OK so the story about Nutmeg is her activity level has been cut to zero by knee surgery. The surgery was supposed to be minor but….not so much so she is house bound on crutches for 4 weeks. The great news is there is lots of time for the blog and for trying new recipes.
Tags: Recipes with Mushrooms, Recipes with Nuts, Vegeterian Recipes
Nutmeg has already described some of her spicy friends in and earlier post. She thought it was time to provide some detail on some of the others and a bit of history at the same time.
Tags: food info, Food Nutritional Facts, Health Benefits of Spices
Curry Murray loves beets and asked Nutmeg specifically for an article on beets.
So here are some of the facts right from Wikipedia:
The beet (Beta vulgaris) is a plant in the amaranth family. It is best known in its numerous cultivated varieties, the most well known of which is probably the red root vegetable known as the beetroot or garden beet. However, other cultivated varieties include the leaf vegetables chard and spinach beet, as well as the root vegetables sugar beet, which is important in the production of table sugar, and mangelwurzel, which is a fodder crop.
The beet has a long history of cultivation stretching back to the second millennium BC. The plant was probably domesticated somewhere along the Mediterranean, whence it was later spread to Babylonia by the 8th century BC and as far east as China by 850 AD. Available evidence, such as that provided by Aristotle and Theophrastus suggests that the leafy varieties of the beet were grown primarily for most of its history, though these lost much of their popularity much later following the introduction of spinach. The beet became highly commercially important in 19th century Europe following the development of the sugar beet in Germany and the discovery that sucrose could be extracted from them, providing an alternative to tropical sugar cane. It remains a widely cultivated commercial crop for producing table sugar.
Beets are good for you too:
They are easy to cook, you can simply wrap them in tin foil and bake in the oven until tender, the outer-skin will peel off very easily at that point.
Nutmeg loves beets in salad with either a soft goat cheese or something salty like a feta. The other classic use for beets is in Borscht (beet and cabbage) soup, Nutmeg is on the hunt for a good recipe.
So do you love Beets? Let us know.
Tags: Food Nutritional Facts, Recipes with Beets, Side Dish Recipes
Nutmeg loves this idea for an open house – invite people over for a bowl of soup and a drink on New Year’s day. It is a great way to hear all the stories from the night before and toast the New Year with your friends. One additional bonus, is there is a very good chance no one will stay late as they were up the night before…
Tags: Dinner Parties, Recipes with Lentils, Seafood Curry, Seafood Recipes, Soup Recipes
