Pickle Power

You don't have to be a canning expert to have good pickles.  I canned some longer lasting kosher dills last week but also made these easy bread and butter and dill refrigerator pickles.  The bread and butter recipe originates from my Grandpa Mathias Thommes.   I remember the gallon jar (along with limburger cheese - yuk!) always in his fridge.  This is the first year I tried the dill recipe and the pepper flakes add a nice kick.


I purchased two of the large square jars from Target.  It is also worth purchasing a small madoline to slice the cukes - they even tast better with the thin even slices you can get with the "slice device."  XOX makes a $15 madoline that works just fine with cukes and onions.


Maths Refrigerator Bread and Butter Pickles


7 c sliced cukes
1 c sliced onions
2 c sugar
1 c white vinegar
1 tsp pickling or kosher salt
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp celery seed


Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar heating slightly if necessary, cool and add spices.  Pout over sliced cukes and onions and store in refrigerator.  Tip the jar over every couple days to mix the brine.  These tast good right a way but best after a week or so.


Refrigerator Dill Pickles


1 lb cukes sliced however you like but thin slices absorb the flavor best
1 c white vinegar
2 c cold water
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp kosher slat
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp whole peppercorns
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 c fresh dill tops
5 cloves of garlic, peeled


Mix all ingredients until salt and sugar are dissolved.  Add sliced cukes to large jar and pour liquid and spice mixture on top.  Rotate jar to mix spices every few days.   These are good to sample early but best after a week or more. 


Now that you have pickles...my brother Greg just told me about trying peanut butter pickle hamburgers...hmmmm, think I will stick to tuna salad and pickles.

Onions, Onions, La La La

I never knew there was such a thing as onion season.  Now I do.  Red, yellow sweet and white onions graced a triple row in my community garden plot this year.  Grilled, sautéed  in olive oil or added in any sauce they have been heavenly.

Channeling my inner Grandpa I also tried my hand a braiding onions this year.  Why should that make me feel so proud?  I remember admiring my grandpas braided onions about the time I wore braids myself at 5 years old.  Don't ask me why it took fifty years to try it myself.  

I cleaned and dried the onions for about a week and then attached a long piece or twine to three starter onion.  From there add an onion every other twist and make a braided tail at the end that you wrap with twine.

It all makes me think how the impressions we gain as a child stay with us.  

When I was four I told my mom when I grew up I wanted to be a Grandma.  She informed me that first I had to be a mother.   To this I replied: "No, I just want to be a Grandma because they get to garden, fish, bake cookies and play, but moms have to do too much work."

The Perfect Palette: Edible Flowers

Last nights salad included greens, cucumbers and dill, nasturtium, rose, violet, calendula and borage flowers.  It was a culinary delight, a painting and a bouquet all in one!

I have long enjoyed colorful nasturtiums in containers and to dress with their peppery taste.   Last spring I thought “why stop here” and was delighted to find a great online resource on the University of Minnesota’s Extension Master Gardener website.

Beyond salads, cakes and other desserts can be decorated with colorful blooms and cold drinks can be enhanced with a floral garnish.   The small test tube-like containers used at florists can be inserted in a cake to hold small blooms and provide water.

To assure your flowers come from pesticide-free plants it is best to grow them yourself.  Several of the plants listed below grow well in containers.  Harvest  blossoms the same day you will use them and gently wash them and allow them air dry. Remove the tart internal stamens and styles of larger flowers such as tulip or squash blossoms.  If need be, store the flowers in covered containers in the refrigerator.  Add the pretty posies just before serving.

The University of Minnesota Extension website suggests the following edible posies:

• alpine strawberry anise hyssop
• apple or plum
• bee balm
• begonia
• borage
• calendula
• chamomile
• chives
• daylilies
• dill
• English daisy
• galdiolus
• Hollyhocks
• lavender
• lemon balm
• lilac
• majoram
• mint
• mustard
• nasturtium
• pansy
• petunia
• pinks
• rose
• scarlet runner beans (not sweet pea flowers are NOT edible)
• sage
• squash
• tulip petals

Bon appetite!

