Since the Evolve or Die catering Jill Lorenzini and I did at AU, I’ve gotten lots of requests for how to make brine-free olives. This recipe has evolved from some small scale trials with Bill Cunningham’s big solar oven, set open enough so that the olives didn’t cook, but dehydrated at below 140 degrees. I can get two cookie sheets of olives one olive deep in it.

What I like most about it so far:
~It’s fast!
~no brine to “dispose” of
~they’re Yummmmmy!

I imagine it could be done in a car with the windows cracked open, or in a cold-frame type of set up… easy!

One week solar-cured olives (a work in progress, please share innovations with the locavore community!)

• Pick very ripe olives, wash and slit on one side (do they need to be slit? maybe not!)
  
• Cover with clean water and change several times a day for 3-4 days, keep in cool place with cloth over top (you can water trees or gardens with this water, ’cause there’s no salt in it)
• Drain olives and place one-deep in pan or on screen, put in warm dry spot protected from flies etc. Shake and rotate a couple times per day and keep temps below 140 degrees
• When they are not completely dry but distinctly chewy, place in jars and sprinkle with salt, about 2 tablespoons per liter or so. The salt will begin to draw more moisture out. After a couple of days, place olives back on pan and solarize for a day or so, they will be quite chewy and have a little salt crust in them. Put back in jar and drizzle a little olive oil on them, add herbs, more salt if you like, or store just as they are. I’ve been refrigerating them to keep the oils fresh.
• I haven’t tried to brine them, but if you wanted to for storage you could do a 1/2 brine, 1/2 vinegar the way traditional greek olives are put up…
• Experiment, share, enjoy!

Recipe by Barbara Rose of Bean Tree Farm

Recipe makes 16-ounces, over ice

1 ounce mesquite syrup* (For recipes, see page 50 or 52 in the Eat Mesquite! cookbook)
1 ounce agave syrup
2 ounces tequila
3 ounces beer or kombucha (home-brewed if possible)
3 ounces fresh citrus juice (lemon, lime, grapefruit, experiment!)

Garnish with: salt, a hot chile, citrus wedges, mesquite pod swizzle sticks, as desired.Pour over ice into large, chilled, rim-salted glasses.

*For a more “mesquitey” flavor, increase the mesquite syrup and decrease agave syrup. Experiment and enjoy!

Thanks to Julie Leibach of Audubon Magazine for blogging about our cookbook and eating mesquite! Check out out her posts here:

magblog.audubon.org/new-cookbook-reveals-magic-mesquite-plus-recipe-mesquite-tamales
magblog.audubon.org/recipe-mesquite-margarita

This link takes you to a page with lots of distractions, but stay focused and you will find the recipe you seek and lots of other neat relevant info!

www.instructables.com/id/Locally-Harvested-and-Milled-Hearty-Mesquite-Bread/

Saturday, November 7, 2009,
9 am – 2 pm:
Dunbar/Spring Organic Community Garden, Tucson.
The mesquite pancake breakfast is from 9 am to noon.
The mesquite milling is from 8 am to 2 pm.

Also, the San Martin de Porres Festival will also be going on next door at the Holy Family Church. Check out both events and make a day of it!

At the Dunbar/Spring breakfast we proudly serve mesquite/whole-wheat pancakes made with all organic, local ingredients. The mesquite flour is made from native Velvet mesquite pods hand picked by Desert Harvesters around Tucson – with most of the pods picked from trees planted within the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood. The organic wheat is from Crooked Sky Farm in Glendale, AZ, and is ground just a week before the event. The pancakes are served with prickly-pear syrup, mesquite syrup, organic back yard honey, agave nectar, and sometimes (if we are really lucky) saguaro syrup. There are also a variety of locally-made teas and organic coffee for people to try. The price of the pancake breakfast is $1 per pancake, and you get a raffle ticket with each pancake purchased. Local foods, crafts, teas, and gift certificates are raffled off throughout the event.

There’s also great live music, and a playground for all to play in. If it rains, we move the event just north of the garden to the Dunbar Auditorium.

In addition, local organic and wild foods are for sale. These can include local mesquite flour; prickly pear syrup, jam, and juice; mesquite pancake mix; baked goods; chiltepines; cholla buds; olive oil; cured olives; fresh mole mixes, and more. You’ll also find native herbal medicines and teas, organic Desert Harvesters T-shirts, and rainwater harvesting books for sale. And we try to feature educational sampling booths on other local/native foods such as acorn flour and baked goods.

People can bring the pods that they have harvested (up to 15 gallons) and grind them into flour for an additional donation. This year we will have two hammermills in operation to speed up the milling. The minimum milling fee is $3 for any amount under 3 gallons of whole pods. If you have more than 3 gallons of pods to grind, you pay $1 per gallon of whole pods. The idea is to encourage folks to bring at least 3 to 5 gallons of whole pods (5 gallons of whole pods will provide you with about 1 gallon of fine, edible flour in about 5 minutes of milling). Click here for more on how we run our millings.

The milling/breakfast event is hosted by, and is a fundraiser for, Desert Harvesters.

Directions to Dunbar-Spring Community Garden:
The garden is located at the corner of 11th Avenue and University Blvd. The nearest major intersection is Speedway & Stone. From Speedway & Stone: Go south on Speedway 3 blocks, and turn right on University Blvd. Go 3 more blocks to 11th Ave. The garden is at the northwest corner of University and 11th.

