I was wondering where I could find some good thai vegetables, seeds etc... most of the recipes in my thai cookbook ask for lemon grass, kafir leaves and thai peppers. Is it hard to grow lemon grass?
I would love to grow some of this veggies but I am not sure if it would grow well in my area.
Thai vegetables.
I have seen lemon grass for sale in pots. I ordered one once and they were out of it so I never got it. But it's doable.
Try www.rareseeds.com. This is the website for Baker Creek. I grow many veggies from Thailand they do well in the heat and humidity.
Lisa
Greenhouse where did you order them from?
Lisac thank you for the website, yes I am familiar with baker creek I saw the thai pepper and other oriental veggies but I don't think they carry any lemon grass or kafir leaves, do they?
I wonder if I can use cilantro instead of the kafir leaves, I've heard the kafir leaves have a lemony taste.
Lemon grass : http://www.acornsprings.com/index.php?mod=product&id_prd=97 http://www.amazon.com/Lemon-Grass-Plant-Cymbopogon-SALE/dp/B000PXZCUA http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1497/13
Kafir is used for several types of plants, If you mean the Kaffir lime, whose leaves are used as an herb; http://www.bayflora.com/kaffirlime.html http://www.territorialseed.com/product/9448/253 http://www.logees.com/prodinfo.asp?number=C2016-2
Thank you Farmerdill, I will look in those websites. I think you are right it must be kaffir lime leaves.
Howdy, Folks..
Yes, kaffir lime leaves are what you want for Thai cooking. So...guess you gotta grow a lime tree to get it! Fortunately you can find the leaves at some of the Oriental Supermarkets/grocery stores.
As for lemon grass, if you see some for sale at the grocery store you can buy a bundle (it is sold in rubber-band packs similar to green onion bunches). Pick out ones with the fattest fleshy bottoms for not only best eating BUT those will also root in water pretty good, too. Once you see roots forming pot them up in small pots to hold them over thru the winter. Lemon grass should be hardy in your area, Carminator, so if you want to set some out put it in an out-of-the-way place and let it get some good size to it. (See pic.)
Enjoy!
Shoe
Wow Shoe that is a huge plant, it looks pretty too. Yes I read in one of my books that you could buy some from the grocery store and root them in water but for some reason my grocery stores don't carry them and neither does the oriental market I have in town. I do have one more place to try though it is an organic market so I'll try that and see if I can get some in there.
By the way how in the world do you harvest the roots?
You may try www.evergreenseeds.com also. They specialize in Asian veggies. From what I know about your climate Thai veggies should do really well there. Have you tried Asian long beans? I'm still getting beans off of the plants that were seeded last April. Not even our severe drought and heat could slow them down.
1lisac what do you do with your long beans besides stir fry? That's all I ever see mentioned. Can you shell them? Can you use them like green beans? I like the idea that they keep going for so long.
Carminator, I don't even remember where I ordered my lemon grass from. It was probably one of those outfits that has ads in the Sunday magazines and that looks like it has great deals in perennials. I'd never order from them again; I've learned better and the plants that did arrive, as I recall, were in very poor shape.
Farmerdill seems to have some good resources, though.
Twiggy-I have never gotten the chance to cook them. My youngest son eats them as fast as the plants can produce them. He eats them raw while he is wandering around my garden looking for something else to eat. I have also gotten the chance to eat a few when he wasn't looking and they taste a little different then regular beans but pretty much the same. Next year I will plant more of them but they seem extremely disease and pest resistant as well. Usually I have to battle Spider Mites on all my beans but these were never bothered by them.
Ha! He's just trying to save his poor mother from having to cook so much. My son keeps a close eye on the icicle radishes and certain hot peppers.
They sound pretty good if they're appealing even raw. I had some kind of long skinny bean sauteed at a Vietnamese restaurant. They were good and probably a long bean. I think this will be another one I need to try.
I just got an order from evergreen seeds. I saw they had some bad feedback on the watchdog which almost prevented me ordering. I mentioned I would leave them feedback on the Watchdog and I had my order in hand within 3 days.
Some businesses obviously don't care at all about Watchdog from what I read in the feedback on them, but I'll bet that others really pay attention to it. As a matter of fact, the reason I joined DG to begin with was that a friend for whom I'd painted a portrait was upset that he had gotten negative reviews on Watchdog and asked me to go online and post a good report, since I was very happy with the product he sells.
And then I got hooked!
Well I'm glad you got here. I found DG by googling for certain plants and the plantfiles kept coming up.
I know if I was serious about selling mailorder gardening products, I'd be very interested in what got posted on the Watchdog about me. Statistics have shown that online shopping and gardening are both really growing here in the US. In fact, I think I'd want a link to the Watchdog on my website. It can be a great free advertising tool.
