Garden to Table Cookbook E-Book

RDN, LD, Kayla Butts MS

• Herausgeber: Fox Chapel Publishing
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 197

Beschreibung

Whether you're just starting your very first garden, or you've been gardening for years, you might as well incorporate what you grow into your daily meals! Garden to Table is a practical and accessible guide that will show you how to preserve, can, and cook easy, healthy recipes from the vegetables you've cultivated all year round! No big gardening space or gardening experience needed! Featuring expert guidance on how to freeze, can, and dry many popular fruits and vegetables, Garden to Table also includes over 100 recipes that include vegan, vegetarian, heart-healthy, and keto/low-carb options. From canning recipes to appetizers, main dishes, and big salads organized by season for year-round consumption, this complete self-sufficiency guide has everything you need to know to preserve and serve fresh, healthy foods from home. Author Kayla Butts is a professional dietitian, cooking and nutrition instructor, small-scale Texas farmer, and a clinical nutrition manager with a Master's in Science in Nutrition.

Leseprobe

© 2023 by Kayla Butts and Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc.

Garden to Table Cookbook is an original work, first published in 2023 by Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holders.

Project Team

Managing Editor: Gretchen Bacon

Editors: Jeremy Hauck and Sherry Vitolo

Acquisitions Editor: Amelia Johanson

Designer: Chris Morrison

Photographer: Rachel Benavides

Indexer: Jay Kreider

Proofreader: Kurt Conley

Images from Shutterstock.com: VasilkovS (vegetable illustrations throughout book); mythja (2); kram-9 (11); PriceM (10); kram-9 (11); Fevziie (18); 13Smile (20); Alexander Raths (28–29); Peangdao (30–31); Stanislav Stradnic (32–33); Taras Grebinets (34); Shchus (35); successo images (40); Julia-Bogdanova (42); Zigzag Mountain Art (49); Brent Hofacker (56–57, 174, 175); Lilly Trott (80–81); Rimma Bondarenko (122–23); Yulia Gust (154); Marie Sonmez Photography (162–63)

ISBN 978-1-4971-0292-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-4971-0410-5 (hardcover)

eISBN 978-1-6374-1104-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022949756

Fox Chapel Publishing

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Mount Joy, PA 17552

To learn more about the other great books from Fox Chapel Publishing, or to find a retailer near you, call toll-free 800-457-9112 or visit us at www.FoxChapelPublishing.com.

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CONTENTS

Introduction: Connecting Your Health to the Soil

The Right Food Can Save Your Life

My Nutrition Education

The Standard American Diet (SAD)

The Benefits of Growing Your Own Food

Preserving Your Harvest

Freezing

Drying

Canning

Canning Recipes

Spring Recipes

Summer Recipes

Fall Recipes

Winter Recipes

About the Author

Credits

Spring

Summer

Fall

Winter

INTRODUCTION: CONNECTING YOUR HEALTH TO THE SOIL

Garden to Table Cookbook is for everyone. Whether you’re already growing and eating your own food or just interested in doing so, you’ll find valuable information for taking homegrown or locally grown foods and turning them into beautiful, tasty dishes to nourish your body and soul.

The benefits of aligning your eating habits with a more earth-centered, less chemical-laden process are endless. When I began growing and preserving my own food, I truly learned how cultivation and garden-to-table living feeds mind, body, and spirit.

Embracing garden-to-table eating can truly change your life. In this introduction, I’ll explore the reasons why. We’ll start by walking through my nutrition journey, from my first experiences with the power of food, through my traditional instruction, to my real-world education. Then I’ll dive into the facts—providing insights into the research and explaining why embracing locally sourced and homegrown foods is so important and the benefits of growing your own food.

After that, I’ll give you practical tools you can use to change your eating habits. You’ll jump into the three main techniques for preserving fruits and vegetables and find both my favorite healthful canning recipes and a detailed Storage and Preservation Chart to help you start your preservation journey off on the right foot.

Finally, we’ll end with the best part—recipes for wholesome, colorful, nourishing dishes organized by season so you can make the most of your harvests throughout the year! Let’s get started.

