Garden Happenings: Smokey E.L.T. Sammies & Ancient Amaranth
#28: Fall Happenings @ Featherstone Garden
Welcome to Featherstone’s Fall Happenings Newsletter. Each week we will share a variety of garden updates, heirloom seasonal produce features, veg-ed(ucation) content, farm stand news, plant-centered recipes and more. As a subscriber, you will be the first to know all about our Garden Happenings. If you’re not a subscriber but would like do be, you can click the button below to sign up.
Ancient Amaranth
By Annie Hakim
This week we are shining some rays on one of our favorite plants at the garden, (a lesser known relative of quinoa) amaranth. Amaranth seeds, sometimes ground into a gluten free flour or cooked like quinoa, are high in manganese (important for brain function), magnesium (necessary for DNA synthesis and muscle contraction), phosphorus (good for bone health) as well as rich in protein, micro-nutrients, and antioxidants. Amaranth has recently become popularized as a microgreen. We occasionally include it in our weekly microgreens subscription and in our winter salad kits.
Amaranth leaves, also known as Callaloo, are popular in Asian, African and Caribbean cuisine; mature leaves are a wonderful earthy, nutty addition to soups and stews (sometimes considered a more flavorful spinach substitute) and younger leaves are a hearty addition to salads. Check out this recipe for Jamaican style Callaloo. If you are looking to purchase Callaloo, visit 168 Asian Mart in Madison Heights.
With plant parts that are edible at all ages, we consider this plant to be a productive and beautiful addition to our garden. This year we grew three varieties: dreadlock, hopi red dye, and golden giant. We are currently harvesting seeds so that we can include them in our Featherstone Granola, which will be available for purchase later this year. Amaranth was once a staple in Mayan, Aztec and Incan civilizations. Particularly productive varieties of the plant can grow up to 9 feet tall and a single plant can produce up to 60,000 seeds! If growing this plant in your garden, we recommend harvesting the seeds before they fall to the ground and leave you with a giant family of amaranth plants the following year. If you make the mistake of letting the amaranth re-seed, you can harvest the greens at a young age as they pop up and enjoy them in salads.
One variety of amaranth, Palmer Amaranth, is such a resilient plant that it was the star of a recent New York Times Magazine article about Superweeds. It can reroot itself once unrooted, and has survived many generations of especially toxic pesticides, some of which have ingredients that were used to defoliate land during the Vietnam War. Palmer Amaranth can suppress soybean yields by nearly 80 percent and corn yields by about 90 percent. Not to worry, the amaranth varieties you purchase from organic seed companies (like Baker Creek and Johnny’s) aren’t invasive in this way. Regardless, perhaps it’s time for all of us to consider eating some more “weeds”.
Smokey E(ggplant).L.T. Sammy
By Renee Sandoval
For this week’s featured recipe, our inspiration came from a newsletter (via The Bittman Project) that suggests different ways to use up your late summer tomatoes. In it, Mark Bittman shares an eclectic variety of tomato-y recipe recs and storing tips. We’re making a few minor adjustments to the vegetarian BLT he shares, and we hope you’ll love it as much as we do. You can also click here to check out our “making the sandwich” instagram reel.
In order to make this fully plant-based, we’re sharing an additional recipe for a vegan paprika aioli that I developed a few months back, which I share on my personal newsletter, here. One minor edit you can make to keep it simple is to use 240g of firm (drained) tofu, rather than 200g (drained) tofo + 40g avocado. If the idea of making your own aioli doesn’t interest you, no sweat! There are plenty of vegan mayos out there (such as this brand & this brand), and you can easily doctor it up by adding grated garlic and paprika to create the smoky paprika aioli that gives this sammy that extra pizzazz. We’re sharing suggested measurements below.
