Wordless Wednesday: In the Garden, Radishes

First Harvest in our garden was...

Rzodkiewki

(pronounced Zhohd-keyehv-key)

Radishes

Radishes are planted in our garden for their flavor in several summer dishes, as well as companion plants.

Plant radishes to deter cucumber beetles, cabbage worms, squash borers, squash bugs, slugs, flies and other pests.  With this in mind, radishes should be planted with cucumber, cabbage, beets, squash, melons, beans, peas and spinach.  Some suggest carrots as well, while others do not recommend this pairing.

Use radishes in the following recipes:

Farmer's Cheese Spread or Pasta Twarogowa

Kanapki

Chłodnik

There are many other recipes you can use radishes in, or you can enjoy them simply by slicing them thin and layering on good bread with butter and a pinch of salt like all the Slavs love to enjoy.

Polish Mama Nutrition:

Radishes are high in of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin C, Folate and Potassium.

Radishes are a good source of Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Calcium, Magnesium, Copper and and Manganese, as well as several trace minerals.

They are low in cholesterol, calories and fat, so are perfect for diets.

Read More about radish nutrition facts.



 

My seeds come from Dom itp.  This post is not sponsored by them but if you choose to follow the link or button to their site and purchase anything from them, I would receive commission and thank you.

 

 

Related Posts:

Word(y) Wednesday:  Our Polish American Garden

Word(y) Wednesday: Chicago Botanic Garden, European Plants

Word(y) Wednesday: Garden Inspiration, Cabbage and Violets

Chłodnik, A Cold Soup

Chłodnik (pronounced Hwod-nyeek) means along the lines of "cooler" or "thing that cools you". Chłodny means cool (temperature wise) and adding the k at the end (which means you change the y into an i) turns the meaning of the word into a soup that cools you.

Think Gazpacho but with Polish ingredients and flavor. 

Yesterday, the temperatures climbed up into the 80s.  This entire week should have temperatures in the 70s and 80s, so it's time to pull out refreshing and nutritious recipes that can cool us off and keep us fueled for playing outside, such as this soup.

Chłodnik is such a simple dish that apart from the beet, there is no cooking.  It's perfect for days when you don't want to heat up the house or yourself in order to feed your family.

Chłodnik is full of flavors that represent the Polish Kuchnia (pronounced KooH-nyah and meaning kitchen) and cooking style.

One interesting thing to point out with this soup is that there are many varieties of it, depending on each family's recipe. 

A great many make this soup using the beet greens as well, finely shredded and blanched for about 3 minutes. 


Additional Options:

• Serve this soup with a dollop of sour cream on top
• Make this soup with more buttermilk if you like
• Add a bit of lemon juice if you want a more sour flavor, but it's not necessary.
• Use up the remaining canned beets from the year before in your pantry while you wait for your baby beets to be ripe enough in your garden, local farmers market or grocery store.
• Add good Polish dill pickles
• Add raw finely diced garlic cloves
• Substitute Kefir for the Buttermilk

My two children lap this soup up every time.  I tell them it's Pink Polish princess soup.  My Tato loves this soup for really hot days.  My American husband also really enjoys this soup, even though he thought I shouldn't make it because nobody would eat it, before he ate a very large soup of it in the blink of an eye.

Ingredients:

1-3 fresh Baby Beets
1-2 Pickling Cucumbers
4 Radishes
1/2 cup finely chopped Chives
1/4 cup fresh Dill, finely chopped
1 cups Buttermilk
Salt and Pepper, to taste
3-4 Boiled Eggs, to garnish

Optional:
good Polish Dill Pickles
Kefir
Sour Cream
Garlic, finely diced
Lemon Juice



Remove tops.  If using in soup, wash well, finely shred in 1 inch strips.  Place in almost boiling water for about 3 minutes and immediately place in an ice bath.  Drain and set aside in the large bowl which you will use to serve in.

Scrub and peel the baby beets.  Place in pot, cover with water and cook.  Make sure not to actually boil the water but rather keep it at the point when it's about to bubble.  Cook until completely tender.  You can actually do this part ahead of time in the morning when the outside temperature still is cool.

Using a grater, or with a knife, coarsely shred the beets, cucumbers and radishes.

Add everything to a serving bowl and stir. 

Garnish with sliced boiled eggs and some dill or chives on top, if you like.

