Triticale

One flip through a seed catalogue reveals the multitude of options for the edible gardener. If you’re a horticulturist at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, you do your research, consult your peers, and consider your options carefully. I wondered about the story behind the Triticale growing in the Edible Garden. Barry Ramsey, Assistant Horticulturist in the Edible Garden was kind enough to tell the Triticale tale below. Working part-time as a chef at Violette, a small French restaurant, Barry was able to put himself through school. He graduated from Chattahoochee Tech in 2009 with a degree in Environmental Horticulture. He joined the Atlanta Botanical Garden during the construction phase of the Edible Garden in March of 2010. Barry spends most of his time deadheading, watering, fertilizing and starting new veggies in the greenhouse. When he’s not working in the garden or in the kitchen, he loves to skate, brew beer, and spend time with his family.

The grassy crop alternating rows with purple cabbage is Triticale, a marvel of not-so-mad scientific labor. Its humble appearance may cause you to wonder why we’d be growing a turf candidate in the Edible Garden.

Triticale (trit-ih-KAH-lee) is a crop species resulting from a plant breeder’s cross between wheat (Triticum) and rye (Secale). Plant breeders originally wanted to include the combination of wheat’s grain quality, productivity, and disease resistance with the vigor and hardiness of rye. Chances are these plants would never meet in nature due to different growing conditions, but are brought together by human intervention to create a desirable crop.

Because triticale has the ability to out-yield wheat at similar or lower nitrogen levels, it has become the number one grain used for bio-fuels. Now starting to show up on the health food shelves, it is used to cook, brew beer, and is flaked in cereals. Triticale kernels are grey-brown, oval shaped, larger than wheat and plumper than rye. In many ways triticale is similar to corn. The grain is sweet and very nutritious. It’s higher in protein than wheat or rye. It has double the lysine as wheat, an essential amino acid which helps the body absorb calcium.

In the Edible Garden, we are using triticale as a cover crop. Simply stated, cover crops utilize existing nutrients in the soil and are later tilled under at the end of the season to release those nutrients back into the garden soil. The primary benefits are to improve soil quality and fertility and to increase nutrient availability to subsequent crops. Cover crops have the added benefit of potentially attracting beneficial insects, reducing weeds, and aiding in erosion control. Farmers who have used triticale as a cover crop claim it tolerates late planting, has good seed vigor, emerges under harsh conditions, has a deep fibrous root system, and is easy to suppress.

Triticale is a viable crop that is quickly gaining popularity in the agricultural world. The versatility it offers as a grain, a forage, for straw and as a cover crop adds to the economic viability that sustains the interest in the crop. As more literature is published about its impressive health benefits triticale is finding its way into all sorts of creative recipes. From bio-fuels to breakfast foods, the uses of triticale are just being explored. Keep an eye out for it in the local health food store or hopefully soon at the gas pump.

The triticale will have to make way for thousands of tulips this sping.  This early riser hints that the Edible Garden will be flooded in dark pink during Atlanta Blooms!

Garden Lights, Holiday Nights

It's hard to believe that the photos below were taken in the same Edible Garden bursting with okra, eggplant, and tomatoes this summer!  The current stars of the garden are whimsical flowers and beneficial insects of energy-efficient LED lights sure to turn on your holiday spirit. 

Photo courtesy of Joey Ivansco.

Photo courtesy of Joey Ivansco.

Photo courtesy of Joey Ivansco.

The show extends far beyond the Edible Garden and far beyond anything you've seen before.  Mark your calendars to visit the Atlanta Botanical Garden before January 7.

Photo courtesy of Joey Ivansco.

You can find all of the details here.

Irish Stewed Apples with Blackberries

There’s a tree in the Edible Garden, often overlooked until late summer and into the fall when it’s laden with Arkansas Black apples. One of the darkest cultivars, the Arkansas Black apple is a keeper - lasting up to six months in storage.

Some found these apples to be too firm. Garden Chef Megan McCarthy decided they would be perfect for stewing.

Need a quick, last minute dessert? Heat up some blackberries or frozen mixed berries while you stew the apples. Spoon both over vanilla ice cream and enjoy!

