Three Sisters Molé Enchiladas with Blackberry Salsa

This is a special cooking edition of my blog.  Don't panic - cooking is nothing more than applied Biology (and Chemistry and Physics and Math and Art...), so there are some way interesting biological phenomena to write about here.  One of my cooking heroes, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, has issued a cooking challenge, and I took the bait.  Isa Chandra is the author of several vegan cookbooks, including Appetite for Reduction, the most useful and well-thought-out cookbook I've ever used.  The challenge is to cook a vegan entrée in under 40 minutes using black-eyed peas, bittersweet chocolate, mint and blackberries.  The recipe must be published on the internet, and there are prizes and fame/fortune involved.  I'll report back about the results of the contest!

Here is a picture of my invention, Three Sisters Molé Enchiladas with Blackberry Salsa: 

Three Sisters Molé Enchiladas with Blackberry Salsa

The contest ingredients got me thinking about agricultural centers of origin.  Agriculture started in many concentrated locations (centers of origin) throughout the world, and cuisines arose based on what crops were domesticated from the species growing in the area, with foreign ingredients added in to the extent that cultures traveled and mixed.  See if you can match the crops with the center of origin here based on what you know about modern international cuisines.  Answers are below the table.

Center of Origin	Crop
1. China	a. wheat, oats, fig, pomegranate
2. India	b. maize, beans, tomato, potato, pumpkins
3. Ethiopia	c. wheat, barley, sorghum, okra, coffee
4. South America	d. wheat, rape (canola), peas, lettuce, asparagus
5. Mediterranean	e. rice, chickpea, eggplant, tangerine
6. Middle East	f. millet, soybean, cabbage, radish, apple

Answers: 1f, 2e, 3c, 4b, 5d, 6a

Since two of the challenge ingredients (chocolate and blackberries) originate from the New World, and beans are mostly a New World crop (though black eyed peas originated in Africa), I decided to mine this vein and emphasize New World crops.  I ended up with enchiladas based on the agricultural icons, the three sisters: beans, corn and squash.  I also used tomatoes, peppers, onions, blackberries, chocolate and sunflower seeds in the recipe.  If only I could have figured out how to add cranberries, potatoes and sweet potatoes, I would have hit all the biggest crops to have originated from the New World.  Ingredients from elsewhere in the world include cumin, cilantro, oregano, wheat, cucumbers and lemon.  Isn't it strange that cumin, cilantro and cucumbers, ingredients that are indispensable to Tex-Mex cuisine, were imported to the Americas?  And that tomatoes were not an original part of Italian cuisine but were brought to Europe from Central America? 

So who are these sisters, and what are they doing in a vegan recipe?  The three sisters are staple crops grown together as companion plants by several groups of Native Americans.  The seeds of beans, corn and squash are planted in a group on a mound.  The corn grows tall and straight, providing both food for people and a pole for the beans to climb.  The squash stays low to the ground and keeps the soil cooler and moist by shading it around the base of all three plants.  It also has prickly leaves, deterring some potential pests.  The beans stalks climb the corn, lifting their fruits off the ground and taking advantage of light above the squash leaves.  At the same time, the bean roots enrich the soil with nitrogen for all three plants.  The three sisters produce more food when grown together than any of the plants grown separately.  In addition, the beans and corn provide complete protein from vegetarian sources for their human cultivators.

The recipe is below, if you'd like to make this meal-with-a-story.  It turned out to be delicious, and it's a low-calorie and low-fat meal as well.  The first time you make these, you'll need to be a Zen kitchen master to get everything done in less than 40 minutes: banish the pets and kids, turn off the radio, stand up straight, elbows in, breathe into your abdomen.  You can do it.  It's quick and easy the second time through, since all the components are actually very simple once you know how they go.  I've found this to be the case with any new recipe I make - there's always a learning curve.  You can also prepare the salsa a day ahead and let it sit in the fridge to develop its flavors, but that would violate the 40 minutes thing.

