image below, the plant shows signs of both excessive light and heat stress with yellowing leaves and some sunburned and browned leaves. Basil harvested from such a stressed plant will taste bitter, not really worth the water it takes to keep the plant alive. If you did end up with a large leaved basil, consider growing it on a covered patio or under shade cloth.

Some varieties of basil, like this large leaf cultivar, do not appreciate hot sun and high temps.

Basil Blooms.

If you want basil seeds, let your basil bloom. Otherwise, you should remove and spikes of blooms – ideally before they get too big and use up the energy the plant could use making more luscious leaves instead of flowers.

These spikes of basil blooms were pinched off the plant.

Remove the spikes of blooms by pinching them off. Yes, you can use pruners or scissors or a knife, but scientific evidence shows that good old fashioned fingers are the best tool for the job. Why? Because when we cut, we cut through plant cells, but when we pinch, the plant ruptures between cell walls. The plant heals more quickly when the damage is between the cells instead of right through the middle of them.

The best tool for removing basil blooms is your own hand.

The plant heals more rapidly when hand pinched, even though a tidy-minded person might not like the ragged look to the pinch site.

Harvesting Basil.

You can harvest basil leaves any time you need some. If you are careful about it, your plant will just keep making more leaves, especially if you harvest just above a node of young leaves.

Yes you should pinch your harvest – just like you pinch blossoms. The scissors are in the picture to indicate where to cut – just above a node of young leaves.

Using Your Basil.

Tons of ways to use basil, but I am fond of one I just learned – basil spreadable pseudo-cheese. (I have to come up with a better name!)

You will need: a clean bandanna, a quart of plain Greek yogurt, a bowl, a colander, time, and some basil.

Put the colander into the bowl and line the colander with the clean bandanna. Dump the yogurt into the bandanna and let this sit in the ‘fridge overnight. The whey will drip out of the yogurt. (You can leave it for 24 hours if you want.) From a quart of yogurt, I got almost a cup of whey.

This un-wheyed yogurt becomes thick and spreadable, almost like cream-cheese, and it does not stick to the bandanna! It is not as creamy as cream cheese, but if you add flavorful herbs like basil, it is entirely tasty!

Chop your basil finely for this dish.

Dump your yogurt-cheese out of the bandanna. Harvest some basil, chop it up, mix it into your yogurt, and let it sit for at least four hours to help the basil flavor to merge into the cheese.

Let your basil flavor infuse into the cheese for at least 4 hours. Longer is just fine.

Using the Whey.

Since I got a cup of whey, I did not want to throw it away. I tried a sip – not my cup of tea! Since it is an animal product it shouldn’t go into the compost heap either. I put it into a smoothy with sweet fruit and with a dollop of honey it was fine.

About Jacqueline Soule

Jacqueline’s latest book “Fruit and Vegetable Gardening in the Southwest” (Cool Springs Press, 2014) is available at Tohono Chul Park and the Tucson Botanical Gardens. It is divided into warm season and cool season growing so you can easily select other plants to grow this summer.

All text and all photos (except where noted) are copyright © 2015 by Jacqueline A. Soule. All rights reserved. I receive many requests to reprint my work. My policy is that you may use a short excerpt but you must give proper credit to the author, and must include a link back to the original post on our site. Photos may not be used.

Bountiful Basil

May 23, 2015May 26, 2015 / Savor Blog Partners / 3 Comments

Basil comes in over 150 varieties. Here is a trio grown in Renee’s Garden. Photo courtesy of Renee’s Garden Seeds.

by Jacqueline A. Soule, Ph.D.

Summertime is basil-time in the Old Pueblo. As the nights turn to their sultry summer phase, the sun provides light for hours on end, and the soil temperatures become toasty warm – in other words, we enter our tropical phase of the year – and basil is truly delighted. Originally native to India, basil is genetically a tropical plant, even though it is now grown around the globe wherever (and whenever) it is warm enough.

Mrs. Burn’s Famous Lemon Basil is a lemony flavored basil that grows well indeed in our climate. Photo courtesy of Native Seeds/SEARCH.

Basil is a real taste treat. It can be used in Italian cooking (like the pesto recipe below), fresh, in green salads, and it even has a reputation as a medicinal herb.