Since I mentioned Olga....

Photo courtesy UMD website http://www.d.umn.edu/biology/herbarium/

Yesterday I sent admiration for Frances and mentioned Olga.   Like Frances, I met Olga through a book, hers:  The Flora of Northeastern Minnesota.  This was the quintessential local key to identifying plants  while I worked on the Superior National Forest.

One of the first things I did as I Biologist on the Superior National Forest in the late 1970's - early 1980's was to verify past locations of rare plants on the Aurora and Kawishiwi Districts.  I hired another young botanist, Kate and together we got lost in the woods in search of Olga's collections. Many a time, it seemed we were in the exact spot notated on the herbarium specimens.  We would have an Olga seance of sorts, chanting her name and asking for her assistance.  (Almost like my mother would pray "St Francis Dear St Francis come around, somethings lost and cannot be found.")    A fair number of times it worked.

The  University of Minnesota, Duluth website pays tribute to another heroine of mine:


"The herbarium at the University of Minnesota Duluth was founded by Dr. Olga Lakela (1890-1980), a native of Finland who emigrated to northeastern Minnesota as a child. She earned a Ph.D. in botany from the University of Minnesota and was the first Biology Department Head on the Duluth campus. Approximately half of our specimens were collected by Dr. Lakela, and her extensive work in St. Louis and Lake counties, Minnesota is summarized in her book, A Flora of Northeastern Minnesota (1965, University of Minnesota Press). Olga Lakela founded this herbarium in 1935, and the University named it after her in 1960. A bequest from Dr. Lakela supports the maintenance and growth of the collection, as well as botanical research at UMD."

So here is to another great woman of the woods.  Thanks Olga.

Heroine on the Hill

We took a hike up East Avenue to one of my favorite spots in Red Wing:  Oakwood Cemetery.  I have posted photos here before (http://nancyberlin.blogspot.com/2010/10/not-so-spooky.html) and remarked on the beauty of the oaks there.  Today, I discovered the grave of Frances Densmore.

I can remember the very day my interest in botany was planted.  I was walking in the woods with my  Grandmother Agnes, she would poke her cane at plants and tell me their names and how they were used by her German ancestors or local Indian people.   To learn more I read Frances Densmore's book "How Indians Used Wild Plants for Food, Medicine and Crafts."  There weren't many female field biologists in Minnesota even when I was in college, so women like Frances and Olga Lakela were my heros.

The Minnesota Historical Society has the following to say about Frances Densmore: (http://www.mnhs.org/library/tips/history_topics/124frances_densmore.html)

"Frances Densmore was born in 1867 in Red Wing, Minnesota. She studied piano, organ, and harmony at Oberlin Conservatory. Densmore became interested in the music of the Omaha tribe after reading a book about the ethnomusicology of the tribe, and soon pursued the study of Native music herself. In 1905 she visited the Ojibwe bands in Grand Marais and Grand Portage where she started to transcribe the music. Although Densmore began her work in Minnesota, observing and recording the cultures of the Dakota and Ojibwe, she traveled across North America preserving the customs and traditions of many Native American tribes. She was a prolific author, writing over twenty books and 100 articles, and recorded over 2,000 wax cylinders of Native music. Her records preserved a vast amount of Native American music and culture during a period when white settlers were moving into Native lands and encouraging the tribes to adopt Western customs."


Back to Oakwood.  A simple stone marks a great woman.

No Excuses

It is that peony time of year

I am coming up on one year in the new house.  It's time to get back to blogging.  No excuses.  I really did enjoy sharing stories and images, even to a limited audience.  There is alot to share with a new town, becoming a master gardener, house projects, new recipes, a community garden plot.  So here goes, I'll gear up and start again in the coming week.