Bear’s garlic, or wild garlic, is one of the first spring herbs we can harvest. It grows in light forest glades but you can also cultivate it in a shady part of your garden. Apart from its benefits for our health, what I like most about bear’s garlic is that IT smells quite like real garlic but YOU won’t after eating it 😊. In this recipe, I’ve used bear’s garlic in a light yeast dough to make a savoury and eye-catching bear’s garlic knot.
You can harvest the bear’s garlic in the woods if you know a place where it grows wildly but please: make absolutely sure you know your plants! Bear’s garlic can be confused with lily of the valley which is toxic! If you’re not sure, buy it or try to grow it in your garden.
Bear’s garlic knot
Ingredients
Makes one large knot or braid
700 g four (I like spelt but you can use wheat)
20 g fresh yeast or 7 g dried yeast
1 tsp sugar
250 ml lukewarm water
5 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp milk
Instructions:
1. If you use fresh yeast, dissolve it in a bite of lukewarm milk, add some sugar and stir until becomes a uniform mass. Let it rest for 20 minutes until the liquid has visibly risen.
2. Wash the bear’s garlic, dry it and chop it roughly.
3. For the yeast dough, put the flour and salt into a bowl. If you use dried yeast, add it, too. Add the water and 2 tbsp oil (and yeast water in case of fresh yeast) and knead these ingredients into a smooth dough. Put the dough into a bowl and let it rest for about one hour (it should double its volume).
4. Thoroughly knead the dough on a floured surface and divide it into four parts. Roll each part to a string and plait a knot. First, lay the strings crosswise (see drawing) and then put the lower string across the string next to it. In the following pictures, you’ll see how to do it:
In the end, it’ll look like that:
Ready for baking
5. Cover a tray with baking parchment, put the bear’s garlic knot onto the tray and let it rest and rise for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Mix the milk and remaining olive oil, brush the knot with it and let it bake in the oven for 45 minutes.
Enjoy your bear’s garlic knot with salted butter and chopped bear’s garlic on top.
If you liked this bread, you may also want to try this recipe for a braided bear’s garlic brioche braid.
A meadow full of blooming dandelions looks like the sun is shining from the ground upwards. It’s such a pretty sight! Thinking about the lifeforce and vitality of dandelions, however, I have seen gardeners go crazy: no matter how often you cut them off, they’ll always get back. Even if you try to pull out their roots and not get every last bit out, they’ll be right here again. And once they start to develop those pretty little seeds, you know you’re doomed.
Instead of fighting against those little bursts of sunshine, however, we can use them for our health and palates! A wonderful way to preserve not only the taste but also the health benefits of dandelions is by making a “honey” out of the dandelion flowers.
In my garden, there are rarely any dandelions. I’ve eaten them all. It’s still lovely to watch the look of horror passing over people’s faces when they watch me eating a dandelion flower. Ah, the little pleasures in life… Anyway, on the adjoining meadow there are numerous dandelion flowers every spring and believe it or not, I’m grateful for that. Where would I else get the flowers for a sweet and tasty dandelion honey?
Dandelion honey – Recipe
Yield: 5 to 6 glasses (ca. 120 ml)
Ingredients:
about 500 g dandelion flowers (about 4 hands full)
1,5 l water
1 kg sugar
juice of one lemon
Instructions:
1. After you’ve gathered the dandelion flowers, put them into a bowl or flatly onto a tray and put them outside for about an hour. All the insects, especially those little black beetles will go away. Wash the flowers carefully and put them into a large pot.
Freshly picked dandelion flowers. As you see, I’ve also added some daisies.
2. Fill the water into the pot and press the flowers down into the water so that they are covered by it. Let them sit for two hours.
3. Bring the water with the flowers to the boil. Boil rapidly for 20 seconds, remove the pot from the heat and let it sit overnight (12 – 24 hours).
4. The next day, remove the flowers with a slotted spoon and ladle them into a cheesecloth. Press them out thoroughly, every drop counts.
5. Add the sugar and lemon juice to the dandelion brew and bring it to a boil under constant stirring. Make sure the sugar dissolves completely, otherwise it may set at the base of the pot and burn.