Smacznego!

Polish Mama Nutrition:

Cucumbers are full of electrolytes to help replenish lost moisture in the heat.

Cucumbers are usually about 20 degrees cooler on the inside than the outside temperature.

Beets are said to potentially help fight cancer, heal nerve damage in diabetics, aid in detoxifying the body, protect against heart disease, birth defects, etc.

Beets are loaded with fiber.

All of these items added together with the other ingredients means that you are fueling your body with lots of nutrients and helping your body stay healthy. A healthy body can regulate it's core temperature better in almost any weather than an unhealthy body.

Related Posts:

Polish Cold Carrot Salad

Polish Strawberry Bread

Polish Potato Salad

Polish Potato Salad is called one of several different names in Polish.  Why so many different names?  I'm not sure but they each are different yet similar.  But if you look for a recipe for any of the different names you will find a million variations for each name.

It can be called Sałatka Warzywna (Vegetable Salad), Sałatka Kartofli or Sałatka Ziemniaczana (two different ways to say Potato Salad), Sałatka Zydowska (Jewish Salad, although the ingredients don't seem particularly specific to Jewish food traditions), or several other different names.

I personally call it Sałatka Warzywna, or around my non Polish friends and family, Polish Potato Salad.

Polish cuisine includes many such recipes using bits and pieces in the kitchen to make different delicious sides and salads.

One rule I follow in making this salad is making sure that the potatoes in my salad are no more than 1/2 of the amount of vegetables. 



Ingredients:

2-3 Red or White Potatoes, skins scrubbed, boiled in jackets
1-3 Carrots, peeled and boiled
1-2 ribs of Celery
3-4 Dill Pickles
1/2 Sweet Onion
2 Sour Apples
1 can of Sweet Peas, drained
3 hard boiled Eggs, peeled
1/4 cup Mayonnaise (more, if desired)
1-2 tablespoons fresh chopped Dill
Salt and Pepper to taste

Optional: 
1/2 Leek
1/2 lb. diced Ham
Replace part or all of the Mayonnaise with Sour Cream or Plain Yogurt



Peel and dice the potatoes in 1/4 inch cubes.

Dice all other vegetables (except peas) to about the same size as the peas, smaller than the potatoes.

Mix all together. 

Garnish with another hard boiled egg, dill or parsley, if you like.

Serve with Polish Pickle Burgers or other cookout foods. 

Smacznego!




Polish Mama Nutrition: 

If you use celery in the salad, you typically do not need to season with salt, since celery naturally contains salt and yet, is much more healthy for you.  Also, digesting celery burns more calories than you take in from it, which is why it is often recommended in weight loss plans.
If you use Apples in the recipe, you don't need to season with sugar, as some recipes recommend. 

If you make sure that your proportion of vegetables is larger than the potatoes, you are taking in more fiber and nutrients per bite, as well as more flavor.

This recipe is a great way to hide vegetables from kids, helping you raise Future Foodies.




Related Posts:

Bean and Pickle Salad

Our Easter Table (We serve this salad every Easter)

Creamy Carrot Sauce

This is actually not a Polish dish.  This is a cooking experiment by a preparations-for-Thanksgiving-frazzled Polish Mama gone right.  Happily.


I tried to make a creamy sauce for Pork chops and noodles inspired by Carrots in Cream or Marchewka w Smietanie

It was very easy to make and snuck vegetables into the kids.  Well, I'm not sure it's sneaking when they see tiny bits of carrot in the sauce.  But they didn't even really think twice to try the sauce and loved it.

So, I'm sharing with you a, what I would call, Polish American twist for dinner.  Obiat!  As my toddler calls to everyone when she sees Mama start to plate up.



Ingredients:

2 tablespoons Butter or Sunflower Oil
5-6 Boneless Pork Chops, seasoned with Salt and Pepper on both sides
5-6 Carrots, washed, peeled
1/2 Sweet Onion, peeled, washed, diced
2 tablespoons Flour
1-2 tablespoons any combination of the following:  Curly Parsley, Marjoram, Dill
1 cube of instant Beef or Cicken bouillon *
1/4 cup dry white Wine
1 1/2 cup of Milk or Cream
Pepper to taste


Finely chop carrots or place in food processor.  Set aside.