Irish Stewed Apples with Blackberries

4-6 tart apples, peeled, cored and chopped
water, to cover
½ cup evaporated cane sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup fresh or frozen blackberries
2 T water
2 T evaporated cane sugar
fresh mint, for garnish

In medium saucepan, combine apples, water and cane sugar. Bring apples to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Add cinnamon and stir. Remove stewed apples from heat and let cool slightly.

In sauté pan, add water to blackberries and cane sugar. Cook over low heat until blackberries become tender and juicy.

Serve warm stewed apples over favorite vanilla frozen dessert and top with blackberry sauce. Garnish with fresh mint leaves.

Discover more Garden Chef recipes here.

Grilled Sweet Potatoes with Cilantro Vinaigrette

The most popular question visitors asked Garden Chef Megan McCarthy on the weekend of October 9 was: Is a yam the same thing as a sweet potato?

Answer: No. They are from different families. The sweet potato is from the Morning Glory family and originally hails from Central America. The true yam is the tuber of a tropical vine and originally hails from Africa.

There are two dominant types of sweet potato: one has a thin, light yellow skin with pale yellow flesh which is not sweet and has a dry texture, similar to a white baking potato; the other has darker, orange to reddish skin (often called "yam" in error) with a vivid orange, sweet flesh and a moist texture. There are over 200 different varietals of sweet potato in the world. In this recipe, Garden Chef Megan uses four varietals (including ‘Porto Rico’ and ‘Nancy Hall’ from the Edible Garden) for an assortment of color, texture, and taste.

Keep the skins on to maximize the nutritional value of this recipe; however, choose organic potatoes when possible. Potatoes do absorb many pesticides from the ground, and most toxins will end up in the skins of a potato.

Chef Megan grills the parboiled potatoes to finish the flavor and add those lovely grill marks. Married with the Cilantro Vinaigrette, the end result is a mouthwatering combination of tangy and sweet. Pair this delightful side dish with steak or fish. You won’t be able to stop saying, “Just one more.”

Grilled Sweet Potatoes with Cilantro Vinaigrette

4 medium sweet potatoes
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Wash and wedge cut sweet potatoes lengthwise, leaving skins on. In large pot, cover sweet potatoes with cold, salted water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes until potatoes are softened. Drain and rinse with cold water. Lightly coat grill or grill pan with cooking spray and heat to medium-high. Arrange sweet potato wedges on grill pan and cook until grill lines appear before turning on next side of wedge.

Whisk together lime juice, salt, and pepper and slowly add olive oil. Stir in cilantro and season to taste. Arrange grilled sweet potatoes on platter and drizzle with cilantro vinaigrette to serve.

Discover more Garden Chef recipes here.

Vegan Sweet Potato Soup

The great thing about cooking in the Edible Garden Outdoor Kitchen is that you are never at a loss for fresh herbs. Above, a volunteer harvests some thyme for the soup from the Herb Wall.

This delicious, vegan soup lets coconut milk act as a flavorful substitute for heavy cream. The curry powder will not only fill your home with a delicious aroma, but it will add a nice, yellow color to the soup, prompting your dinner guests to go “Mmmm!” long before they lift their spoons.

Garden Chef Christina Curry recommends using a teaspoon as a tool to peel the fresh ginger. With a little scraping, the skin will come right off. Go ahead and throw whole sprigs of thyme in the soup. Some of the leaves will fall off while the soup simmers; you can remove the rest with tongs before you blend.

Sweet potatoes were a staple crop for homesteaders and farmers in Georgia before home freezers, imported produce, and supermarkets. Before the advent of modern medicine, doctors “prescribed” them to combat malnutrition in children because of their high Vitamin C content as well as Vitamin A, iron and thiamine. Sweet potatoes are one of the most nutritious foods you can find. Enjoy!

Vegan Sweet Potato Soup

serves 6

3 T olive oil
1 lb sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 small apple, peeled and diced
1 small yellow onion, diced
3 T ginger, minced
1 T curry powder
3 sprigs fresh thyme
4 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup coconut milk
2 T maple syrup
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium high heat. Add the sweet potato, apple, onion, ginger and curry powder. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for five minutes, stirring continuously. Add the thyme and vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes. Remove the thyme sprigs. Using an immersion blender or food processor, puree the soup until smooth. Finish the soup by stirring in the coconut milk, maple syrup and seasoning with salt and pepper.