Finding Joy in My Journey to Health

I started growing and preserving my own food to support my husband’s farming business, but I continued to garden, preserve, and cook, through 100-degree summers, barren winters, and a devastating hurricane, to find something greater. Working the land, savoring the fruits of my labor, and sharing my harvest with loved ones led to fulfillment and the discovery of my best self. I learned how to nourish my mind, body, and spirit through feeding my family. Join me on this journey to find your best health, fulfillment of your land, and contentment for your soul.

A closer connection to our food improves our health, mind, body, and soul.

The Right Food Can Save Your Life

I was seven years old when I first began to realize that food was the answer. It was a hot, humid afternoon at the Houston Zoo and my mom had just experienced her first grand mal seizure.

In the following months, I watched her undergo a battery of tests, consult a team of specialists, and consider brain surgery. She was finally diagnosed with epilepsy—an ambiguous diagnosis for pretty much any baffling seizure disorder.

“My mom’s recovery forever cemented the power of food in my mind.”

Her doctors couldn’t explain the causes or offer solutions. She was prescribed anticonvulsants, antidepressants, and antiepileptic drugs. She became depressed, gained weight, lost her hair, and eventually broke down.

At her wit’s end, she did some research on her own and found a controversial option—the ketogenic diet. Her dietitian explained to her that a ketogenic diet is low in carbs and sugar, and high in protein and fat. We had scrambled eggs, bacon, and unsweetened grapefruit juice for breakfast. We had salad with boiled eggs and cheese for lunch and a low-carb dinner.

The weight gain stopped. The seizures stopped. She has been seizure-free for over twenty-five years now. Where prescription drugs had failed, food triumphed. My mom’s recovery forever cemented the power of food in my mind.

It is tremendously satisfying to harvest vegetables you’ve grown yourself.

“Within six months of eating food free of chemicals and grown by hands I knew, I lost fifteen pounds, my hormones leveled out, and I had a much deeper appreciation for the delicious taste of truly unadulterated food.”

My Nutrition Education

I struggled with my own weight for many years. I was “one of the big kids” in my elementary class, gained ten pounds in a matter of months during my senior year of high school, gained the typical freshman fifteen in college, and by sophomore year of college I was classified as overweight. (Have I mentioned that I hate the BMI classification system? Well, I do.)

After college, I followed the traditional dietary dictums. I ate lean protein, avoided too much fat, and focused on fruits and vegetables. I exercised four to five days per week, running three to four miles, biking six to ten miles, and spending hours at the gym. I was doing everything right, but I continued to struggle with maintaining my weight.

I had a master’s degree in nutrition and had been working and studying in the field for almost a decade when my true food education began. My view on food changed when I met my husband. He served me a bacon burger made from grass-fed beef, pastured bacon, and tomatoes all grown on his farm. Within six months of eating food free of chemicals and grown by hands I knew, I lost fifteen pounds, my hormones leveled out, and I had a much deeper appreciation for the delicious taste of truly unadulterated food.

There are many benefits to growing vegetables at home—including creating a sense of connection with the world around you.

The Standard American Diet (SAD)

It doesn’t take a nutritionist to see there’s something wrong within our food system. More than two-thirds of Americans are overweight and researchers estimate less than 3 percent of the US population is considered to have a “healthy lifestyle.”1 The Standard American Diet involves consuming an excess of inflammatory fats, sugar, and salt, and a lack of fiber from fruits and vegetables. Perhaps most disturbing is that even the nutrient-dense foods in our food system lack the nutrition they should have.

The majority of health concerns in America today (certain types of diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and on and on) all have one thing in common—they can often be prevented. Eating more nutritious stuff while cutting back on disease-promoting foods does the trick.2

As most of us can testify, it’s not easy. There are dozens of factors working against our efforts to improve our health. Demanding work and home lives leave us scrambling for convenient food options and many of us now have jobs where we’re sitting most of the day.

“It doesn’t take a nutritionist to see there’s something wrong within our food system.”

An unspoken cause of the obesity epidemic is the chemicals often saturating our foods. Take the healthiest foods available in the supermarket—fruits and vegetables. They are often sprayed with herbicides like atrazine (a substance banned in Europe), wrapped in plastics containing phthalates, and cooked in nonstick pans that contain perfluorooctanoic acid. These tonguet-wisting chemicals are classified by experts as “obesogens”—chemicals that promote weight gain.