Three Sisters Molé Enchiladas with Blackberry Salsa

Three Sisters Molé Enchiladas with Blackberry Salsa
* Ingredients with asterisks evolved and were domesticated in the New World
Serves 6, at approximately 450 calories per serving, depending on your corn tortillas

Molé Enchilada Sauce Ingredients
1 T sunflower oil*
1 T whole wheat flour
2 T chili powder*
1 t cumin
2 c vegetable broth
1 small can tomato paste*
2 t fresh oregano, minced (1 t dried)
2 oz vegan bittersweet chocolate*
1/2 t salt


Enchilada Ingredients
1 t sunflower oil*
1 large onion, chopped (reserve 2 T for salsa)*
1 medium zucchini, chopped*
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalepeno, diced*
1 t cumin
1 15 oz. can black eyed peas, drained and rinsed (*most beans originate from South America, but not black eyed peas)
1 15 oz can hominy, drained and rinsed* (you could substitute sweet corn if you prefer, but add it with the zucchini while cooking)
12 soft corn tortillas
2 T roasted, salted, shelled sunflower seeds*

Salsa Ingredients
2 T chopped onion (from above)*
Juice of one lemon
1 t olive oil (ok, you could use sunflower, but olive oil is yummy in salsa)
2 cucumbers, chopped (peel if you like)
1/4 c chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 c chopped fresh mint
1/2 t cumin
1/4 t cayenne*
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup blackberries*

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Make the enchilada sauce:  In a medium saucepan heat the oil on medium, add the flour and stir until toasty (30 seconds), stir in chili powder and cumin for 30 seconds, stir in broth, add all other ingredients.  Bring to a boil, reduce temperature and simmer 5 minutes, stirring often.

3. Make the enchiladas:

• In a large sauté pan on medium heat, sauté the onions in the oil until they start to soften, add the zucchini, garlic, jalepeno and cumin and continue to sauté until the zucchini starts to soften.  Stir in the black eyed peas and hominy and allow to heat up. 
• Dunk the tortillas in the enchilada sauce and wrap a large spoonful of filling in each tortilla.  Careful - everything should be hot at this point - don't burn yourself.  Line up the tortillas in a large glass baking dish.  Pour the enchilada sauce over the enchiladas and sprinkle sunflower seeds on the top.  
• Bake for 10-15 minutes uncovered, until the edges of the tortillas start to brown and the sauce is bubbling.

4. Make the salsa while the enchiladas bake: Combine all ingredients except blackberries in a dish and stir well.  Gently stir in the blackberries.

5. Serve enchiladas topped with a spoonful of salsa.



I owe a big thanks to my friend, Jenny, a vegan food aficionado, for the idea to make enchiladas.  Thanks also to my friends for being guinea pigs: Bruce, Coke and Linda, your bravery and enthusiasm are inspiring!

Caught in a Web of Suberin

It's melon season.  We're searching through the melon fields to collect the ripe ones on the farm right now.  Testing for ripeness is an art, and it varies for each type of melon.  The cantaloupes are perfectly ripe when the stem easily peels off the top of the fruit.  We farmers refer to this as 'full slip', as in, "That melon's ready to go - it's full slip."  The reason melons from our farm (and, to be fair, other local farms) taste infinitely superior to supermarket melons is that mass-market melons are harvested at half-slip or even earlier, so the fruit flesh doesn't mature into as complicated of a combination of sweet and aromatic notes.  In addition, supermarket melons are treated with a compound to prevent their rinds from molding.  Unfortunately this treatment also prevents the melons from smelling like melons.  Go buy a melon from the farmer's market or your local organic farmer (my favorite is here: Fresh Harvest Cooperative).  Even if you hated canteloupe as a kid, like I did, you will not be able to stop eating a delicious local ripe cantelouple. 

The farm I'm working on grows a variety of melons.  Here is what I harvested one day this week:

Genetic diversity in melons on our farm.

The picture above contains two varieties of watermelons, cantaloupes, an heirloom variety of cantaloupes, and honeydews.  All the types of melons above except the watermelons are types of muskmelons.  Muskmelons are tropical melons originating from Africa or the Near East.  They require a long warm growing season.  They are in the same plant family (Cucurbitaceae) as squash and cucumbers, so they have to deal with squash bugs, too. 

Have you ever noticed the netting on the rind of cantaloupes?  If not, take a look at the cantaloupe below.  If you did notice the netting, did you ever wonder what it was doing there?  Not me, but when I started reading about cantaloupes for this post, I found out the most fascinating thing about that netting.

Netting on cantaloupe rind.

The netting on cantaloupe rind is made of a substance called suberin.  Suberin is a fantastic molecule produced by many plants.  It is waxy and waterproof.  On the cantaloupe rind, anywhere the rind cracks as it grows, the cracks are quickly filled in with suberin.  The suberin helps keep the juiciness in and the moldiness out.  It's basically very much like a scab on our skin, but not gross.  Fortunately for me, but not for the farm owner, suberin fails on occasion and a crack becomes too large to grow a suberin scab.  These cracked melons cannot be sold, but they are fine to eat as long as they don't get moldy and aren't inhabited by an ant colony.   I've been stuffing myself with melon culls for two weeks now.

