Colors of the Garden

Posted on 24/06/2013 by artandkitchen (Adriana)

This early summer flowers pictures has been taken in the evening, just before sunset.

Wonderful Flowers of Fruits (Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Spring)

Posted on 14/05/2013 by artandkitchen (Adriana)

It’s spring now and we are really blessed we can enjoy and admire the incredible variety of flowers.

An elegant solution to combine flowers and something useful is to buy some three, bushes and herbs for your garden.

In one of my fall posts I reported about some examples of fruit belonging to “the rose family“.

Now I’m back again here with the flowers. I hope you will enjoy the pictures posted for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: The Season of Spring

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Fall Chocolate Leaves

Posted on 25/11/2012 by artandkitchen (Adriana)

Let your eyes take in the bursts of all these different colors. If you like the display of nature at this time of year enjoy these inspirational fall colors and try to bring them on you tables with colored chocolate leaves.

Looking in my kitchen spices set I found that turmeric and paprika would add some color to chocolate. They will make an exquisite decoration for my fall-cake

You need:

Autumn leaves, fresh, washed and pat dried
White chocolate
Paprika powder, as red as possible
Turmeric powder

Procedure:

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pot of boiling water.
On one side of the pot add some turmeric and on the other side turmeric. Stir both places with the point of the knives separately.
With a small spatula coat the underside of the first leave interchanging the colors. About 1/10 of inch thick.
Place on a try, chocolate side up.
Repeat until the chocolate mixture is finished.
Place the try in a cold place or in the fridge until set.
Carefully remove the leaves from the chocolate.
Store in the fridge.

Sweet Jewels: Honey Bees with Pâte d’Amandes

Posted on 13/11/2012 by artandkitchen (Adriana)

A new challenge: small honey bees made with pate d’amandes and slivered almonds. Size length about 1/2 inch!

You need:

Pate d’amande (for 6 bees I used about of one cubic inch)
little cocoa for brown color
little turmeric for yellow color

Procedure (follow the pictures!):

With the yellow color you shape the abdomen (about 1/4 inch)
A thin brown string will imitate the segments of the abdomen.
Two mini balls will form the thorax and the head.
Fix abdomen, thorax and head pressing light together.
4 Slivered almonds inserted in the thorax with be the wings.
Two mini strings fixed with your nail will be the antennas.
I used two mini sugar pearls for the eyes.
Ready for decorations!

Rock samphire on Crete (Greece)

Posted on 15/10/2012 by artandkitchen (Adriana)

During my vacations in Greece I always wondered how many wild greens are widely appreciate in their kitchen and how Cretan are really champions in that.

All these greens helped this population to survive the World War II occupation, many other wars, hunger periods and “simply” the winter.

Today I will tell you something about rock samphire I found this beautiful and delicious and I hope that this article will spark interest in wild greens and what the nature can offer to us.

Rock Samphire is also known as ‘Sea Bean’, sea fennel, crithmus, camphire, sampere, Peter’s cress is the sole species of the genus Crithmum, a member of the Apiaceae (Umbelliferae) family, as such it belongs to the same family as the carrot, pignut, caraway and chervil.

It is an edible wild plant found abundant on southern and western coasts of Britain and Ireland, on Mediterranean and western coasts of Europe including the Greece, Canary Islands, North Africa and the Black Sea on the rocks by the sea.

In Greece Crithmum maritimum is known as κριθαμος (Kritamos). In effect in ancient Greek cuisine it was widely used in salads and was preserved in brine and used during the winter. It was mentioned already by Dioscorides (Διοσκουρίδης) and Pliny (Πλίνιος)!

It has been characterized as rich in vitamin C, is a diuretic and anti-microbial. It is also appreciated for tis essential oils and mineral salts as for example iodine.

In Greek cuisine it is used preserved in brine, as salad and as flavoring for the preparation of various dishes.

This plant can be distinguished by its long, fleshy, bright-green, shining leaflets and umbels of tiny, yellowish-green blossoms. The whole plant is aromatic and has a powerful scent.

The plant flowers between June and September but the weeds are at their best before it flowers and should be picked between the spring and early summer.

The picture I will show you here were taken in October early in the morning on Crete (Greece). It was a gorgeous natural garden a real delight for the eye.

Recipe: Preserved rock samphire

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From teosinte to maize (corn)

Posted on 07/10/2012 by artandkitchen (Adriana)

It’s fall now. During my walk I had the possibility to observe the corn fild and take some pictures.

I wondered about the colors, the size and the shape of this plants.