These chemicals combined with the lack of nutrient density in much of our soil create a perfect storm for lower health. All of the vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients a plant contains are absorbed through the soil it is grown in. The herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers applied to commercial crops kill off much of the microbial life necessary for increasing the nutrient content of the soil.

Many crops are picked before they have had a chance to absorb adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals from the soil. These fruits and vegetables are then stored in warehouses and shipped long distances, losing vital nutrients along the way.

The inefficiency of this system has significant consequences: depleted topsoil, produce lacking in nutrients, and a huge carbon footprint. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in 2015 estimated that over 90 percent of the topsoil on Earth would be devoid of nutrients by the year 2050.3

The aim of our current agricultural system is to grow as much food as possible in as little time as possible. Taste, environmental considerations, and nutrition don’t always factor into “big ag” consideration.

“Demanding work and home lives leave us scrambling for convenient food options and many of us now have jobs where we’re sitting most of the day.”

“As neurosurgeon and health advocate Dr. Sanjay Gupta puts it, ‘If we are what [we] eat, Americans are corn and soy’.”

Commodity Crops and the Fall of the Family Farm

The 1950s–1970s was a turning point for the American food system. Americans began to value convenience and technology over homemade and handmade. Farm families sold their land to work in factories or businesses in town.

After World War II, the agricultural sector saw a tremendous rise in the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. At the same time, the government started to provide generous incentives for commodity crops, like corn and soybeans. Food scientists invented products like high fructose corn syrup, the soy derivative textured vegetable protein (TVP), and partially hydrogenated oils to use up any excess crops.

Fast-forward to now, and almost all of our processed foods include corn, soy, or both. As neurosurgeon and health advocate Dr. Sanjay Gupta puts it, “If we are what [we] eat, Americans are corn and soy.”4

Poor Dirt: How Unhealthy Soil Leads to Fewer Vitamins and Minerals in Today’s Produce

As a dietitian, my job is to help people figure out what to eat to improve their health and get all the nutrients they need from food. Simple, right? I started my practice thinking I could give clients a meal plan heavy on fruits and veggies and my job would be done. Wrong! Turns out, it takes a LOT more of “the good stuff” nowadays to get the right amount of nutrition. Here’s what I mean: Over the past half century, levels of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) in commercially grown produce have declined significantly. Biochemistry professor Donald Davis at the University of Texas in Austin published a landmark study showing a marked decline in several nutrients in today’s produce.5

Corn and soy derivatives are added to almost all processed foods. This allows farmers to produce massive amounts of commodity crops without worrying about flooding the market, but it also contributes to our nutrient-deficient diets.

Many crops are harvested too early, before they can absorb necessary amounts of vitamins and minerals, like nitrogen (N), potassium (K), zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), and more, from the soil.

Herbs, edible flowers, and flowering vegetables attract pollinators, confuse pests, and contain health-promoting polyphenols.

From 1950–1999, forty-three different fruits and vegetables declined in protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin, and vitamin C. Davis attributed these decreases to agricultural processes that have favored faster growth and pest resistance over nutrient density. “Efforts to breed new varieties of crops that provide greater yield, pest resistance, and climate adaptability have allowed crops to grow bigger and more rapidly, but their ability to manufacture or uptake nutrients has not kept pace with their rapid growth,” Davis said in an interview with Scientific American.6

“Poor soil health leads to poor plant health, which leads to poor human health.”

Davis’s study was not alone in its findings. Similar studies conducted by The Kushi Institute and researcher D.E. Thomas observed similar decreases in levels of nutrients in today’s commercially grown produce. Micronutrients like iron, sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, copper, and zinc were significantly lower in fruits and vegetables of today compared with produce from the 1940s–1970s.7

Thomas explains these findings as a by-product of the overuse of NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium) fertilizers. These inorganic fertilizers raise concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, while leaving the soil devoid of other critical nutrients. In contrast, manure, especially in solid form, improves soil pH, helps the earth absorb water, and is even more effective at increasing total nitrogen content.8

A plant unable to take up adequate nutrients from the soil produces fruit with less nutrition. Poor soil health leads to poor plant health, which leads to poor human health.