Salad leaf basil features large leaves. Not as strongly flavored as other basils, it does taste great in salads. Photo courtesy of Renee’s Garden Seeds.

Basil does grow well in the Tucson area, but it isn’t the easiest herb to grow. It has some very specific preferences if it is to thrive. I will put growing tips up on my Gardening With Soule blog on June 4th. Why wait? Because the 4th of each month is national “You Can Grow That” Day.

I was in Philadelphia and spotted a bunch of basil growing in a raised bed. Ideally, you want to pinch the blooms off to encourage more leafy growth.

The National Institute of Health reports that Americans consume too much salt. Cooking with flavorful herbs like basil could help you reduce your salt use and stay heart healthy. Here’s an easy to make pesto to get you started.

Basil Pesto

4 oz. fresh basil leaves (a generous double handful)
1/4 cup pine nuts
2 cloves garlic, peeled (double amount of onion may be substituted if garlic is an issue)
8 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1. Rinse basil and pat dry.
2. Toast pine nuts in an ungreased skillet over medium heat until golden. Cool.
3. Place cooled pine nuts, basil, garlic and olive oil in a food processor or blender and puree until creamy.
4. Stir in the cheeses and serve over pasta or rice. Also excellent with quinnoa or toasted tofu. Vegans can omit the cheese or use shredded soy cheese.

About Jacqueline Soule

Harvest Time for I’itoi Onions

May 15, 2015May 14, 2015 / Savor Blog Partners / 6 Comments

Big clump of I’itoi onions. All this from just one little onion planted last October.

I had to put my vegetable garden to bed for the summer early this year since we were leaving for a month. No use having the housesitter water for the weeks we were gone as the hot weather would overcome the vegetables about the time we got home anyhow. The plants were at the end of their season, but still pulling them up was almost as painful as putting down a beloved pet. I go through this mourning every year when one by one the winter crops reach the end of their production – first the peas, then the broccoli, then the last of the lettuce and spinach even in the shade. The kale was still so hearty I simply could not consign it to the compose bin. After freezing some for soup and making as many kale chips as we could handle, I dug up the plants and put them in a pot to transfer to a friend.

One chore involved pulling out the remaining I’itoi bunching (or multiplier) onions. I’ve been using them all spring, but they are very prolific. One little onion that looks like this produced the bunch in my hands at the top of the page:

Lovely little I’itoi onion with penny for size comparison.

I’itoi onions were brought to the Southwest in the 17th century by Spanish missionaries, but have become such a part of the Tohono O’odham biology that they are called by the name of their creation diety, Elder Brother, or I’itoi. These little gems were beginning to die out when they were brought to Native Seeds SEARCH by a Tohono O’odham woman. They are one of the plants in the Slow Food Ark of Taste.

I’itoi onions (Allium cepa var. aggregatum) are easy to grow — in the fall, just plant each bulb about an inch below the surface and at least eight inches apart. They will send up chive-like greens first that can be used until you decide they have multiplied enough and pull them up for use. When you harvest the last clump in the summer, put aside a dozen or so bulbs in a paper bag and set aside on a cool shelf to await fall. (I find it amusing that the onions “know” when to start again — if I don’t get around to putting them back in the ground until later in September, I sometimes find that they have begun to sprout in anticipation.)

To prepare onions for cooking, first separate and clean off the dirt, then peel.

Like most onions, these contain potassium, vitamin C, folic acid and vitamin B6. Onions contain substantially the same amount of vitamins and minerals when cooked. I’itoi onions can be substituted for onions or shallots. You can find them at farmers’ markets and from Crooked Sky Farms in Prescott and the Phoenix area and from Native Seeds SEARCH. Both of these places will ship to you as well.

A healthy row of iItoi onions.

You’ll have a ratio of green tops to bulb of about 10:1 so you’ll have to find a use for all the green onion tops. When you’ve used all you can fresh, freeze them to add to soup stock later. You can also make delicious Chinese Onion Pancakes.

Savory pancakes using onion tops. (Photo from Serious Eats)

It’s easy, but rather than recount the recipe here, go to this link. These are the best directions I’ve found for making this delicacy and the author also gives a wonderful tutorial on the difference between adding cold and hot water to flour.