Recipe: Smokey E.L.T. Sammy
Yields: 2-3 sandwiches
Ingredients:
1 medium eggplant, thinly sliced
1 medium heirloom tomato, thinly sliced
a few leaves of your choice of lettuce (we’re using butter lettuce)
1-2 Tbsp olive oil
dash of smoked paprika
salt & pepper
avocado (optional)
sliced bread, lightly toasted
a few tablespoons of vegan paprika aioli (or your preferred mayo/aioli)
Directions:
Step 1
To roast eggplant: Line 1-2 pans with aluminum foil, then pre heat oven to 400 degrees F. Generously coat both sides of your sliced eggplant with olive oil. Place eggplant onto the pan (see below) and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and paprika on each side. Then, depending on the thickness of your sliced eggplant, bake for 20-25 minutes, until the tops are lightly browned.
Turn down your heat to 325 degrees F, and bake for another 5-10 minutes, until the pieces are quite dry and easy to remove from the foil.
Step 2
Gather the remaining ingredients: While the eggplants in the oven, slice your tomato, tear a few pieces of lettuce, and slice your (optional) avocado. After roasting the eggplant, allow it to cool down slightly. Toast your bread, then spread a generous amount of paprika aioli on both slices.
Assembly
Assemble your sammy by creating (at least) 2 layers of ELT with one layer of (optional) avocado. I start with the avocado layer first, then add tomato, then eggplant, then lettuce; then one more layer in that order: tomato, eggplant, lettuce.
_____
Recipe: Vegan Paprika Aioli
Yields: approx. 10 oz
Ingredients:
240g firm tofu (about 1/2 of a 15oz container)
1/3 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 tsp paprika (plus more if needed)
3 cloves garlic, grated
2 tsp spicy grainy mustard
1/2 tsp salt (smoked sea salt if you have it! I used this brand)
pinch of black pepper
Directions |
Add all ingredients into a blender and blend for 1 minute. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides, then blend again for another 2-3 minutes to achieve that ultra creamy rich consistency.
Side-note: If you choose to ‘doctor up’ your mayo of choice, simply add 2-3 cloves of grated garlic, 2 tsp paprika, and a dash of pepper to 1 cup of mayo.
Notes to our Stir Fry / Microgreens / Bread & Spread Subscribers —
This week, our meal kit subscribers will be receiving one (or all) of the sustenance below. (Get ready to 🤤)
Signup for our Farm Fresh Subscriptions…
It’s not too late! If you would like to sign up for the remaining 4-weeks of either of our subscriptions (Stir Fry / Bread & Spread / Microgreens), we will continue offering member signups on a rolling basis throughout the duration of our subscription timeline. Head to the link below to sign up.
*A NOTE TO OUR STIR FRY SUBSCRIBERS: You will continue receiving our printed assembly instructions in your kits each week, but we are now including a digital document of our instructions as well. Click here to download our (print-friendly) assembly instructions document.
Links worth checking out––
For your reading pleasure, the team members at Featherstone will occasionally share articles that are a worthwhile read, which we’re calling our ‘pick of the week’. We hope you enjoy!
Annie’s pick: “Save the Planet, Eat a Bug” by Dana Goodyear via the New Yorker.
80% of the planet enjoys bug protein. Maybe Americans can, too. This 2011 article was featured in the New Yorker’s 2021 food + drink archival issue.
Renee’s pick: This “Heads of the Table” article by Bon Appétit.
Rather than their typical ‘best new restaurants’ list, Bon Appétit changed it up by highlighting stand-out restaurants who aided their communities and industry workers in the thick of the pandemic. One of their picks, Ursula in Brooklyn, NY, is known for their breakfast burritos, baked goods (I’m obsessed with their tres leches), and for supporting the queer community. Throughout the last year, they’ve invited a number of lgbtq+ chefs to use their space for pop-ups without taking a cut from their profits. I cannot recommend this cafe enough to anyone living in or visiting NYC.
Thanks for reading!
For more about our garden, follow us on instagram (@featherstone.garden), and check out our website. We’d love for you to share our newsletter with a friend by clicking the button below.
Have a great week,
Annie, Aaron, Renee, Jessi, Phoebe + Chili, Pepper & Bean (our farm cats)
Please note: Featherstone Garden is neither paid nor sponsored by any brands, organizations or blogs we feature in our newsletter. We share this content because we found it to be valuable and thought you might, too.
 | A guest post by
|