Discover more Garden Chef recipes here.

Aspiring chefs and sisters pose with Garden Chef Christina Curry.

Israeli Couscous, Sweet Potato & Apple Salad

On the last weekend in September, when the leaves in Atlanta were beginning to turn, Garden Chef Christina Curry brought our visitors a much anticipated taste of fall with this salad that calls for maple syrup, dried cranberries, and sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes grow very well in Georgia. They are extremely sensitive to frost and need warm, moist weather. They have a long growing season (about 150 days). In the Edible Garden, Sweet Potato ‘Porto Rico’ plants grew beside tomatoes all summer long. Plant them four weeks after the average date of last frost or when the soil is thoroughly warm. Sweet potatoes are planted from rooted sprouts, or slips, taken from a mature root.

There are a few ways to break down the fibers in raw vegetables to make them more palatable: 1. cooking; 2. using chemicals (such as lime juice); 3. grating. You don’t have to cook the potatoes for this recipe; you simply have to grate them.

Israeli Couscous, or pearled couscous, is more like pasta than rice. Rather than covering it with boiling water and leaving it to sit (covered), one should cook it like pasta, on the stove, for about seven minutes.

The flat-leaf parsley in the recipe, delicious this time of year, adds a taste of freshness, while the zest helps to bring the different flavors together. The result is a pleasantly moist, sweet salad that works well as a side dish or, if you have a sweet tooth, a scrumptious mid-afternoon snack.

Israeli Couscous, Sweet Potato & Apple Salad

2 cups cooked Israeli couscous
1 cup sweet potato, grated
1/2 cup apple, grated
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup dried cranberries
2 T thyme leaves
2 T Italian parsley, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 T maple syrup
1 T orange zest
1 T lemon zest
salt & pepper, to taste

In a bowl, gently combine couscous, sweet potato, apple, raisins, dried cranberries, thyme and parsley. Add the olive oil, cider vinegar, maple syrup, orange zest, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Mix well and allow the salad to marinate for 15 minutes before serving.

Don’t have any dried cranberries in your pantry, but have dried apricots instead? Want to use different herbs? Experiment with whatever you have on hand. All of Garden Chef Christina’s recipes should be considered “open to interpretation.” The one thing she does recommend sticking with is pure maple syrup - the really good stuff!

Discover more Garden Chef recipes here.

Apple & Napa Cabbage Slaw with Sage

Word of the day: espaliered. A tree that is trained to grow against a wall, or on a flat plane, is called an espaliered tree. We’ve demonstrated this in the Edible Garden. Why do we do this? Because we’re in a city, space is limited, and espaliered trees are an attractive garden element.

The Liberty Apple is resistant to cedar-apple rust, apple scab, powdery mildew, and fire blight, all of which make apple growing difficult. The red-over-green apples ripen in early September. They were a little tart for Garden Chef Christina Curry’s recipe. A sweet apple, like the Fuji apple, would work well in this recipe. If the apples in your kitchen are tart, do what Chef Christina did on the day of the cooking demo: add some agave nectar to the recipe to sweeten it up.

This recipe is a marinated version of coleslaw. In other words, it does not use mayonnaise. Chef Christina recommends replacing mayonnaise with a combination of olive oil, vinegar, and honey. Fresh sage from the Edible Garden will also boost the flavor.

In this demo, Chef Christina used a Japanese Mandolin to julienne the apples. The Napa or Chinese cabbage in the recipe can usually be found in the store next to the bok choy.

Apple & Napa Cabbage Slaw with Sage

2 apples
juice of one lemon
1 small head Napa cabbage
1/2 small red onion
2 T sage, chopped
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 T infused white balsamic*
honey or agave nectar, to taste, optional
kosher salt & cracked black pepper, to taste

Use a mandolin, or hand chop, to julienne the apples. Squeeze the lemon juice over the apples to prevent browning. Julienne the Napa cabbage and red onion. In a large bowl, combine apples, cabbage, red onion and sage. Drizzle with the olive oil and vinegar and toss gently. If apples are tart, add a little honey or agave nectar to taste. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve as a side or to compliment to your favorite fish or pork dish.

* Choose any flavor of white balsamic that you enjoy

Explore more Garden Chef recipes here.