If you’d like a recipe to show off your onion harvest, this one is easy and delicious.

I’itoi onions cooking for Sweet and Sour sauce.

Sweet and Sour I’itoi Onions

Here’s my recipe for sweet and sour I’itoi onions. You can use red wine and red wine vinegar or white wine and white wine vinegar. Makes a great topping for grilled fish or chicken or mix it into steamed vegetables to add flavor.

1 cup cleaned and sliced I’itoi onions

1/2 cup water

2 tablespoons wine vinegar

2 tablespoons wine

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon sugar or agave syrup

1/2 cup water (again)

In a large heavy frying pan, cook sliced I’itoi onions and water covered over very low heat for 10 minutes until soft. Add wine, wine vinegar, olive oil and sugar or agave syrup. Cook over very low heat for another 10 minutes.

My blog sister Jacqueline Soule wrote a column about I’itoi onions for the Explorer and finished with a recipe for I’itoi onion and goat cheese scones. You can see it here

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If you are interested in wild and heritage foods of the Southwest, check out my cookbooks Cooking the Wild Southwest, Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants, and the Prickly Pear Cookbook. The books are also available through Native Seeds/SEARCH. For inspiration and directions on what wild plants are available in what season, watch a short video here.

An Invitation to Celebrate El Dia de San Ysidro Labrador

May 8, 2015May 8, 2015 / Savor Blog Partners / 1 Comment

With White Sonora Wheat waving its ripening seed heads in May’s wind, it’s time again to celebrate our local agriculture–our ability to feed ourselves locally. Yea!.. harvest time now for our winter gardens’ bounty as it dries…

Ripened seed heads of organic heirloom White Sonora Wheat from BKWFarms in Marana (MABurgess photo)

Tia Marta here inviting you to return to the hallowed soil of Schuk-shon–Tucson’s Birthplace “Black Spring”–at the foot of “A” Mountain, in the new Mission Garden, to the very site of the original garden supporting Mission San Augustin de Schuk-shon. The Feast of San Ysidro Labrador is approaching.

May 15 is the traditional Dia de San Ysidro, Saint Isidor, patron saint of farmers and gardeners.

According to legend, San Ysidro Labrador was so hard-working and generous with his produce to all in need—people or animals–that angels would plow next to him to triple his crop. In my artistic interpretation, San Ysidro lies exhausted under a tree from working his field while an angel guides his ox to finish his plowing.

Heirloom bean mosaic of San Ysidro Labrador created by artist/ethnobotanist MABurgess

Here in my big-scale heirloom bean mosaic, the “medium is the message”–in part. It was assembled using more than 21 colorful varieties of Southwestern heirloom beans and seeds, grown out from the Native Seeds/SEARCH Collection, in Tucson, Arizona.

The ancient seeds used to “paint” this image pay homage not only to San Ysidro but also to the generations of traditional farmers who have selected their seed and labored to grow the best for feeding family and community. Their seed-saving has provided us today with priceless heirlooms, fitting genes, and hope for a food-secure future. (Notecards of my San Ysidro mosaic will be on sale at the fiesta as a fund-raiser for Mission Garden’s good work.)

This year, our San Ysidro fiesta will be celebrated on Saturday, May 16, within the adobe-walled orchard of living agricultural history, Tucson’s newest “museum park” sponsored by the non-profit Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace. Planted in this living museum are representative crops that have fed the sequence of Tucson residents over the last 4100 years. Seeds of these ancient crops were blessedly conserved by the caring staff and volunteers of NativeSeeds/SEARCH over the past 34 years.

The new Mission Garden–living agricultural history

Vaquero in the Orchard of heirloom Mission Period fruit trees at San Ysidro Fiesta 2014 (MABurgess photo)

The Dia de San Ysidro celebration will officially begin at 9am with a procession from the future Tucson Origins Heritage Park next to the Santa Cruz “river” channel to Mission Garden’s east gate at 929 West Mission Lane, just east of Grande (Mission Road.) Festivities will include music by Mariachi Las Aguilitas from Davis Elementary, Alabanza with Bobby Benton, a presentation by historian/author Dr. Tom Sheridan, Native American four-direction prayers and blessing of the fields, food, and animals, and the Tohono O’odham Desert Indian Dancers from San Xavier. Designs for the new cultural theme gardens (Chinese, Mexican, Afro-American, and Medicinal) will be unveiled.

