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!

Surprises of Fall

Fall came so quickly this year.  Today is the first day of fall, but we have had fall weather for the past several weeks.  Spending entire days every week interacting with the earth and plants has made me notice the season's changes much more acutely this year.  Here are the things I've noticed most as the weather has changed:

• The bees and wasps are already gone.  The flowers are still going strong, but that cloud of buzzing has disappeared.  There are still a few slow bumblebees here and there. 
• The spiders are out in force.  Many blooms have their own resident flower spider, and there are lots of webs strung up between the plants.  We had the biggest garden spider I've ever seen in the hoop house. 
  

  

  Garden Spider Source
  

• It feels strange to eat cherry tomatoes when it's cool and cloudy.  The tomatoes taste the same, it's just not as heavenly to pop them in my mouth when I walk by the tomatoes.  Now I want to nibble the turnip leaves.
• The smell of tomatoes rotting in the field is almost intoxicating.  It's difficult to describe why this is so wonderful, but there's a toasty, dusty, cheesy, roasted tomato smell all around the tomato rows from the unusable tomatoes that makes my head spin.  Rotting squash smell great in the field too.  Don't try this at home - it doesn't work without sunshine and dirt.
• The crops are all different now.  Instead of tomatoes, squash and melons, we have turnips (the best vegetable), chard and beets.  It happened so fast.
• The weeds have slowed down a lot, thank goodness.  Even though I can see the scattered crab grass seeds everywhere, and I know what's ahead for next summer, the pressure's backed off a bit for now.
• It's easy to get a LOT done now that it's not 100 degrees.  In the extreme heat, work slows down due to the body's physiological constraints.  These crisp, cool days mean that I can work fast and easily, and everything feels good.
• I only go fill my water bottle once or twice a day now, instead of four or five times.
• Ironically, the work is starting to taper off even as our capacity to do it increases.  Since fewer crops grow during the winter, a lot of the fields are lying fallow, and we have planted cover crops.  Here is the melon field, all disked in and planted with a mixture of vetch, radish and rye for the winter:

  

  This field is done for the year.
  

• The farm is looking more neat and tidy.  With things growing more slowly, there is time to organize and clean up.  June and July felt like a race to keep up with the creeping jungle of crops and weeds, and now it feels like we are getting ahead.

I only have one or two more days to work on the farm, then I'm moving to the heart of Chicago for a while.  I expect the contrast to be a little jarring.  I'll be reporting on what biological phenomena I observe in the city.  In the mean time, I'm savoring the last few hours of fresh air, big skies and working on the earth here in Middle Tennessee. 

Zombie Worms From Planet Sphinx

This time of year, when you're harvesting tomatoes, you often notice part of the plant where the leaves seem to be missing and all that's left are stubby stems.  This is not a deformed tomato plant.  Look closely and you will see a stem that seems to be especially thick and stubby like so: 

Tobacco Horn Worm (Source)

The gigantic worm above is a tobacco horn worm.  It is a positively ravenous caterpillar that literally stuffs itself with tomato or tobacco leaves.  If you touch one, it seems to be so full that its skin feels like a grape leaf around a dolma.  It eats so much of the tomato plant that it can reduce tomato productivity dramatically.  Farmers dislike these caterpillars, but I bet most of them also admire the strangeness of these creatures. 

Tobacco horn worms grow from tiny eggs deposited on tomato plants by the Carolina sphinx moth, a gorgeous night creature that moves and hovers like a hummingbird.  It has a coiled proboscis that it uses to probe nectar from night-blooming flowers trumpet-shaped flowers.  Here is a sphinx moth feeding on an azalea:

Sphinx moth feeding.  (Source)

 Sometimes when you see a tobacco horn worm, it will appear to be covered with dozens of white, ovoid bead-like objects.  When you see this, you know the horn worm is one of the walking dead.  The white things are the pupal cases of a type of braconid wasp, which lays its eggs under the skin of the horn worm.  The eggs hatch inside the horn worm and eat the worm from the inside out.  The larvae begin to burst out of their horn worm and weave little white cases with lids around themselves.  In a few days, they will emerge as adult wasps, and the horn worm will expire as a shrunken husk of itself.  The adult wasps will go on to infect and kill other horn worms.  Braconid wasps are friends of the farmer because they help do the work of dispensing with horn worms.  Anytime a farmer sees an infected horn worm, she lets it be so that more wasps will hatch.  Farmers can even order braconid wasps in the mail to release on their farms.  Here is an infected horn worm:

I know it's hard to see, but there is a parasitised tobacco horn worm in the middle of the picture.  I'll bring a better camera to work tomorrow.

 Here are some better pictures I didn't take from this website:

A good picture of an infected hornworm.

An adult braconid wasp spreading its wings for the first time.

Abundance

It's been a wonderful year for produce.  Every crop seems to be generous this year, except the poor green beans that were infested with Mexican bean beetles.  The tomatoes are exploding (figuratively, as well as literally, since some are rotting on the vine).  The flowers are lush and bright.  The squash are growing so fast it's hard to keep up with them.  We've had good weather and adequate water, and the plants are doing exactly what they do best.

