Tag: seeds

Recipe Nasturtium and shamrock salad with hazelnuts and pumpkin seeds – Italian Cuisine

Ingredients

60 g toasted hazelnuts
60 pumpkin seeds
60 g lemon juice
30 g balsamic vinegar
6 g acacia honey
6 strawberries cut into wedges
2 bunches of rocket
1 bunch of red shamrock
1 bunch of green shamrock
1 pack of nasturtium leaves
primroses
marigold
carnation
salt
extra virgin olive oil

Duration: 30 min

Level: Easy

Dose: 4 people

To prepare nasturtium and shamrock salad with hazelnuts and pumpkin seeds, gently toast the pumpkin seeds in a pan without fat, then add the balsamic vinegar and honey and mix for a couple of minutes, until the vinegar
does not caramelize.
Chop coarsely hazelnuts.
Prepare a citronnette emulsifying lemon juice with 70 g of oil and a pinch of salt.
Peel herbs; collect shamrock, nasturtium and rocket in a salad bowl and season with the citronnette. Complete with pumpkin seeds, hazelnuts, strawberries, decorated with flowers and serve.
To know: nasturtium leaves and other edible flowers can be purchased online; alternatively, you can try ordering them from your greengrocer.

Terraced vegetable garden: boom in quarantine (and plants and seeds arrive at home) – Italian Cuisine

Sales of plants, seeds and equipment increased during the Covid-19 emergency with many activities being organized for home deliveries. Here's where to order and how to start your own home production

In this exceptional first part of spring that we are spending at home because of the emergency Coronavirus, we did not want to give up on ourselves flowers and plants beautifying balconies and gardens and not even planting sowing for vegetables, fruits and herbs that will sprout in this period and in the coming months. According to a monitoring carried out by Coldiretti, the weeks of quarantine have registered a boom of terrace gardens: sales of seeds, seedlings, fertilizers and domestic tools for cultivation have increased in supermarkets and nurseries (which have organized themselves with home sales). Who has enough space on the balcony or in the garden or even just on a windowsill has organized to start one home production of tomatoes, courgettes and lettuces, but also basil, rosemary, sage, thyme and mint.

Vegetable garden on the terrace: how to start

To start your own home growing, Coldiretti offers some tips.

Light, soil and anti-parasite nets

Consider the exposure of the balcony, because the seedlings need a good dose of light and heat to grow well.

Choose a suitable type of soil that must be sufficiently rich in nutrients, retain the water without creating water stagnation.

Do not use pesticide products, but to defend your crops with anti-insect nets or non-woven fabric, even by manually removing the insects.

If you are a beginner, choose seedlings to decant instead of seeds. They are more practical and allow you to see the fruits of your work first.

What to grow

Salad is the simplest cultivation (in fact it is the most requested) and guarantees the harvest after just 40 days with a cost of only a few cents.

Tomato seedlings are also very popular, even in miniature format.

Peppers, cucumbers, aubergines, spicy chillies with a thousand shapes, tomatoes with small and sweet fruits, green beans and any type of vegetable capable of growing in pots. It is – Coldiretti points out – in some cases of dwarf varieties obtained naturally through crosses, while other times they are normal garden products that adapt to growing even in small spaces such as pots, or in special supports that develop in vertical, making the most of limited space.

Home plants and seeds

On the company website Orto Mio, specialist in Forlì (FC) in the production of peat cube vegetable seedlings, in the Stores section there are the activities that deliver home delivery in your area (from north to south of Italy). You will also find a section dedicated to tips for growing the vegetable garden, one dedicated to cooking and one with the Live Garden where you can observe a vegetable garden in real time through a webcam.

Online plants grown especially for home delivery hobbyists are also found on The Garden of Wonders with nurseries in the province of Ragusa. From the site you can download guides on the cultivation of the vegetable garden and the sowing calendar.

If you are looking for certified organic plants you can buy them on The Ortofruttifero, a Tuscan company that with the University of Pisa has also started the "SuperBio" project to obtain plants which, in addition to presenting greater nutraceutical characteristics, also bring benefits to the vegetable garden.

The site piantinedaorto.it offers fruit, vegetable seedlings, various types of hot peppers, aromatic plants, berries and even ready-made kits with different types of plants and indications for planting them, from the size of the pot to the period.

To buy flowers and decorative plants to embellish gardens or balconies with an eye also to the social you can rely on Cascina Bollate, the nursery inside the Bollate Prison (MI) where prisoners learn a trade alongside professional gardeners. The large catalog can be browsed online and always with a click you can buy and order at home with deliveries throughout Italy (free of charge on Milan and neighboring in this period of health emergency).

On the Coldiretti websites you will find several lists divided by region of the companies that have organized themselves for home delivery: here, for example, you can find those of the Lombardy, here those Venetian.

Watermelon seeds: can they be eaten? – Italian Cuisine

They contain more nutrients than the pulp of the fruit: about thirty grams provides 8 grams of protein and 13 of mostly unsaturated fats, as well as minerals such as iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and zinc

The seedless watermelons they are increasingly in demand also in Italy, as well as in the North and Central Europe. instead theIn Africa, in Asia and in the Middle East, the "ordinary" ones are more appreciated, precisely because for the populations that live in these areas, even the seeds are precious: they are roasted and consumed as a snack (their flavor reminds that of the walnuts), can be ground (their flour is used to make bread), or still crushed and turned into a paste useful for thickening and enriching soups. Finally, the oil extracted from the seeds can be used to cook and fry.

Nutrient-rich

On the other hand, watermelon seeds actually contain even more nutrients than the pulp of the fruit: a portion of thirty grams of dried seeds provides about 160 calories, 8 grams of protein and 13 grams of fat (mostly unsaturated), as well as minerals such as iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and zinc. The seeds also contain various phytochemicals, including flavonoids.

This is why some scholars have already promoted watermelon seeds to superfood, useful to prevent obesity, arthritis and diabetes, and to protect the immune system. The research carried out so far, however, has tested the effect of the seeds especially on animals: other clinical studies are needed, before being able to ensure the validity of these conclusions also on men.

Meanwhile, the seeds can become a healthy snack, rich in beneficial nutrients and also suitable for those who want to keep weight under control. Suffice it to say that in a portion of 30 grams there are about 400: even too many to eat at once. Instead, a portion of chips of the same weight contains only 15. A large handful of watermelon seeds contains about 55 seeds and weighs about 4 grams, for a total of twenty calories: much less than a packet of chips.

How to toast them

The seeds taken directly from the watermelon are not appetizing, because the peel is hard and bitter. But toast them is simple. First of all, we must sChoose the dark ones and discard the white ones. After rinsing them in a colander, let them dry well. Then, in a wok or in a pan, heat a little olive oil and add the seeds, and stir frequently until they become brown. Finally, a sprinkling of salt can be added.

Or you can distribute the seeds on a baking pan (if desired, they can be flavored with a drizzle of oil and a sprinkling of salt): they must cook for about 15-20 minutes at about 160 °, until they begin to perfume. The roasted seeds, as well as a snack, can also be used to enrich the salad, or combined with muesli of dried fruit and oats.