The Benefits of Growing Your Own Food

1. It Improves Your Mental Health

2. It Promotes Physical Health

3. It Fosters Connection and Social Engagement

4. It Increases Self-Reliance

5. It Reduces Your Food Costs

The advantages of starting a backyard garden go far beyond having access to nutritious food. Growing your own food has a holistic effect on your wellness—improving your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Sourcing food close to home is environmentally sustainable and dramatically reduces your carbon footprint. Gardening also fosters a sense of connection to friends and neighbors with whom you share your bounty and a deeper relationship to the earth that provides.

1. It Improves Your Mental Health

Gardening, known as “horticultural therapy” in the psychology community, improves memory, boosts mood, and reduces stress and anxiety. Cultivating plants is associated with improved physical and emotional well-being, sense of purpose, social inclusion, interpersonal relationships, and overall quality of life.9 Working in a garden can effectively reduce anxiety after a stressful event10 and improve symptoms of depression by increasing self-esteem.11 Tending the soil has also been shown to improve addiction rehabilitation.12, 13

Horticultural therapy can even lower your risk of dementia by 36 percent.14 A meta-analysis of over ten studies found that horticulture can be effectively used as a way to prevent cognitive decline.15 One group of researchers found a possible explanation for some of these associations. Older adults who started a community garden tended to have less inflammation and fewer age-related changes to their immunity than non-gardeners. Growing plants helped participants feel younger and stronger.16

“You can burn over 300 calories within an hour of gardening.”

The everyday tasks of gardening (mulching, digging, weeding, etc.) are multipurpose. You’re cultivating food for yourself and your family while also getting some much-recommended exercise.

2. It Promotes Physical Health

Spending time in the garden ameliorates the most common vitamin deficiency in America.17 Just ten to thirty minutes per day most days of the week are enough to maintain healthy blood levels of vitamin D. Adequate levels of vitamin D are associated with decreased risk of several types of cancer, including breast, colorectal, and prostate cancer as well as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.18 In contrast, low vitamin D has been linked to psoriasis, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and dementia. Digging in the earth has a multitude of health benefits that go far beyond absorbing vitamin D from sunshine.

If you’ve ever dug a decent-sized hole, you know gardening is exercise! You can burn over 300 calories within an hour of gardening. Pulling weeds, raking leaves, turning compost, transferring transplants . . . they’re all considered “moderate physical activity” by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). And they recommend you should get at least thirty minutes of moderate activity most days of the week to maintain your weight and reduce your risk of disease.19

“If you’re an athlete, plantbased foods are essential for reducing inflammation caused by intense workouts.”

Growing your own plants from seed is both a meditative and a physical activity—many older adults have experienced the health benefits this provides.

Just as plants require sunshine, so do we. Gardening is a great motivation for spending time outside and absorbing necessary vitamin D.

Simply touching the earth with your bare hands has been shown to relieve stress.

Edibles from the garden are high in nutrients and low in calories. By consuming nutrient-dense foods, you will turn off the body’s hunger signal with fewer calories. Many plant-based foods are also high in fiber and will keep your body feeling fuller for longer periods of time.

Stress, toxins, pollution, and the foods we eat can cause inflammation which can lead to conditions like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Many plant-based foods are high in phytonutrients, antioxidants, and flavonoids that reduce inflammation in the body. If you’re an athlete, plant-based foods are essential for reducing inflammation caused by intense workouts.

By eating more plant-based foods, you will be consuming more foods that have an alkalizing effect on the body. When we’re stressed or eat certain animal-based foods our pH drops, and our blood becomes too acidic. Unfortunately, low blood pH can cause fatigue, kidney stones, and the loss of bone mass. Minerals found in plants are alkali-forming and help maintain a healthy blood pH.

Chlorophyll is a pigment that is responsible for giving plants their green color. Chlorophyll has many health benefits including its ability to increase red blood cell production. More red blood cells mean easier transport of oxygen into your cells, thereby increasing energy levels.

Maintaining a garden makes it much easier to add more vegetable-rich and plant-based foods to your diet.