6. Let the syrup simmer without a lid for about two hours. Remove the pot from the heat and let it cool down for about half an hour (or completely if you have more urgent things to do.
7. Bring the syrup back to a boil and let it simmer again while stirring it from time to time. Do not leave the pot for long. When bubbles start to form that will not dissolve when you stir, the time to pour the thickened “honey” into jars has come. Even if it seems to be too liquid, don’t worry. It’ll thicken up when it has cooled down.
When the dandelion honey starts to look like that, it’s ready to be filled into jars.
Determining the right time to fill the jars can be tricky but when you’ve made some “honeys”, you’ll get the experience. If you’ve filled the honey too soon, it’ll stay a bit too liquid to spread onto your bread. In that case, just put the stuff back into a pot and let it simmer a bit longer. If you’ve waited too long, however, the honey may get a slightly burned taste and become too thick, sometimes even solid. In that case, the only thing you can do is throw off the whole batch (good luck with removing it from the jars). There is no chance of making a too-thick honey liquid again.
Dandelion honey: Tasting
Let the jars sit overnight until they’ve fully cooled down. Your sirup will now have a wonderful brown colour and a honey-like texture. Try it on some buttered bread or a braided yeast bun. It’s sweet, tastes a bit like a spring flower meadow and very similar to real honey.
This is a great way to not only get rid of unwanted weeds but also preserve them at next to no cost. Adding to that, it’s totally easy! You only have to watch out for the right time to fill the honey in jars (remember: better too soon than too late).
And when you open one of these jars next winter and thickly spread the honey onto your buttered bread, it will certainly bring back the sunshine to you.
Earlier this year, I got my hands on some organic orange peel… well, ok: a lot of organic orange peel and apart from all the other things I made out of it, I tried my hand at making my first ever hydrolate. It turned out pretty well and I immediately thought about using it in a soap recipe. To enhance the “orange factor”, I added some of the dried and shredded orange peel and essential orange oil and I got a soap that smells and looks as good as it feels. This orange peeling soap appeals to (almost) all senses!
Even better, it’s an easy recipe, suitable for beginners. If you’re not familiar with the process of soapmaking yet, hop over and read this article first. Also, make sure you wear your protective gear throughout the whole soapmaking process. Better safe than sorry.
Orange peeling soap
Superfat: 7 %
Ingredients
350 g olive oil 75 g coconut oil 50 g sunflower seed oil 25 g castor oil 165 g orange hydrolate 64,5 g NaOH 5 g essential oil sweet orange 5 g essential oil bergamot 10 g dried and shredded organic orange peel
Instructions
1. Prepare your soap mould and put on an apron, gloves, breathing mask and safety goggles.
2. Weigh the oils. Slowly melt the coconut oil, then add the olive, sunflower and castor oil. Put a thermometer into the oil mixture and measure the temperature.
3. Weigh the hydrolate in a large enough, heat-proof container.
4. Weigh the essential oils and the shredded orange peel and put them aside for later use.
5. Weigh the sodium hydroxide. Put the water container into a sink and slowly pour the sodium hydroxide into the water (never the reverse!). Stir carefully and slowly with a spoon or rubber spatula until the NaOH crystals have dissolved. Put a thermometer into the lye-water and measure the temperature.
6. When the temperatures of the lye-water and the oils have fallen to 40 – 45 °C, carefully pour the lye into the oils (never the reverse!). Fully immerse a blender and mix both liquids until they are well combined. Make sure that the blender stays in the batter to prevent air bubbles. Mix the batter until a trace forms.
7. Add the dried and shredded orange peel and the essential oils to the soap batter.
8. Pour the soap batter into the mould and either cover it with cling film or spray it with isopropyl alcohol. Cover the mould with towels to keep it warm. Leave the soap in the mould for 48 hours.
9. After 48 hours, carefully remove the soap from the mould and cut it into bars.
10. Let the soap bars cure at a cool and well-ventilated place for 4 – 6 weeks before use.
Characteristics of orange peeling soap
This recipe makes for a great soap with a light peeling effect. It’s got a smooth lather (thanks to the castor oil) and is suitable even for sensitive skin. The orange and bergamot fragrance has a refreshing and awakening effect and the orange peeling particles shine out like little rays of sunlight.
