House of Annie

Pandan is a plant with long, tough green leaves. When cut or crushed, the leaves give off this wonderfully sweet, herbal aroma. Cooking with pandan leaves will infuse the pandan flavor into the food. For instance, toss a few pandan leaves in a pot of rice with some coconut milk, and you have nasi lemak!

When we were living in Hawaii, I had a huge stand of pandan growing in the side yard of my Mom’s house. I had nurtured this stand from a small keiki given to me by my friend’s mom. I was very proud of how large it had gotten. (And very sad when I found out my sister had pulled it all out!)

When we moved to San Jose, we couldn’t grow pandan because it is a tropical plant that can’t take the cool California winters. We had to make do with frozen pandan found in the Asian grocery stores. Most of the recipes we made calling for pandan actually used a bottled pandan extract paste. Fresh pandan was just too hard to come by.

Pandan growing in our yard

One of the first things we made in the new House of Annie was barley tea, boiled with pandan leaves. I was starting to come down with a sore throat, so this barley tea with pandan was perfect. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any gingko nuts or fuchok to make it more fancy.

Boiling Pandan with Barley

No matter. When it was finished, boiled and cooled, I drank nearly the entire pot by myself! It really hit the spot.

Barley Tea with Pandan

We’re so happy to find this pandan stand in our yard. In actual fact, every house here in Kuching has a pandan plant growing. Our stand just happens to be so large because no one’s been living in the house for almost two years. That’s a lot of pandan to cook with!

So, we need your help. Give us recipes that call for pandan! Leave a comment and tell us what you’d do with all this fresh pandan.

Aloha, Nate

Want to see what else we cook with our pandan, or other local ingredients we find here in Kuching? Subscribe now to receive all our newest posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox!

This post is entered in the 2nd Anniversary edition of the Grow Your Own roundup, created and hosted by Andrea of Andrea's Recipes.

Hungry for dishes using pandan extract? Click below:

Pandan Waffles

Pandan Kaya Bread Recipe

Pandan Chiffon Cake

	Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes (Virginia, USA) presents Baked Garlic Mashed Potatoes with fresh parsley, sage, thyme, and chives from her new garden beds.
Claudia from Standing Straight (in my home state of Hawai’i, USA) baked these Queen’s Surf Banana Muffins using apple bananas, lemons, and macadamia nuts grown in their awesome tropical garden.
	Teleri of Mediterranean Food (Languedoc, France) fried these Borage and Cheese Parcels using Borage leaves picked from her garden. (I never knew you could eat the leaves!)
Nancy from Chapman’s Landing (Ontario, Canada) took some chives, garlic shoots and mint from her garden to create this cool Chive, Garlic & Mint Raita.
	Julia, musing at Grow. Cook. Eat. (Massachusetts, USA) harvested some scallions to garnish her Claypot Chicken Rice dish. (Nice job!)
Bee and Jai, the bloggers behind Jugalbandi (Northwestern USA) threw together a ”Clean up the Fridge Quiche” which included a parsnip that had survived the Winter in their veggie patch.
	Amy at Playing House (Oregon, USA) tossed some homegrown Italian flat-leaf parsley in her Lightened Eggplant Parmesan casserole.
Sarah of Eating, Drinking and Other Adventures (California, USA) combined fresh garden peas with asparagus to make this Farro Salad with Green Spring Vegetables.
	Katie from Good Life Eats (New Mexico, USA) already has tomatoes and basil in her garden (I’m so jealous!) which she put to use in a delicious Garden Fresh Panini.
Nichole at Evening Shade Morning Latte (Texas, USA) found inspiration from her garden-grown basil, oregano and rosemary to top her Garden Herbed Grilled Chicken Breasts.
	Garden Expert Ellen, of Garden Bytes from the Big Apple went rural to forage for knotweed, which she used to create this Knotweed Crisp dessert.
Brandy, the Prudent Homemaker (Nevada, USA) recreated her favorite Museum Pasta Salad using homegrown sugar snap peas and green onions.
	The MomGateway (Oklahoma, USA) used green onions from her garden in Tofu and Veggie Nabe which is a Japanese-style one pot dish.
My friend Saara who is Feasting in the Skagit Foodshed (Washington, USA) bravely foraged for Stinging Nettles to create her Nettle Pasta. (You go, girl!)
	Debby from Feast for the Eyes (California, USA) whipped up this kicked up Spring Leek and Potato Soup flavored with thyme and chives from her garden.
Another forager, Amy of Eggs on Sunday (New York, USA) discovered ramps on her property, which she cooked on top of a Ramp, Bacon and Ricotta Tart.
	Another ramp recipe comes from Giff of the Constable’s Larder who went foraging with other New York food bloggers and came back with enough ramps to make these Ramp Fritters.
The talented Soma of eCurry (Texas, USA) collected rose petals from plants around her home to make Rose Petal Honey.
	Lesley at Homemade Grits (Georgia, USA) channels the Pioneer Woman with her Rosemary Garlic Chips using a rosemary sprig picked from her garden.
Nichole of Evening Shade Morning Latte offers us a second GYO entry, Sage Butter Stuffed Chicken Breasts. Fresh garden sage went into both the sage butter suffing as well as the sauce.
	Priyadarshini at Food and Laughter (Gurgaon, India) harvested some baby spinach from the backyard to make her favorite Garlicky Baby Spinach Salad.
Todd and Diane, the White on Rice Couple (California, USA) bonded over a cookbook, from which they made this Spinach Salad with Vermouth Vinaigrette using homegrown spinach.
	Rachel the Crispy Cook (New York, USA) rooted up some dandelion greens from her garden to create this Spring Tonic with Dandelions
Ning over at Heart and Hearth (Manila, Philippines) harvested some of her lemongrass to add to her Thai Tom Yum (Prawn) Soup.
	Amelia from Gradually Greener (Washington, D.C., USA) harvested turnip greens from her community garden plot, which her friend Teya then cooked into Pasta with Turnip Greens and Prosciutto.
Tamra of Eat Seasonally (Tennessee, USA) used fresh kale as well as basil and tomatoes from last year’s crop to make White Bean and Kale Soup
	And Finally… Annie from House of Annie (California, USA) used green onions from the garden bed to make this Hong Siew Braised Tofu in Wine Sauce.