3. It Fosters Connection and Social Engagement

On a metaphysical level, we crave connection—to others, to our food, and to the Earth. Gardening strengthens those connections on physical and chemical levels.

Yogis and physicists alike use “grounding,” a technique involving increased bodily contact with the earth. Touching the ground with your bare hands, feet, or skin produces an exchange of electrons between your body and planet Earth. This realigns your body’s magnetic field with that of the Earth’s. Your body is more able to combat the outside electric fields created in our modern environments (hello, computer, phone, microwave, and more). Grounding decreases stress and inflammation in the body, improves circulation, reduces pain, and improves sleep.20

Gardening makes us feel more connected to the earth, of course, but it also helps connect us with others—we can share the work along the way and then share the bounty after the harvest.

“You’ll get higher quality vegetables for a lower cost by growing them at home rather than buying them at the store.”

4. It Increases Self-Reliance

Living through the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 to the present has shown us how scary food insecurity can be. Disruptions in shipping, natural and manmade disasters, plus decreased food access depleted our food system, leaving bare shelves at the grocery store. Growing your own food offers a greater level of food security. To a greater extent, you are protected from economics, politics, or shipping challenges. Furthermore, it’s literally in your backyard, ready at a moment’s notice.

Never underestimate the abundance your garden can offer. Kale, for example, is a plant that just keeps on giving.

5. It Reduces Your Food Costs

Growing your own food is not only cost effective, but it can also substantially decrease your food budget. According to the National Gardening Association, a well-kept garden can produce half a pound of produce per square foot each season. For the average-size backyard garden (600 square feet), that’s equivalent to 300 pounds of produce, worth about $600 that would otherwise be spent at the supermarket. That’s 10 percent of what the average American household spends on food each year.

The average cost of a garden is $70. Seeds are affordable, especially when compared to the pounds of fruits and vegetables they can produce. A packet of 100 tomato seeds costing $2.19 can yield up to seventy-five tomato plants that produce ten to thirty pounds of tomatoes, worth about $35. That’s a savings over ten times the initial investment.

Gardening will bring you year-round joy—from your cool winter preparations all the way through to next fall’s harvest.

PRESERVING YOUR HARVEST

Congratulations! You’ve taken the first steps—grown your very own garden full of delectable goodies, perused the produce at the farmers market, or visited the fantastic local farm everyone raves about! Now you’re probably wondering what exactly you should do with all that zucchini and kale, those many radishes and peppers, or the absolute abundance of TOMATOES now overflowing your kitchen! Not to worry, there are plenty of options to keep your harvest safe and stored for (absolutely delicious) year-round use.

Freezing

Drying

Canning

Storage and Preservation Chart

Canning Recipes

Master Vegetable Brine Recipe

Canned Fruit Master Recipe

Quick Pickles

Refrigerator Sweet and Spicy Pickles

Pickled Okra

Rickles (Pickled Radishes)

Traditional Kimchi

Green Tomato Chutney

Giardiniera

Tangy Hot Sauce

Pickled Jalapeños

Pickled Watermelon Rind

Classic Chowchow

Herbed Onion Marmalade

Essential Vegetable Broth

Flavorful Stewed Tomatoes

Healthier Ketchup

Easy Strawberry Jam

Blueberry Plum Jam

Spiced Applesauce

Mostarda

FREEZING

The easiest and most direct way to preserve your crops is likely staring you right in the face. Okay, maybe it’s in the next room or garage or basement. I’m talking about your freezer.

There’s a reason why freezers are so prevalent in modern kitchens. The convenience and ease of keeping food fresh in the freezer is as simple as: 1) dump food into a freezer-safe storage bag, 2) freeze for a reasonable amount of time, then 3) thaw and use.

Depending on the size of your garden and how ambitious you want to be in preserving it, consider investing in a chest or upright freezer. These vary in price and size, so pick the option that best suits your garden yield and storage needs.

Check out the tips that follow to make batch freezing an even more stress-free task.

Fruits

In general, freeze fruit in a freezer storage bag or plastic container for up to six to nine months. If you need a piece of fruit to maintain its shape or individuality—like stone fruits, berries, or bananas—first lay them in a single layer on a baking sheet and store them in the freezer for three hours. Then transfer them to a large freezable container, and repeat as necessary.