All in all, it’s a perfect soap to use for your morning shower to awaken your body and mind and start the day fresh and energized.
When you want to plant and grow your own tomatoes and want to get a great harvest, it’s important to suitably care for your plants and provide them with optimum growing conditions. In 14 steps, I’ll show you everything you need to know about tomatoes – whether you’ll grow them in the open, in a greenhouse or in pots. Let’s start!
Step #1: Choosing the right tomato seeds
Of course, you can buy pre-cultivated tomato plants from a nursery. Those plants, however, will often be hybrids which means that their seeds are not seedfast. In other words, you cannot take seeds from those plants to cultivate new tomatoes next year as they will not create the same tomato variety. If you’re fine with that, go ahead and buy plants.
If, on the other hand, you want to choose from the immense number of tomato varieties and cultivate some rare types, you’ll want to start your plants from seeds. Make sure that you always buy seedfast seeds that are suitable for your climatic conditions and – of course – your preferences. If you don’t have favourites yet, try out different types: cherry tomatoes for snacking, tomatoes for salads, plum tomatoes for tasty sauces, tomatoes in different colours etc. Note down which ones you liked best and harvest their seeds for next year.
Step #2: Sowing the seeds
When you’ve got your seedfast tomato seeds, sow them into a plastic container with herbal soil. Tomatoes are warmth-loving plants, which means they need temperatures between 18 – 23 °C to propagate.
They also need plenty of (sun-)light. A windowsill facing south or west is good for seedstarting. Alternatively, you can put your planting containers below a plant lamp. Make sure your plants get 14 – 18 hours of light per day, otherwise they will become leggy.
Step #3: Pricking tomato seedlings
As soon as your tomatoes show the first pair of real leaves (not the seed leaves that come first), it’s time to move them into separate planting containers. Fill a pot of about 15 cm in diameter with planting soil and plant the tomatoes deeper by burying them up to the seed leaves. By that, they can grow more roots from the stem and become more robust.
The tomato plants still need warmth and enough light, so let those plant lamps shine.
Step #4: Hardening off
About 14 days before you want to plant out your tomatoes*, you must harden them off to prepare them for the different conditions outside or in your greenhouse. This is an important step as otherwise, your plants could die from the sudden changes in temperature and exposure to sunlight.
To toughen the tomatoes, put them out into the shade on a warm day (10 °C and above) for a few hours each day. Start with 1 – 2 hours and prolong those phases up to 4 – 6 hours. Make sure that on the first days of outdoor hardening off, your plants are protected from direct sunlight and wind. After a few days, you can put them for one hour in the morning sun and a few days after that into the full sun. Always take a look at your plant every hour or so to make sure that they don’t get scorched or suffer in some other way. Get the plants in during the night.
Another thing you can do to harden your tomatoes off is to tenderly brush over them with your hand. This imitates wind and causes minuscule breakings in the stems which the plant can repair and thus becomes harder and stronger.
*If you just asked yourself when’s the right time to plant out your tomatoes: after the last night frosts, better still when night temperatures do not drop below 10 °C. In Central Europe that’s about mid-May. If you have a greenhouse, you can plant them out already starting mid-April.
Step #5: Soil preparation
Tomatoes have a high demand for nutrients. In other words, they eat like a teenager after a rugby match! To give them a good start and plenty of “food”, we must prepare the soil before planting them out. To do so remove all weeds and the mulch. By exposing the soil to the sun it will warm up and, as I said before, tomatoes love warmth.
To enhance nutrient density, work some ripe compost into the soil.
Plant your seedlings outside when all danger of frost is over and the soil has reached a temperature of at least 15 °C.
Dig out planting holes and add some organic tomato fertilizer and a handful of bone meal. As an alternative to the ready-made fertiliser, you can put some stinging nettles into the plant hole. I always put some composted and wet cattle dung into the plant hole and plant the tomatoes directly into it. That way, they not only have fertiliser but also enough moisture to last for the first few days of growing in.
As you did when pricking, plant your tomatoes deeper than before by burying them up to the first leaves. To help them grow more roots and thus become more anchored into the ground, I always plant them at an angle of 45 degrees. That makes sure that additional roots will sprout out of the stem. Remove any leaves that touch the ground.