But back to suberins.  You may already know suberins from their most famous location.  Cork is pretty much solid suberin.  Cork is the almost-outmost layer of bark of the cork oak (Quercus suber).  It provides waterproofing for the cork oak, enabling the cork oak to survive in the very dry areas around the Mediterranean Sea.  It provides the same function when humans peel it from those trees, cut it into cylinders and cram it into wine bottles. 

You will probably be surprised to learn that roots of almost all plants contain microscopic layers of suberin under their surfaces.   This seems ludicrous at first, since roots are supposed to absorb water. You'd think the last thing a plant would want is a layer of waterproofing around their roots.  In roots, suberin helps the plant regulate what can get into the plant.  There are doors and windows in the suberin layer, and those openings let in water plus the minerals the plant needs.  The openings keep out anything the plant doesn't need, such as too much salt, harmful bacteria or lots of other things that could be dissolved in groundwater.  Mangrove roots are highly suberized to keep out the salt of the ocean water in which they grow.

 Suberins are actually a group of complicated molecules.  All suberins have a similar structure, but they can vary slightly in their components.  Suberins are long polymers of smaller molecules, arranged variously but allowing crosslinks.  These molecules have a lot in common with oils, which makes them hydrophobic and water-repellent.  A little-known fact about suberins is that they have their own facebook page. 

Many varieties of melons don't have suberin netting, including most honeydew melons.  Their rind is smooth and net-free. The lack of suberin is not due to an inability to make suberin or an absence of the gene for suberin.  In melons lacking netting do not express the gene for suberin in their rinds.  The difference between netted and non-netted melons is a genetic difference, but not in what the DNA says.  The difference is in how the DNA is read.  Imagine the DNA for melons as a book.  If you read the pages in a different order, you get a different story.  For honeydews, the suberin chapter is skipped over altogether, except in the root cells.  (Source)  I don't know why honeydew melons don't have cracks on them.  Their rind must be able to expand around the fruit without cracking. 

I'll leave you with this picture of last week's melon harvest. 

Nice melons!  Ready for the market.

Squishing the Squash Bugs

See those dots?  They're the little bronze balls at the center of the squash leaf in the picture below.  These are newly-deposited eggs of the gross squash bug. 

Squash bug eggs

 Squash bugs are attacking the zephyr squashes on the farm.  Zephyr squashes are green and yellow zucchini-like squashes.  They are very generous plants, and we have to collect them every two days while they are in season, or we'd be buried in giant squashes.

Yellow squash, zephyr variety

 Squash bugs belong to the insect order Hemiptera.  Stink bugs, aphids, cicadas and assassin bugs are also Hemipterans.  Hemipterans have piercing, sucking mouth parts (think sharp straws), only one pair of wings, and commonly have a shield-shaped patch on their backs.  They usually eat like kids consume drink boxes:  poke in the proboscis and suck out the liquid.  Most Hemipterans eat plant sap, but a few (like assassin bugs and toe-biters) specialize on blood or insect juices.  Technically, Hemipterans are the only bugs that can be called bugs.  They are the "true bugs" of the insect world.  All other bugs are just insects.

Squash bugs drink squash juice, which can be found inside squash plant leaves, stems and fruits.  They are voracious, and they can suck out so much squash sap that the leaves can wilt and smaller plants can just wither and die.  More commonly, they damage plants by walking through diseased portions of the plants and treading spores to other parts of the plant.  They also make little specks on zucchinis, acorn squash and other squashes, which reduces their retail value if not their food value.  In addition, they creep out their squash farmers.

Yes, there is a squash bug in the center of the picture

 Adult squash bugs are shy.  If you try to take a picture of one, they will constantly walk to the opposite side of the stem from where you are.  That is why the picture above is so lame.  They also congregate under dead leaves or other things on the ground.  One way to catch a lot of squash bugs is to set a board on the ground under an infested plant.  Then go back the next day and squish them all.  Or brush them into soapy water if you don't like squishing bugs.

Younger squash bugs are easier to find.  After they hatch, they hang out under squash leaves and gradually spread out over a few days.  I was 'lucky' enough to find this cluster of squash bug nymphs and get a picture before they scattered.  They are slower than adults, so they scatter slowly.  If you find a bunch of squash bug nymphs, you can brush them onto the ground and stomp them, or brush them into soapy water.

A billion little squash bug nymphs.