Melt butter in large skillet and cook pork chops over medium heat for about 5 minutes.  Turn pork chops.

Add carrots and onions and cook for an additional 5 minutes or until pork chops are cooked through.

Set pork chops aside. 

In same skillet, add flour and herbs and stir together.  Add wine and milk.  Add pepper to taste.  Cook and stir until thickened. 

Return pork chops to sauce and cook a few minutes longer until the flour flavor is gone from the sauce.

You can mix in whole grain pasta to the sauce, if you like.

Forgive the hastily taken photo, Thanksgiving preparations are leaving us very busy...

Smacznego!





Notes:

*  Instead of Instant Bouillon cubes, you can use a 1/2 cup or so of broth and just add as much milk as you like, probably a bit less.




Related Posts:

Stuffed Pork Chops, One Way

Pork Chops in Sauerkraut or Schab w Kiszonej Kapuście

Polish Herbed Meatloaf or Klops Wolowy





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Getting Back Into Our Groove

It's been hard adjusting to living out here on the Prairie.  It's beautiful, but difficult.

I've been trying to keep an open mind and embrace a new experience and remind myself that uprooting myself and readjusting to new surroundings is in my blood, it's what I was born into.  But it has been hard.

There are just some things I am used to and won't compromise on because they are important to my parenting style. 

One of those things is a local farm.  Not just any kind, either.  We should be able to feed the animals, get to know some of the animals by name and allow the children to feel comfortable about them.  The farmer should be pleasant and a bit chatty (like me!), willing to show me what's fresh or new, talk about the harvest, recipes, etc. in front of the children so that this becomes a natural part of their vocabulary.

We should be able to go picking in the fields for more than the occasional pumpkin, strawberries and apples so that the children have a broad understanding of how their food is grown.  Also, I've learned through personal experience that children are more likely to eat vegetables they picked themselves.

And I shouldn't have to pay money to enter either, just for a pony ride or produce or whatever we should do to or purchase.

It should be a farm that won't take every dollar I have for fun for the whole week to enjoy and should be one that makes it easy for us to visit once or twice a week.

We had been missing Hubers Farm and Webers Cider Mill Farm, among others which we were extremely familiar with back in Maryland.  Being on a first name basis with your local farmer and knowing that our food is fresh and not several weeks old before we purchase it is important to us.

Well, I'm happy to say we found the perfect local farm!  Stiles Vegetable Farm & Greenhouse.  It's actually in Wisconsin but it's the closest to us that fit our needs.  Perhaps we will find others as well as time continues.

Meet the rooster we are now on a first name basis with...

Isn't he handsome?  He likes grapes and when you call his name, he comes running up to you and begs for food.

My toddler found him walking out from behind the counter and started whispering "Mommy!  Mommy!  Ook*!  Ook, a chicken, Mommy!  Silly chicken (insert adorable toddler giggle)!"

She kept watching him and feeding him with grapes and corn.  She followed him around the whole farm stand like she was his little puppy, constantly stopping to laugh "Silly chicken!" and he kept pausing in his quest for food to allow her to catch up with him.

We purchased fresh ginger (I am hoping to make Thai peanut sauce noodles for myself today), tomatoes, sugar baby and Italian plums, green onions, and local raw honey.

Raw honey straight from the comb on the left...

My toddler ate raw corn and an Italian plum while I paid and found out about other activities around town that I could take her to do.


The lady farmer was knowledgeable, warm, and her husband is Polish so we talked about different types of pierogi.

When we got in the car, my toddler kept talking about the ducks and chicken and the corn until we picked up her sister.  She told everyone who would listen outside the school about them.  She told her Daddy hours later about the ducks and chicken and showed off the honey she had picked out.  She told her Dziadek about feeding the animals and about the baby ducks we saw and gave him a tomato and said "Eat dis, Dziadek!"

I think we will be fine.  We are getting back into our groove finally.

Na razie...


* Ook in toddler-speak means look



Some interesting resources about local farms in the Wisconsin and Illinois area

Wisconsin Local Farms (not a complete list but still worth checking out)

American Farmland Trust (Support local farms and check out their current effort "No Farms No Food" and information)

Local Harvest has a great tool for finding local farms, farmer markets, and other "sources of sustainably grown food in your area" including grass fed meats, etc.