Plant your tomatoes about 45 centimetres apart.
If you use pots for planting, make sure that you use good-quality pots. Black ones are not great as they’ll heat up too much in summer and by that burn the roots. Wooden, terracotta or plastic pots with a capacity of at least 20 litres are ideal. Put some drainage in so that your plants won’t drown, add the soil – either compost or ready-made tomato planting soil – and plant your tomatoes as described above.
After planting, water your tomatoes thoroughly.
Step #7: Staking
We distinguish between indeterminate and determinate tomatoes.:
Determinate varieties, also known as bush varieties, grow about 60 – 100 centimetres tall. They produce fruit for a relatively short period of time as they tend to provide ripe tomatoes at the same time which makes them great for making sauce and canning. Determinate varieties don’t need any staking and are great for small places or pots.
Indeterminate varieties, or vining varieties as they are often called, produce large tomatoes all summer long, mostly starting mid- to late-season. Indeterminate tomatoes need staking to help them support their weight and height. For that matter, you can put a stake next to each plant into the soil and as the tomato grows, fix it loosely with a twine to it. A possibility you can use in your greenhouse is to fix a twine loosely at the ceiling and fix it around your tomato plant. As the tomato grows you wind it around the twine until it reaches the ceiling.
Step #8: Watering
Most gardener’s favourite activity is watering and that’s great for the first week or so after planting your tomatoes to make sure they root well. Afterwards, however, you can cause real damage to your plants when watering them too much: they will grow only shallow roots and thus not be firmly rooted in the ground and their fruit will taste watery.
It’s best to leave tomatoes out when watering and only water them if they really need it which they show by wilting leaves. Even in the greenhouse, my tomatoes can grow their roots deep enough to tap the water sources deep down in the earth. Don’t spoil your plants but raise them to become healthy, sturdy adult tomatoes with plenty of tasty fruit!
When you must water, however, water them deeply and make sure that the water soaks at least 10 – 15 centimetres into the ground. Always water at the base of the plant and don’t splash the leaves as this might cause diseases.
Step #9: Mulching
I’m a huge fan of mulch and I recommend mulching your tomatoes as soon as the soil is warm enough. Mulch not only helps your plants to retain moisture (see step #8: watering) and prevents soil-bourne diseases from splashing up onto the leaves. It also controls weeds and shades the soil. Did I say that I love mulch? I love mulch!
Step #10: Pruning
If you’re growing vining tomatoes, you must prune, that is: pinch off the suckers. Suckers are those tiny stems that form between the main stem and branches. They will not produce fruit but only take energy from the plant. It’s best to prune or pinch the suckers as soon as you notice them. When they’ve grown large already, it’s hard to just rip them off without damaging the plant. Also, the wound becomes too large and may invite diseases.
You can just use the suckers as mulch or you put them into a glass with water where they’ll soon form roots and thus new plants.
Step #11: Companions
Tomatoes are a sociable lot and love having companion plants around. The right partners will not only fight off pests and diseases but will also prepare the soil ideally for our hungry fellows.
Good vegetable partners are beans, lettuce, celery, cabbages, onions and garlic. Tomatoes also love basil – on the plate as well as in the soil – and if you want to add a pretty eyesight you can plant marigolds.
Step #12: Fertilizing
As I said before, tomatoes are gluttons. To make sure they get all they need, it’s best to give some long-time fertiliser into the plant hole. This can either be some ready-made tomato fertilizer, bone meal, a mixture of horn shavings and rock powder, stinging nettles or composted dung. This year, I’ll try out different methods to compare what works best (for me). I’ll keep you updated.
Nevertheless, during their main period of growth, tomatoes still need some quickly available fertiliser that provides them with nitrogen, potassium and phosphate. I always prepare a “manure” from stinging nettles and comfrey and add about 100 – 200 ml of the ready manure to 10 l water.
Be careful, though, to not over-feed your plants. Too much fertilizer will weaken them and make them produce many leaves but few, tasteless fruit. Fertilizing every four weeks is enough to provide your plants with sufficient nutrients so that they’ll produce a great harvest!