Most of a bushel of tomatoes before they were turned into sauce.

Abundance brings the exquisite dilemma of what to do with too much food.  I've accepted the challenge of helping to preserve the amazing overflow of tomatoes we have in Middle Tennessee this year.  We've been eating all the extra tomatoes I get from the farm, mostly as tomato peach salad, which is the single most delicious food item I have ever experienced (thanks to the farm owner for this idea!).  I also rescued about a gallon of split sungold cherry tomatoes last week and dried them in my food dehydrator, resulting in hundreds of little sweet/tart tomato bombs for my salads and pizzas.

The best use of the tomato abundance has been my tomato sauce.  For this, I bought tomatoes from the farmer's market, as we don't have quite enough rescues from the farm to make all the sauce I want.  I've processed and canned bushels of tomatoes, and I have it down to a fairly streamlined and straightforward process.  Still, you'll need about 2.5-3 hours from start to go from tomatoes to sterile jars of sauce.

A pint of liquid summer.

Here's how to do it:

1. Wash your jars in the dishwasher, with hot water.  Right before using them, dip brand new lids and any old (or new) bands in almost boiling water to reduce bacteria.  Lids can't be reused!
2. Make the sauce (see below) and keep it hot.
3. Add 1/4 teaspoon of citric acid to each pint jar or  1/2 teaspoon to each quart jar.  This reduces acidity in the jars so they are less likely to spoil.
4. Boil water in a giant pot.  Boil enough that the water will be 1" over the tops of the jars after you put them in.  This is a little tricky the first time, but you'll get the hang of it.  You can always boil a little more in the microwave and add it to the pot if you don't boil enough.
5. Fill jars leaving 1/2" of space at the top of the jar, wipe off any mess at the tops of the jars, and close the lids on them just to finger tight.
6. Immerse the sealed jars in boiling water (covered by 1" of water) for 35 minutes for pints and 40 minutes for quarts.  Start timing when the water returns to a boil after adding the jars to the water.
7. Set the jars on a counter over night to cool without disturbing them.  They make cute little pinging noises as they cool.
8. Write the date on the lid (it can't be used again, so just go ahead and write it), and put it in the cabinet for later. 
9. This sauce works great on pizzas, pastas, lasagnas, eggplant parmesan or anything of that sort.

Now for the recipe.......

Since you're using citric acid, there's a little leeway on proportions of ingredients, but you don't want to use much besides tomatoes.  Tomatoes are acidic, and acid helps preserve the sauce, so you don't want to dilute the acid too much.  Just multiply the ingredients to match the amount of tomatoes you have.  I actually usually use more tomatoes than the recipe calls for - it's flexible as long as you don't use less tomatoes.

Tomato Sauce
2 T olive oil
1/2 onion
1 small carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
2 T fresh parsley
1 clove garlic, pressed
2 T fresh basil
12 medium tomatoes
1 t tomato paste
salt and pepper

1. Wash the tomatoes, and only use the ones in good shape.  Cut out the stem area and slice the tomatoes in half across the middle horizontally.  Squeeze out the liquid and many of the seeds by squeezing each half of the tomatoes.  Save hours by not peeling them.  It's totally not necessary, dude.
2. Heat the olive oil in a big pot, and add the onion, carrot, celery and parsley.  Saute a bit, then cover and heat on low for 15-20 minutes, stirring from time to time.
3. Add the garlic and increase heat to medium.  Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, salt and pepper, and heat to boiling.  Use scissors to chop up the tomatoes into smaller chunks - right in the pot!  This is really fun.
4. Simmer uncovered until thick.  Use an immersion blender to make the sauce fairly smooth.  Can the sauce while it's still boiling according to the directions above.


It's a very straightforward process, and this is a great one to try for new or experienced canners.  If you follow my instructions exactly, it's hard to go wrong.  If you deviate from the instructions, it is important that you take precautions because improperly canned food can be deadly.  You have two options:  (1) freeze the sauce, or (2) do more research on the Internet to see if your deviations from canning protocol are acceptable.  I encourage you to try it - you'll be really glad to have the taste of real tomatoes in January.

Tomato Hands

The strangest thing happens when you harvest tomatoes for hours:

Tomato hands!

That black stuff is called tomato tar, and it builds up on your hands as you handle the green parts of tomato plants.  It's thick and a little sticky, and some patches where it's especially thick have a greenish hue.  When you try to wash your hands, it turns the water yellow!  It also takes about 5 serious washes to get it off of your hands.

Matt's Wild variety of cherry tomato, and some tomato-y hands.

It turns out that tomato tar is the same wonderful compound that makes a tomato plant smell like a tomato plant.  It is an oily secretion produced by hair-like structures called trichomes.  Here are some trichomes sticking out of the rachis (stem) of this tomato leaf:

Trichomes and proof that my hands eventually got clean.

