Making homegrown seedy mustard ia incredibly easy and satisfying. It tastes absolutely amazing too. Each batch is different and we love to experiment with a range of flavours from the garden.
Mustard adds so much wonderful flavour to so many meals - salads, soups, sandwiches, curries, stirfies, dips ...
It's time we made some more. We just harvested over a kilogram of seed from a few Mustard Spinach (Brassica juncea) plants. Some of it I will use in curries, some in salad dressings, some will be planted, and a lot shared with friends and others we meet in our little origami seed packets.
Green Mustard Spinach Seed
Stockpiling my seed for making mustard.
Even so, after all the things I plan to do with it, there'll still be a lot left, and there's more to harvest tomorrow before it scatters itself completely back into the soil.
Making mustard will be one of tomorrow's homeschool activities - a science experiment.
Ingredients:
1 cup Mustard seeds
1 cup Vinegar (we are using raw organic apple cider vinegar)
salt, pepper, herbs and spices to taste - rosemary, oregano, chives, garlic, thyme, basil, mint, sage, tarragon, ginger, turmeric chilli...
other optional extras - lime/lemon juice and/or zest, honey
Method:
Soak mustard seeds in vinegar overnight
Blend
Add herbs
Transfer to jars and refrigerate
I'll post soon to show you how we go....
The seed is ready to harvest - and already self-seeding from some pods.
A Self-Seeding Favourite
I like Mustard Spinach self-seeding because I know I am guaranteed to have mustard spinach - both red and green - coming back year after year. I can be sure to have lots of leafy greens throughout the cool weather without even trying.
Red Mustard Spinach
Healthy Food
Mustard Greens one of the most nutritious green-leafy vegetables available around. Their spicy crisp leaves are high in many vitamins and minerals. It rates up there above kale as a 'supergreen'.
All parts of the plant are edible, even the flowers (spicy and colourful in a salad) and the young seedpods (pea-like in flavour).
The Abundance of Mustard Greens
I so appreciate the abundance of Mustard Greens. I use everything - the young leaves, the old leaves, the young flower stalk, the flowers, the young seed pods, the seeds. It feeds us, our animals and our soil. It's big leaves often get chopped and dropped - there's just too many to eat. The seedpods and dry stalks go back to the soil too.
A Spicy Deterrent
It's spicy leaves are a deterrent to pests and I hide more delicate things around it.
Subscribe to my Blog and Youtube Channel: Our Permaculture Life
If you enjoy my blog:
subscribe directly either by email or Feedly (links on this site)
I am so delighted to see subscriptions growing quickly on my new Youtube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/moraggambleourpermaculturelife) - when you subscribe, you receive notification of the weekly short clips I upload about Our Permaculture Life.