Carminator, "By the way how in the world do you harvest the roots?"
You don't harvest the roots of lemon grass, just the stalks. Pull the stalks where they attach to the root/crown.
Normally I'd have pots of lemon grass in the greenhouse but this time of year I try to reduce quantity so I don't have to babysit the more tender plants through the winter. If you can wait till spring I'd be glad to send you a plant at that time.
Twiggybuds, you're right on the yardlong beans being usually mentioned for stir-fry only. Fortunately a friend of mine says she found a recipe that says if you cook them like "regular beans" they are usually simmered for quite a while, preferably with some fat (meat, butter, oil) to help them tenderize.
We're getting deluged with oodles of rain here, from the storm. I can only imagine what ya'll along the coast are getting. Hope you are not flooding.
Best,
Shoe
Can't simmer them very long, Shoe, They get mushy. For those of you that like snaps ( immature pods cooked with thier cowpeas) that is the flavor. Long beans seems to be the "in" name now, but we old timers know them as "Yardlongs". They are also called "Asparagus" beans. They are a subspecies of the cowpea, that produces pods in abundance, but are skimpy on peas. Rarely used as a shelling pea. They don't taste like a common bean or asparagus either, you really have to use your imagination to make that connection.
I hear ya, F-dill...I don't care for mushy beans. When I picked them fairly young, before the seeds got too fat, they are a firm pod; even when stir-frying them I had to put a lid on at some point to soften them up a bit. However I'd rather do that so I can pull them off the heat before they turn to much.
Here's a pic of "Chinese Red Noodle" beans. I actually let some fill out just to shell them like cowpeas but it was late in the year and never got a big enough mess of them.
Shoe
Wow tonts of posts since I last posted, this is great!
1 lisac, no I have not tried the long beans but they look very interesting and might tried them in the future, I love stir fries so I am sure I will like them. Sometimes I get a little scared trying a new veggie because I am always thinking of how in the world I can cook it, I have seen many different eggplants that looked interesting but I am always wondering how can I prepare them since they don't look like the regular eggplants that I am used to.
"My youngest son eats them as fast as the plants can produce them" LOL, my little 2 year old is eating all my sweet peas, I keep telling her to leave them alone and let them grow bigger but as soon as I am not looking she grabs a bunch and starts munching on them, the poor plant has torn branches from all the pulling, we will see if it survives the little girl.
Twiggybuds, how funny that is exactly how I became a member of Daves, I kept searching online for different veggies and daves kept popping up so I gave it a try and now I am hooked. I am glad I did, I have learned tons since I joined.
Horseshoe thank you for the explanation, I will let you know if I am able to find some stalks on the organic market here in mobile.
Thanks guys. I have MS Silvers right now and don't mind a bit when I get a few snaps. I'm not sure I'd want a whole pot of snaps. I guess next time I'm placing an order I just need to try some yard longs to see what I can do with them.
I love oriental food and have been doing a little experimenting. I'm noticing that much of the flavor comes from the many different sauces and different oils they use. They can take something with almost no taste and turn it into delicious. I revert to my Southern roots real quick with normal green beans. My favorite way is with bacon and new potatoes cooked just until tender.
Carmen your little girl is making great memories. Most kids lose interest when they get into their teens but I think most that grow up gardening will come back to it when they get their own house. Then you'll get lots of calls asking for your guidance. It's great to have something positive in common with your kids.
I agree with you, Twiggy, about Carmen's daughter's memories. Our kids grew up snacking out of the garden, and our granddaughter, who did not have the best of diets early on, also learned to love "grazing" among the veggies and berries. From just eating the raw tips of asparagus she has graduated to eating the whole thing roasted in the oven, and has even made them a few times at home. In general she has broadened her tastes and I think the garden had a huge amount to do with it. Get your little girl to "help" with the garden as soon as possible and she'll be hooked for life, although as Dorothy says, it might lapse in the teen years until she has her own home and family. We took our granddaughter to France (rural areas as well as Paris) when she was ten, and now she says that when she grows up she wants to live in France and have a farm! It does make you feel good!
Now if I could get my little boy interested in gardening with mama. Actually she loves gardening but I have to be very careful with her, she has already pulled lettuces out thinking that she was pulling out weeds, I guess she wants to do as mama does.
greenhouse, yes France is beautiful, I can see why she would love it there. My parents lived in Strasbourg for 4 years and I loved to visit.
Twiggy I am happy to have found an oriental market here in Mobile, the problem I find sometimes with oriental food or any other type of food is finding the right ingredients. PS: I'll have to try your recipe for green beans, they really sound good. I've also tried them with garlic and fresh muchrooms, they are out of this world.
Farmerdill, Shoe,
I have a question, how do you preserve this yard long beans? Can you freeze them? I mean in case you get too many.