Thursday, July 15, 2021

Garden to Kitchen Gifts

Did you know? I saw a post, on Ari Shapiro's Instagram, about baking with Nigella seeds, sometimes known as black cumin. Well, I've never grown Nigella, so I guess it's no surprise that I didn't know about eating the seeds. The flowers were certainly beautiful, and I hope to plant even more seeds next year, so I am glad I figured out about collecting them. I tasted one tiny black seed, hesitantly. And then. Nothing. I was really shocked at how tasteless it was! As though I didn't bite into anything but air. Not bitter, not sweet, not tangy, or anything. Maybe toasting them brings up flavor? Have you ever tried them?
The fact that we have blackberries and apricots, both, growing in our garden, and that they have been plentiful and ripening at the same time... these sort of events just boggle my mind, and fill me up with thanks and a feeling of bountiful fortune. Very good fortune. We have been snacking on blackberries daily. And some of the apricots are preserved and in the freezer. We made a few galettes... the world's easiest dessert!
This galette is from garden peaches, which I added some apricot jam to. So the "recipe" is this... get a pie crust. I thawed ours from Trader Joes. When I don't have fresh fruit or homemade jam, I simply grab a favorite jar of jam, and mix it in a bowl with a few tablespoons of flour for thickening... this keeps the jam from being too juicy and running all over the pan. I spread the jam on the rolled out pie dough, fold up the sides to hold in jam. Then I brush the dough with some egg yolk that has a splash of water in it. And I sprinkled the crust with a little sugar. I baked this at 375 F, until it smelled good, and everything looked deep golden, and crisp. Easy! I think it would take more effort to mess this up than it does to get it right.

2 comments:

Ruth said...

That looks so delicious!

Natalie, the Chickenblogger said...

Thank you. It's a good treat.