Where does corn (maize) come from?

Maize (today known as corn) was domesticated in central Mexico developed corn at least 7000 years ago probably by the Aztec civilization, from a wild grass known as teosinte. Corn is a human invention, this plant does not exist naturally in the wild!

It is unquestionably the best example of how major morphological changes might occur. The maize ear, or corn cob, is a monstrosity.

The ear is the inflorescence made up entirely of female flowers. The male flowers are at the top of the plant in a separate, branched inflorescence, the tassel.

If you want more about the evolution of it, here a link for you:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982206002041

Recipe:
Tamales with Veggies

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The Rose Family

Posted on 01/10/2012 by artandkitchen (Adriana)

The Rose family (in Latin rosaceae) got his name from the largest genera among included in this group the “rosa” (rose).

Rosaceae can be trees, shrubs as well as herbaceous plants. Mostly perennials, but some annuals also are included.

Rose family has regular flowers with 5 sepals and 5 petals and numerous stamens. The flowers have a minimum of 5 stamens but often many more, usually in multiples of five. In most cases you can recognize the Rose family based solely on the sepals, petals and stamens. Domestic roses have much more petals that were bred from the stamens.

Another useful pattern of the Rose family is that many (not all) of the plants have oval, serrated leaves or leaflets.

Many flowers of the Rose family have several to numerous simple pistils (apocarpous), or they may be united at the base, with the styles still separate, to make a single compound pistil (syncarpous) with numerous styles. Members of the Plum subfamily have a single simple pistil (unicarpellate).
There are many varieties of fruits were once considered the main characters for the definition of subfamilies. They can be follicles, capsules, nuts, achenes, drupes (Prunus) and accessory fruits, like the pome of an apple, or the hip of a rose. Many fruits of the family are edible.

There some examples of fruits with the main characteristics:

The strawberry is really the swollen receptacle beneath the pistils

The raspberry is swollen ovary of each simple pistil combined to create an aggregate fruit

The rose hip is formed from the swollen receptacle where the flower parts are attached

The apples are the swollen ovaries

Several economically important products come from this family, including many edible fruits (such as apples, apricots, plums, cherries, peaches, pears, raspberries, and strawberries), almonds, and ornamental trees and shrubs (such as roses, meadowsweets, photinias, firethorns, rowans, and hawthorns).

Are you interested to read more about the Rose family? Please follow this really interesting link:

http://botanyprofessor.blogspot.ch/2011/10/why-are-seeds-on-outside-of-strawberry.html

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It’s apple picking season

Posted on 25/09/2012 by artandkitchen (Adriana)

Apple trees are interesting and exciting to have.

Just as all other garden trees they need care and pruning to maintain them alive over years.

We are lucky to have some of them however they are quite old (about 50 years and more than 6 high!) and we know that we’ll have to replace them.

We don’t use chemicals to protect our apple trees, we know that we will have less untouched fruits, but we know we will have enough to cover the needs of our family.

Pruning is usually done in early spring before the buds are forming. I’m lucky that my husband takes care of the trees and every year he climbs on the trees to prune them.

Finally in September the apples are ready to be picked with the help of a fruit picker with cotton bag attached on a telescopic adjustable handle

My recipes:
Harvest Apple Pie
Apple and Walnut Muffins

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Herbs under the rain

Posted on 22/09/2012 by artandkitchen (Adriana)

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It’s raining today; the garden is wet and perhaps not the best time to take pictures of small flowers.

The drops seem to be huge on them, heavy and sticky.

Yesterday I took some picture as it was sunny; however I decided to go out again to take picture of the details.

All the flowers published here look very similar. Why?

All these flowers are the flowers of the herbs I found today in the garden and all of them belong to the big family of the Lamiaceae also know in English as “mint family”-.

This is a large family of aromatic herbs and shrubs having flowers resembling the lips of a mouth and four-lobed ovaries yielding four one-seeded nutlets.

Her some examples:

Mints, Thyme, Basils, Sages, Oregano, Marjoram, Savory, Rosemary, Lavender, Self Heal, Lemon
Balm, Betony, Motherwort, Woundwort, Perilla, Catnip, Calamint, Cat’s Whiskers, Bergamot, Mother Of Herbs, Bugle, Alehoof, Pennyroyal, Hyssop, Patchouli, White Horehound,, Hottentot, Germander, Plectranthus / Coleus

The staminal lever mechanism in Salvia L. (Lamiaceae): http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S143960920400039X-gr1.jpg

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