The State of Illinois's Agricultural Department has a great Kids Page

I received no compensation for mentioning the farm we went to or for sharing any of the links above.

A Different Version of a Polish Poppyseed Roll

In my house, we love Makowiec so I decided to try this carrot version called Marchwiak (pronounced Mahr-veeahk). 

Let me tell you how I came across it, as it isn't a family recipe.  I was online looking for inspiration for what to do with the 20 lbs of carrots my husband recently bought.  I've already made a massive dent in it with my Polish twist on a stuffed carrot cupcake and a few other recipes.  This recipe I found on Milk and Pumpkin sounded interesting.

I used the recipe I had used 4 times before for the dough, which is a different version than the one Ewa from Milk and Pumpkin offers.  But I'm sure both doughs are tasty. 

I also was measuring out ingredients for the dough in the midst of dealing with my two daughters wanting snacks.  So, I accidentally measured out too little butter for my own personal taste.  I prefer 1 1/2 sticks of butter but instead used 3/4 of a stick. 

The dough was delicious, just not as buttery as I like.

I also split the filling into two rolls since I added raisins and a tablespoon of butter to the filling.  Next time, I will double the filling since my husband likes his rolls to have a more equal amount of filling to dough.

The children loved eating this and my father and husband both thought it was interesting and delicious enough to try again with the above modifications.  I will be adding this to our family recipes quite happily.



Ingredients:


Filling (per roll):

3/4 cup grated Carrots
1 handful Poppy Seeds
tablespoon of Butter
handful of Raisins, soaked in hot water or warmed rum for 10 minutes
1 Egg White


Dough (for two rolls): 

1 .25 oz packet active dry Yeast
1/4 cup warm Water
3 cups all-purpose Flour, unbleached
2 cups whole wheat Flour
1-2 tablespoon wheat germ or milled flax seed *
1 1/2 sticks Butter
2 Eggs
2 Egg Yolks
1/2 cup Sour Cream
1 cup Powdered or Regular Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoons grated Lemon Peel, if you like


Glaze:  (optional)

Powdered Sugar
just enough milk to be able to drizzle



Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Proof the yeast in the warm water and a teaspoon of sugar or flour for about 5 minutes.   You can skip this step and just add to the dough if you like as well.

Combine ingredients for filling.  Set aside.

Combine the two flours and wheat germ.

Cut the butter into the flour blend until the mixture resembles course crumbs.   Add the salt and sugar.

Mix in the yeast, eggs, egg yolks, sour cream, vanilla extract, and lemon rind.

Mix until it forms a ball of elastic dough, turn out onto a work surface and knead for 8-10 minutes (or use a stand mixer to knead for 5-8 minutes) until the dough is smooth and satiny.

Cut dough in half, roll each piece out into a rectangle, and smear with egg white (a tip from Milk and Pumpkin's recipe that I found to work well in helping to keep from having gaps between dough and filling.  My Ciocia said was something she did as well on the phone Sunday).

Place on baking sheet.

Add filling, allowing about a half inch to inch border around so that the dough is easy to seal.

Roll dough, seal well, place in a warm place covered with a moist clean kitchen towel and allow to rise for about 1 1/2 hours.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes, until the exterior is golden brown. Allow to cool.  You can either serve as is or add a glaze.

Smacznego!



Notes:

Butter, Eggs, Egg Yolks, Sour Cream and all other ingredients should be at room temperature to help the yeast roll to rise better.

*I have returned to adding a tablespoon or two of either wheat germ or milled or whole flax seeds to all my dough recipes or to fillings. 
The reasons are because of the many added health benefits:  added fiber, protein, iron, vitamin E, folic acid, calcium, Lignans, Alpha-linolenic acid (Omega-3 fatty acid).  
Because the benefits are so many and it's so simple to add just a tiny bit and make a positive impact on our health, this Polish Mama would recommend this simple step to anyone. 
While these ingredients may seem expensive, you only need to add a very small amount and the benefits will make a large impact on you and your children's health for a long time. 



Other Recipes You Might Like:

Carrots in Cream Sauce

Cold Carrot Salad


Also, if you enjoy my recipes (and perhaps the stories, photos and other topics on my blog) it would be really appreciated if you donated whatever you felt comfortable with using the Donate using the PayPal button on my sidebar.  Every little bit helps.  Thank you.