Activities will culminate with a tasting of Pozole de Trigo, the traditional Sonoran stew for the feast-day prepared by talented volunteer cooks from Tucson’s Hispanic community. For a fabulous recipe to try in your own kitchen, check out Bill Steen’s article for Sonoran Wheat Posole in Edible Baja Arizona–here’s the link to directions with his mouth-watering photos:

http://www.ediblebajaarizona.com/a-personal-posole

Or, for an even more local recipe, try this Akimel O’odham (Pima) recipe for Heirloom Wheat Posole with Tepary Beans:

Pima Posole Stew with Tepary Beans and White Sonora Wheat, served at Heard Museum

Pima Posole with Tepary Beans and White Sonora Wheat, served at Heard Museum

The combination of high protein Native Teparies and delicious low-gluten Heirloom Wheat Berries makes this a rich and nutritious stew.

Heirloom Wheat Posole with Tepary Beans—Pilt’kan ch Ba’bawi Posh’oldt

Ingredients:

2 cups dry tepary beans *

Water to more than cover the beans for initial soaking and cooking

1 large marrow bone (or beef broth as substitute for ½ the water when simmering, omit for vegetarian)

2 cups dry whole wheat berries (wheat kernels) **

3-4 cups drinking water or stock

Sea salt to taste (1-2 Tbsp.)

Black pepper or native chiltepine peppers***, to taste

Directions:

Carefully sort dry beans to remove stones. Wash, rinse, and cover with good water to soak overnight. Drain when plumped and ready to cook.

In big cooking pot, put beans, marrow bone, and drinking water to cover. Bring to a boil then simmer for 2+ hours.

Separately, rinse wheat berries and drain. Add wheat berries and salt to the cooking teparies. Add more water and/or stock. Bring to boil, then simmer an additional 1 ½ hours or until wheat berries are round and tender, and teparies are tender(not chewy).

Reserve excess water for later soup stock. Remove bone. For serving, posole should be moist with broth. Add black pepper and sea salt to taste. If picante bite is desired, add one or two crushed chiltepine peppers.

Enjoy this traditional taste of the desert! ***********Here’s where to find these traditional ingredients (being grown anew in their home turf):

*Native tepary beans are available at www.nativeseeds.org or at www.ramonafarms.com .

** Organic White Sonora Wheatberries are available at Flor de Mayo tent at Sunday St Philips Farmers Market, Tucson, or at the NativeSeeds/SEARCH Store, 3061 N Campbell Ave, Tucson.

***whole wild-harvested chiltepine peppers are available at Flor de Mayo tent, Sunday St Philips Farmers Market, Tucson, or at the NativeSeeds/SEARCH Store, Tucson.

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Seed packets of heirloom wheat varieties grown at Mission Garden, for sale to plant in your own winter garden.

Sheaves of heirloom White Sonora Wheat hand-harvested at Mission Garden

Because Dia de San Ysidro especially heralds the wheat harvest, the staple grain introduced by Padre Eusebio Kino and other missionaries over 300 years ago to the Native Tohono O’odham community living here, this year’s festivities will include a ceremonial wheat harvest, guided by expert plantsman and Desert Museum staff person Jesus Garcia, to take place around 8am, Saturday, May 16, before the procession.

Support organizations, such as NativeSeeds/SEARCH, San Xavier Coop Association, BKWFarmsInc, and Tucson Herbalist Collective will have booths with demonstration items, tastes of native foods, solar cooked White Sonoran Wheat berries, traditional food products packaged for sale, and resource people to talk with about desert gardening for real food.

Invitation to the 2015 San Ysidro Fiesta

The event is free with a donation requested. Find out more details of the San Ysidro Festival at www.tucsonsbirthplace.org. Hope to see you there!

[For more great recipes and stories about White Sonora Wheat, you can search with the box above using those key words, thru the last 2 years of this blog.]

