Monday, May 23, 2016

Bok Choy Monday

World War Two. Atomic bombs. Hanford Nuclear site. Alphabet houses.

In 1943 there was a government project to build housing for all the military personnel & scientists who were working at the Hanford Nuclear site. There are quite a few different models of houses that were designed & built for the workers & their families. All of the designs were given letters of the alphabet as names. These old homes are now commonly referred to as ABC houses or Alphabet houses. I live in one of these old houses, the V house model, though it had some remodeling done at some point. 


Now, our whole front yard and our whole back yard has been converted into what we call Shilo Farms Urban Redux. Ty, my partner, grew up on a farm. He dreams of farming on acreage again someday but for now he's doing the urban farming thing. We grow tomatoes, sweet & hot peppers, melons, watermelons, summer squash, winter squash, various herbs, eggplants, lettuces, collard greens, kale, chard, mint, chamomile, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, beans... I think the list can probably go on for days! Pretty much everything we grow are heirloom varieties. They are all grown as organically as we can get - meaning no chemical pesticide sprays or fertilizers, but we do use natural pesticides (basil & marigolds actually work really well) & use mulch & manure, tilling those in every year. 

Last weekend I harvested all of our bok choy. It has gotten so hot that it's bolting & going to seed. Bok choy actually makes some really pretty little yellow flowers, but I'd rather eat what I grew than look at the pretty little flowers. 

I had a lot of bok choy to use! I decided on two recipes that wouldn't require a trip to the grocery store - coleslaw and fried rice. Not typically things you would pick to use bok choy, I think, but bound to be tasty! Bok choy has nice crisp stalks with smooth & sweet leaves. Those textures make bok choy amazing in salads as well as cooked dishes. The two recipes I used make very different styles & textures out of the bok choy but they could actually be eaten together in a meal, I think!



I used this recipe for the coleslaw, and this one for the fried rice. With, of course, a few variations to the fried rice based on what I had in the kitchen! Like, 3 eggs instead of 2, no tofu, frozen veggie mix, & extra garlic, garnished with sriracha. 

I do still have some bok choy left after making these two dishes, so Ty's mom will be getting a bag of it tomorrow!

No comments:

Post a Comment