Whew! That is quite a roundup! I’d like to thank each contributor for their entry. Every one is interesting and delicious.

I’d also like to thank Andrea for letting me host this month’s Grow Your Own. It was so much fun, seeing all the food bloggers out there coming up with dishes to use their homegrown or foraged food. One thing I’ve learned, though, is to get started on putting together the round up post much sooner! ;-)

As the weather warms up here in the Northern Hemisphere, I’m sure more of you readers out there will be creating dishes featuring your own homegrown or foraged food. Wanna enter the next “Grow Your Own” roundup? The hosts of the next GYO roundup are the folks over at Daily Tiffin. Watch for their anouncement soon.

Aloha, Nate

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I sneaked JD aside and placed him along with a few other plants I wanted (yes, I bought more--5 to be precise!). When Nate saw that I was bringing more tomato plants home, he looked at me quizzically, chuckled, and shook his head. But he let me take them. Well, since he brought me to the event, he should have known I wouldn’t be able to resist. He was feeding my addiction!

We took JD home and Nate dutifully planted him. Good husband.

Two months later, JD Special C-Tex was my first plant with a fruit to ripen. Let me tell you--it takes a REALLY long time for a fruit to turn from green to their ripe color (I won't say red because tomatoes really come in all colors--that's another post). But once they do change, it doesn't take much time before they are ripe and ready to eat.

I was very excited when JD turned a dark, purplish red. But I waited for FOUR WHOLE DAYS before picking it so the tomato would have time to get its flavors all packed in. Finally, I could resist no longer and picked it. It is a little on the small side for a JD Special C-Tex but it's only the first so I'm happy enough with it. Doesn't this tomato look luscious?

Here's how it looks cut crosswise. Look at all that meat in the middle. JD was looking more and more promising.

Ok, here is where I have to tell you that I was almost reluctant to cut into JD because I had guests that night and this was my FIRST tomato and I didn't really want to share. I didn't even want to share with Nate or my two kids! But I really, really wanted to try him. So I decided to be nice and share. I cut JD into small chunks then sneaked my first bite right there in the kitchen.

Oh. My. Gawsh. I seriously almost changed my mind about sharing--it was that good! But I had let out this loud moan of pleasure that everyone could hear so there was no way I could keep JD all to myself.

So I brought out the bowl with the chunks of JD and passed them around. Everyone was very considerate and only took one. Suddenly, there were exclamations of surprise, wonder and delight as they bit into it. The bowl went around the group twice and then I let my daughter have the last two. And just like that, JD was gone.

In a month, I’ll be inundated with more tomatoes. But JD Special C-Tex, you were my first love apple this year. You’ll always have a place in my heart and garden.

Cheers, Annie

PS: Stay tuned as I discuss more varieties as they ripen. At the end of this season, I will have a seed giveaway of my favorite 5 varieties from this season so come back and watch out for it! And to make sure you grow the very best tomatoes, be sure to read my Top Five Tomato Growing Tips.