Glorious Diversity–A Palette of Heirloom Legumes

April 10, 2015 / Savor Blog Partners / 3 Comments

The desert this spring is exploding with color, its rainbow shades reminding us of the amazing diversity of life, of species, of varieties of plants in this rich Sonoran Desert! Cholla flowers themselves are a veritable palette of genetic diversity within a species and between species.

Tia Marta here to talk about the rich diversity of beans selected and cultivated over the centuries by smart Native farmers in what is now the southwest borderlands…..

Tom’s Mix is a rainbow of color, flavor, nutrition, and genetic adaptations to the desert Southwest! (MABurgess photo)

In the genetic treasure trove of the NativeSeeds/SEARCH Seed Bank, there are hundreds of varieties and landraces of common bean, runner bean, and limas that can dazzle both our eyes, tastebuds–and our souls. Their colors, theirs shapes, sizes, sculpture are miniature works of art. And inside each little bean, each variety carries a complex of genes shaped over time to fit a specific local rainfall regime, soil, daylength, temperature range, and human habits. Their genetic potential may provide us some nutritional lifeboats into the uncharted waters of climate change. (We are in this together.)

Delectable Tom’s Mix available online at NativeSeeds.org and FlordeMayoArts.com.

Long ago, my gardening pal and mentor Tom Swain “invented” a mix of 14 different beautiful Southwestern heirloom beans garnered from the NativeSeeds/SEARCH collection. Of course we had to call it “Tom’s Mix” (ok–“oldsters” get it). It is the most beautiful set of genetic as well as flavor jewels—truly a treasure to behold and to eat.

Many people at our Flor de Mayo booth at Sunday St Phillips Farmers Market have asked how to identify each bean in the mix. To sort them, ID each variety, and come to know them is a fun challenge. I’d like to create a game for kids (and adults) to teach taxonomy in a cool way using them.

So, head for the NativeSeeds store or Sunday’s St Phillips market, pick up a bag of Tom’s Mix, and take the BEAN CHALLENGE!

Herewith is your KEY to unlocking some the of mystery beans of our beautiful desert region. (They each carry stories with them–come learn more from Tia Marta at the Sunday market… see, buy, taste each beautiful bean, see which one is cooking in the solar oven, and press her to finish her bean book!) Until then, you can feast on these gorgeous visual hints—first a feast for the eye, later for the palette–with this photographic key to the makings of Tom’s Mix:

Ed’s perfect pecan pie made with Zuni beans–a healthy dessert!.

“Zuni Gold” (aka “Four Corners Gold”) was originally from the Native Zuni people of NW New Mexico, a flavor gift to the world.

“Yellow-eye bean” (not related to black-eye pea) similar to Zuni Gold but with a distinctively different flavor. It was the original Boston baked bean before coming west. So rare it is not often used in the mix.

“Scarlet Runner” is a vining bean with brilliant red flowers that attract hummingbirds. It is a large purplish speckled bean not to be confused with lima. (MABurgess photo)

Runner beans (Phaseolus coccineus) are larger than so-called “common” beans (Phaseolus vulgaris–an insulting name for such wonderful food plants!) Runner beans, as the name implies, are climbers as compared with bush-beans. Their flowers are bigger and they bear huge pods. Runner beans make a great addition to soups and stews.

Related to scarlet runner is “Aztec White Runner” or “Bordal” (aka “Mortgage Lifter”) is another vining bean with a big white flower. It is large, plump and a little sweet. (MABurgess photo)

“Yellow Indian Woman” is the only bean in the mix not from the SW. As legend has it, Swedes brought this bean to Native people of the northern plains.

“Flor de Mayo” (Mayflower) is a favorite of traditional people from Chihuahua and Texas to southern Sonora.

“Bolita” or “little bullet” is a champion of flavor and makes a delish burrito or refried bean.

These three beans are of similar shape and color–though different in flavors. It is neat to try them separately, to enjoy their individual attributes. Watch for announcements when Native Seeds/SEARCH sponsors its Great Bean Tasting Events.

“Moon Bean” (also known in Colorado as “pinkeye bean”) is a mild, tasty, versatile bean.

In Tucson our culinary hero Chef Janos Wilder of the Downtown Kitchen has created the most delectable casserole using Moon Beans, chicken, and other surprise veggies. Try this one out also in marinated salads with white Sonora wheat berries.