Under a scanning electron microscope, you can see that about half of tomato trichomes have a swollen structure filled with a yellowish secretion.  This link connects to an image taken by a molecular biologist named Anthony Shilmiller whose entire career is studying tomato trichomes.  In fact, he's part of a team of scientists who study tomato trichomes!  The Solanum Trichome Project studies the structure, genetics and chemistry of tomato trichomes, and they can be found here.

Now before you call your congressman about how much money is wasted on paying multiple scientists to study tomato hairs, please read a little further.  Glandular trichomes of tomatoes can produce a variety of substances, depending on the genetics of the plant.  Those substances can influence flavor, deter insects, prevent plant disease, and smell incredible (or terrible, as the case may be).  Since the total value of the 1997 US tomato crop was $1,246,843,000,(source), and the value of tomato crops depends on flavor, insects and disease, you start to get a sense of the value in being able to use tomato trichomes to one's advantage.


Most plants have trichomes.  Aromatic herbs like mint often produce their wonderful-smelling oils in glandular trichomes.  Trichomes can also be hair shaped without a gland.  These can help leaves shed or retain water or deter insects.  Trichome shapes can vary widely.  In fact, as a last resort, many leaves can be identified by their trichomes.


Tomato trichomes have another use that we can take advantage of.  If you place a leaf or three in broth or stew or anything you want to taste like tomato, you can enjoy a very intense tomato flavor.  Just add the leaf as you simmer and remove it before you eat - like a bay leaf.  The trichomes burst and release their oils into your broth as it simmers. 

Nightshades: Deadly and Delicious

This week on the farm, I harvested tomatoes, specifically orange cherry tomatoes.  We are just tipping over the edge of the top of the tomato waterfall on the farm.  Soon we'll be picking bucket after delicious bucket in a rush to keep up.

The orange cherry tomato fruits look remarkably like the fruits of one of our most poisonous local weeds, the horse nettle.  I can attest, from eating several tomatoes as I harvested, that the cherry tomatoes are delicious and non-toxic.  Here are pictures of both fruits:

Orange Cherry Tomatoes, picture source.

Horse Nettle Berries, picture source.

These two plants are actually close relatives on the evolutionary tree.  They are both in the plant family called the Nightshades, or more scientifically, the Solanaceae.  They don't belong to the same genus, (Lycopersicon esculentum for tomatoes, and Solanum carolinense for the horse nettle), but they have a surprising number of traits in common.  All members of the Solanaceae have flowers with 4-5 petals, alternate leaves, radially symmetrical flowers, and fruits that are technically berries or capsules. Both of our featured plants today have flowers with 5 petals that radiate our like little stars.  Tomato flower petals are usually yellow, whereas horse nettle flowers are light purple, but otherwise the flowers are nearly identical.  They both have fruits that are berries, meaning they are produced from one ovary and have a fleshy interior.  (As you might suspect, the botanical term berry is different than the grocery store term.  Strawberries and raspberries are not berries, watermelons and bananas are.  Don't worry about it.)  Cherry tomato and horse nettle berries are virtually identical inside and out, at least upon visual inspection.  Our two plants also have similar leaves and similar overall growth forms.

Tomato flowers, source.

Horse nettle flowers, source.

These two plants reenact the history of the Solanaceae as it affects humans - the question of whether a nightshade will nourish or kill.  The Solanaceae has no doubt been responsible for many of both outcomes.  It is a major plant family, with many species of major importance to humans.  The list of nourishing nightshades is impressive: tomatoes, garden peppers and hot peppers, potatoes, eggplants, tomatillo and more.  The poisonous nightshades include tobacco, potato (the greed parts), Jimson weed, belladonna (also called deadly nightshade), and mandrake. 

Considerable prejudice against the Solanaceae built up in Europe, as most native nightshades are highly toxic.  Our edible nightshades originated mostly in the New World.  As tempting as it is to think of tomatoes as Italian and potatoes as Irish, these plants were imports to Europe after they were 'discovered' by European explorers.  At first, Europeans were hesitant to eat the imported nightshades, but soon they incorporated them seamlessly into their cuisine.  Remnants of nightshade phobia exist today, with some people avoiding them altogether.  It is possible to be allergic to nightshades, which makes navigation of modern American cuisine very difficult - no French fries, no tomatoes, no hot sauce!

Toxic nightshades have a rainbow of alkaloids.  Mandrakes and Jimson weed are grimly hallucinogenic in smaller doses and toxic in larger doses.  Tobacco is addictive and stimulant, and the number one killer in the United States.  Belladonna is likely the most acutely toxic plant of the Western Hemisphere, with only a few of the sweet-tasting berries necessary to kill a person.  It has been used to make poison-tipped arrows.  The alkaloids in these poisonous plants can be useful to medicine.  For example, atropine, discovered in belladonna, is used to make the substance that dilates eyes in eye exams, to speed up the heart, and to counteract some pesticide poisonings.