Friday, August 8 and Friday, August 15
Marana Heritage Park Farm
12375 N. Heritage Park Drive
Marana, Arizona

The Marana Heritage Farm is conducting Mesquite Harvests for those who call and schedule with them ahead of time. To schedule and for more information contact the Food Bank at 622-0525 ext 249

Saturday, October 25, 2008
Time to be announced soon
Marana Heritage Park Farm
12375 N. Heritage Park Drive
Marana, Arizona
Directions from Tucson:
1. Take I-10 West to Tangerine Rd Exit #240.

2. Go west (left) under the freeway continue straight on to Tangerine Farms Road (a newly constructed road)

3. Follow Tangerine Farms Road until you get to the intersection Gladden Farms Drive to your right and Heritage Park Drive to your left.

4. Turn south (left) – on the right you will see a large ramada, a small “Heritage House”, tan water tank and southwest style barn.

5. This is the Farm – pull into the parking lot between the barn and the house.

Note: We strongly suggest looking at the map on line – it is not difficult to find but due to construction it can be a little confusing the first time. Gladden Farms Drive/Heritage Park Drive/Lon Adams Rd is a big loop that is intersected by Tangerine Farms Road. Which means there are two entrances to Heritage Park Drive. At the first eastern entrance, there is a sign for the Park, baseball fields and a pocket park. If you took this road, continue past the blue silos and the Farm will be on your left.

Directions from Marana Town Hall Complex (Barnett Road):

1. Take Barnett Rd west to Sandario Road turn south (left)

2. Take Sandario to Moore Road and turn west (right)

3. Go about a block until you see Tangerine Farms Road on your left – turn south (left) onto Tangerine Farms Road.

4. Take your first right (this is the intersection with Gladden Farms Drive to your left and Heritage Park Drive to your right).

5. Turn south (right) – on the right you will see a large ramada, a small “Heritage House”, tan water tank and southwest style barn.

6. This is the Farm – pull into the parking lot between the barn and the house.

Note: We strongly suggest looking at the map on line – it is not difficult to find but due to construction it can be a little confusing the first time. Gladden Farms Drive/Heritage Park Drive/Lon Adams Rd is a big loop that is intersected by Tangerine Farms Road. Which means there are two entrances to Heritage Park Drive. At the first eastern entrance, there is a sign for the Park, baseball fields and a pocket park. If you took this road, continue past the blue silos and the Farm will be on your left.

Link to Map

By Donna Johnston

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

1 C. Sunflower Butter
1/4 C. Honey
3/4 C. Sugar
1 Egg
1 C. Acorn Flour
2 tsp. Baking Powder

Cream together first four ingredients. Add Acorn flour mixed with baking powder. Mixture may become heavy and sticky so you will have to use your hands. Best way to bake it is to make small pingpong sized balls and flatten them on top a little. They can also be rolled out and cut into shapes.
Bake at 375 degrees F. 8 minutes if rolled into balls, 7 if cut out into shapes. Watch carefully as they will get very hard if overbaked.

Frost if desired with Maple Glaze:
1/4 C. Maple Syrup
1C. Powdered Sugar
1/4 tsp. Vanilla (optional)
Mix ingredients well, thin with water one tsp. at a time until desired consistancy. Paint onto cooled cookies with pastry brush.
Enjoy!

This recipe is completely Gluten-Free. Other nut butters can be used. At 5000 feet altitude I use about 1/4 tsp. less Baking Powder. The sugar can be reduced by about 1/4 Cup and possibly replaced by more honey. If someone can make it work with NO sugar please send me some feedback. As a life long baker I never follow a recipe exactly anyway and usually fiddle with it until it suits my tastes.

from Lori Ladkison

2 1/2 cups cashews
1/2 cup agave syrup
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 1/2 cups fresh saguaro fruit

Blend cashews with sweeteners until smooth (vita-mix blenders do the
best job…others leave the cashews gritty), add saguaro fruit and blend
briefly until incorporated, but not long enough to break up too many of
the seeds.
If the mixture has gotten warm from blending, refrigerate until cool.
Put mixture into an ice cream maker and follow instructions. Add chunks
of saguaro fruit once mixture has begun to thicken but before completely
frozen.

Rita Gibbs

3/4 C butter, softened
1/4 C maple syrup (optional-use for a sweeter cookie)
1/8 C ground flax seed
1/8 C oat bran (or use ground up oats or flour if you don’t have this handy)
1/4 C chopped pecans or walnuts
pinch salt
1/2 C mesquite meal-any variety
3/4 C flour-white, wheat, spelt, etc.
*I use a wheat-free baking mix. It makes the cookies very light.

Roll out 1/4″ thick and cut with a cookie or biscuit cutter.
Bake at 300 degrees for about 10-12 minutes.

Courtesy Desert Tropicals, www.desert-tropicals.com

Mesquite flour will give a delicate and distinctive flavor to your cakes.

2 1/4 c. flour
3/4 c. mesquite flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tbsp. salt
3/4 c. oil or non-dairy margarine
1 1/3 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/3 c. milk

1. Sift the flours, salt, and baking powder in a bowl
2. Beat the sugar, vanilla, and oil or margarine in a separate bowl
3. Mix slowly the content of the 2 bowls, and the milk. Beat until smooth.
4. Pour the batter into 2 greased 9-inch round cake pans.
5. Bake for 30 minutes in a pre-heated, 350 degrees F oven.