“Maicoba” is named for the Pima Bajo village in Sonora where it originated. This yellow bean goes by many monikers—sulfur bean, azufrado, canario, peruano.

The versatile Maicoba makes a fabulous refried bean, a great dip, or burrito.

“Cranberry bean” refers to the flecks and strips of dark maroon or cranberry coloration on beige, not to its flavor.

You will often see Italian recipes calling for cranberry bean. This year’s crop of cranberry was for some weather reason a bust; let’s hope that next year it comes back strong again. To participate, plant some locally.

“Cannellini” is an elongated white bean grown in the Four Corners for years, brought there by immigrants.

Cannellini makes a fabulous addition to minestrone, or becomes the center of a yummy Mediterranean marinated bean salad. A smaller, creamier bean is the “Colorado River Bean” which resembles the Mayflower bean from SeedSavers catalog.

“Colorado River bean” takes its name from the Colorado Plateau where it is grown. This small speckled bean makes a wonderfully creamy soup.

Worlds apart in flavor and size is the Christmas lima–a true lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus–like a moon). This one is not like your average butter bean. It is massive as beans go, rich and almost meaty–great for a vegetarian centerpiece dish.

“Christmas lima” or “Chestnut lima” is a true lima bean Phaseolus lunatus, large, flat, purple mottled, and hearty flavored.

“Christmas lima” or “Chestnut lima” is a true lima bean, large, flat, purple mottled, and hearty flavored.

“Aztec Black Bean” or “Black Turtle” is the traditional bean of the Nahuatl or central Mexico.

“Anasazi Bean” is the only trademarked bean in the mix. Original seeds of this fast-cooking bean were actually found in an ancestral Puebloan ruin in the Four Corners.

These two beautiful beans, Black Turtle and “Anasazi bean,” bind up the full complement of flavors in Tom’s Mix. As individual beans, each is hard to beat flavor-wise and texture-wise. Together, combined in our Tom’s Mix, they are a culinary delight.

Black beans are the staple of many traditional diets, from Meso-America to northern New Mexico.

The “Anasazi” is the fastest cooking and least distressing to digestion of any bean I know of.

So now are you feeling enriched by these visual legume wonders? I hope so! Now to come try your hand at identifying them firsthand, and to treating your taste-buds at our Flor de Mayo tent at Sunday farmers market.

Identified or not, these precious heirloom beans in Tom’s Mix make a fabulous soup that our market and online customers rave about. You can ship out this Southwest gift to all corners of the globe via paypal at http://www.flordemayoarts.com.

Tom’s Mix is so versatile—try them as a dip or as a most colorful marinated bean salad when the weather heats up. If you are inspired to assist the bean genes into the future, try your hand at growing some of the Tom’s Mix varieties this summer in your own garden. You can learn lots more at our Seed Libraries (Pima County Public Library) and at the upcoming International Seed Library Conference to be held in Tucson in early May.

Diversity of Southwestern heirlooms in Tom’s Mix

See you Sunday at St Phillips Plaza or at the NSS Store, 3061 N Campbell. We look forward to talking heirloom beans with you!

[As for the diversity of those cholla flowers mentioned at the start….. Tia Marta will be exploring our diverse cholla flora at upcoming cholla bud harvesting workshops: Sat April 11 sponsored by NativeSeeds/SEARCH and Sat April 18 sponsored by Tohono Chul Park. Contact each for more info: http://www.nativeseeds.org and http://www.tohonochulpark.org, or call Flor de Mayo at 520-907-9471.]

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Savor the Southwest:

Forage, Raise, Cook

Native Seeds/SEARCH

Bean and Corn Cakes with Mole

Heirloom Grains & Heirloom Fruits marry in a Holiday Pie

Taste Buds Ready to “Rejoice in Local”–at Mission Garden!

Black Teparies Make a Come-Back!

Fig Jam Ready for Farm to Table Picnic

All That Bountiful Basil

Bountiful Basil

Harvest Time for I’itoi Onions

An Invitation to Celebrate El Dia de San Ysidro Labrador

Glorious Diversity–A Palette of Heirloom Legumes

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