(cooking, eating notes)

[elainegrey]

Lunch adventure - no, not eating out yet. This was eating some produce.

First there are Tough Beans. It's hard to find the green beans, and i'm leaving some that seem far too mature for dried beans. But there's the borderline beans, where there are lumps in the bean pod from the seeds forming, but not yet looking past the green stage.

Then there's

Comments

[liminal_space]

I've been wanting to try okra in different ways -- but it's pretty hard to find fresh where I live, which is surprising! So did you just get okra and dry it then grind it?

Inquiring minds!

[elainegrey]

I'm growing it, so when it's a bit too much fresh, i cut the okra in rounds and dehydrate it. But then there are the too-tough pods. In The Whole Okra the author describes drying the outer, tough pod shells and grinding them up as a soup thickener. I used my coffee-grinder-only-for-spices and made a reasonable powder. The seeds i've been getting out before they go too hard, so i eat those a little like couscous. I've dried some of the seeds with thoughts of soup this winter: i need to come up with a better technique because i loose the seeds even through the fine dehydrator grate.

If you'd like some dried okra, it's certainly light to mail if you don't mind them getting crushed. Let me know your mailing address.

Smith, Chris, The Whole Okra: A Seed to Stem Celebration (White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2019), Purchasing 2021-08-17