Step #13: Pollinating
During relatively cold summers but also in greenhouses with insufficiently large windows, pollination may be a problem. When it’s too cold, bees and other pollinators won’t be around that much and in the case of greenhouses they may not find their way in. Those wonderful blossoms on your plants will not be pollinated and just fall off instead of transforming into wonderfully tasty tomatoes. That’s a shame!
To support the bees, you can carefully (!) shake the plants a bit so that the pollen gets loose and swirls through the air. Tomatoes have bisexual flowers and can pollinate themselves when the pollen is released – by insects or by shaking the plants.
Step #14: Harvesting
Hooray, the time to harvest has come! Harvest your tomatoes when they have the right colour (depending on your variety this can be red, orange, yellow, blue, violet, white or green in different shades), smooth and firm skin and easily remove from the plant. If you have to pull hard, they’re not ready yet.
If temperatures threaten to drop too low and there are still unripe tomatoes on your plants you can either pull out the whole plant (with roots) and hang it upside down from the ceiling of a cool basement or garage. Or you place the unripe tomatoes into a cardboard box or a paper bag and put it on the counter. With both methods, the tomatoes will ripen and you may have fresh tomatoes till Christmas.
You got more tomatoes than you can eat? No problem! Preserve them for winter by cooking and canning a tomato sauce. Nothing better than some pasta with homemade tomato sauce on a cold winter’s day.
Drying and soaking them in oil is another wonderful way to preserve your tomatoes. Cut small fruits in half or larger into quarters, put them onto a tray and dry them in the oven at 40 – 50 °C until they are dry but still chewy. Put them tightly into small glasses and fill them up with olive oil.
You see, when you observe these 14 steps it’s quite easy to plant, grow and harvest your own tomatoes and they taste sooo much better than the ones from the store. Is there anything yummier than eating warm ripe tomatoes right from the plant? Mmmh….
Every year I yearn for the first asparagus ’cause it’s the unmistakable sign that we are heading out of late spring and right into early summer! I love all types of asparagus, white, green and violet but if I had to choose (which thankfully I don’t), I’d say that I love green asparagus a teeny tiny bit more. In my eyes (or should I say: taste buds?), it’s got more of a taste, bringing herbal, nutty and spinach flavours to the table. And it’s so versatile! Sauté green asparagus and mix it with orange slices and Parmigiano to get a delicious salad. Or cook it in white wine sauce and add it to your pasta, sprinkle the whole dish with some freshly grated nutmeg and you’ll stun your friends and family. For this recipe, I’ve chosen to combine a classic tarte flambée with green asparagus. For taste – and colour – I added red onions and walnuts. Apart from the yeast dough which needs to be prepared about an hour before baking, this is a speedy recipe.
Tarte flambée with green asparagus and walnuts
Ingredients for 4 servings
Yeast dough
250 g all-purpose flour
7 g dry yeast or 15 g fresh yeast
Salt
125 ml warm water
Topping
400 g green asparagus
3 red onions
100 g walnuts (shelled)
200 g sour cream
200 g cream cheese
salt, pepper
walnut oil
Instructions:
If you use fresh yeast, crumble it into the warm water and stir it until the yeast has dissolved. Weigh the flour, add a teaspoon of salt and pour the yeast water into it. Knead into a smooth dough. If you use dry yeast, weigh the flour and measure the water, add the yeast and a teaspoon of salt to the flour, pour the water in and knead into a smooth dough. Either way, let the dough rest in a warm place for about 30 minutes.
In the meantime, cut off the ends of the asparagus spears and peel them. As we use green asparagus, only the lower half of the spears must be peeled. Cut the spears into thin slices. Peel the onions and cut into thin slices. Chop the walnuts.
In a bowl, mix the sour cream and cream cheese, add salt and pepper to your taste and stir in 2/3 of the walnuts.
Preheat the oven to 240°C. Divide the dough into four portions and on a floured surface roll them out very thinly. Line a baking tray with parchment and place the rolled-out dough onto it. Evenly spread the cheese-nut mixture onto the dough, add the asparagus and onion slices and sprinkle the rest of the walnuts on top.
Bake the tartes for 12 – 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to your taste and drizzle with walnut oil before serving.