On the farm, we kill squash bugs if it doesn't slow us down from the rest of our work.  We also squish the eggs when we can.  Mostly we use timing to reduce the impact of the squash bugs.  Squash grow quickly, but squash bugs take almost a month to hatch and grow to fighting size.  By that time, the squash bugs are really cooking, the squash plants have been fruiting for a week or two.  Also, squashes grow so quickly, most of the squashes escape damage and can still be harvested.

Birds Do It, Bees Do It........Even Zucchinis Do It

I am the only person in the world who seems to have trouble growing zucchini.  They are notoriously generous in fruit, and you always here gardeners joke about being overwhelmed by their zucchini crops. There are even stories about gardeners secretly dropping of baskets of zucchinis at their neighbors' houses just to get rid of them.

I've gotten better at growing zucchini plants through the years, but still have little luck with the actual fruits.  (Yes, they're fruits, according to the botanical definition.  Any plant part that contains seeds is a fruit.  Don't worry - I call them vegetables when I'm cooking.)  My home garden has a lot of shade for a garden, and my first few years of planting zucchini in the shadier regions allowed the plants to be overcome by a dusty white mildew.  Any zucchinis would wither and rot before they grew two inches.  Now my plant is in the sunniest patch I have, and it's healthy, but my zucchinis are still withering prematurely.  Here is this year's zucchini plant, recovered from the hail damage:

After talking with the farm owner where I'm working this summer, we agreed it might be a pollination problem.  Pollination is how plants reproduce, and seeds and fruits are the offspring of plant reproduction.  Pollen, is the plant equivalent of sperm, and it must reach the botanical equivalent of eggs, called ovules, for seeds and fruits to develop.  There seem to be two possible pollination problems in my case:  maybe there aren't enough bees to pollinate the flowers; or maybe there must be two plants for successful pollination.

Option 1, not having enough bees, is a distinct possibility.  There aren't many bees in my neighborhood.  I do see bumble bees, but they tend to cluster out front where all my ornamental flowers are.  I have seen no honey bees this year, which I fear is due to colony collapse disorder - see a future post on this.  To remedy this problem, I could plant some bee-attracting plants near my zucchinis so there is more of a reason for the bees to fly all the way over there.  I could also start a honeybee hive in my back yard, which I will do some day if my neighbors aren't reading this blog.  Or, I could hand-pollinate the flowers when they open every morning, which is what I have been trying.

To hand-pollinate the flowers, you must understand a little about the reproductive organs of zucchini plants.  Flowers are always reproductive organs for plants, but each type of plant is a little different.  Zucchinis and all squash-type plants produce separate male and female flowers.  Most types of plants have male and female in the same flower, but some may have entirely separate male plants with only male flowers and also female plants.  Hollies have separate genders, which is why only some hollies grow berries - only females can grow fruits and only males can produce pollen.

On zucchinis, the female flowers grow out of what looks like tiny immature zucchinis.  This organ is the female flower's ovary, and it is filled with ovules.  The ovary will one day actually become a zucchini, and the ovules will become seeds after the flower is pollinated.  Notice the thick regions behind the female flowers below - they are ovaries.

Male flowers have a normal stalk, and inside the male flowers are pollen-producing organs called anthers.  Here is a male flower:

For pollination to occur, the pollen must be transferred to sticky pads, called stigmas, inside the female flower.  Each pollen grain then produces two actual sperm cells that burrow down through the flower to an ovule and fertilize it.  Many pollen grains are needed to fertilize all those ovules inside a zucchini ovary.  When the ovules are fertilized, the fruit begins to enlarge and grow into a mature zucchini with mature seeds.  If no pollen is transferred, or only a little is transferred, there is no signal to the plant to grow the fruit, and the ovary just withers and rots like mine have been doing. 

I have been hand-pollinating for a couple of days now, by touching my finger to the anthers in the male flowers and smearing the pollen on the female flowers.  I think it may have worked!  Here you see the stigmas inside of a female flower and what I think may grow into an actual zucchini:

Regarding the second possible pollination problem, I may have to plant two zucchini plants next year.  Since I only have one zucchini plant, the pollen I used came from the same parent plant as the flower I transferred it to.  Some plants don't mind reproducing with themselves, but zucchinis may be somewhat pickier.  The zucchini that seems to be growing could have been pollinated by pollen from a neighbors plant.

On the farm, the year they had a bee hive, the squashes were much more productive, since all their flowers were being pollinated.  It really makes you appreciate the bees more when they are not there to do that garden task for us.