Rocco Cambrera rejoins Maria to discuss the ins-and-outs of pizza! Maria also shares helpful tips on keeping a self-reliant garden, as well as a great risotto recipe you won’t want to miss!
Don’t forget Maria’s Easter bread event – take a look on marialiberati.com!
Enter, “The Maria Liberati Show,” based on her travels, as well as her Gourmand World Award-winning book series, “The Basic Art of Italian Cooking,” and “The Basic Art of…” Find out more on https://www.marialiberati.com
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Intro music: “A Quick Coffee” by Borrtex – available via Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
Outro music: “First Day of Spring” by David Hilowitz – available via Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
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Welcome to the Maria Liberati show where food meets art travel and life so what does food mean to you stay tuned for this segment you know we’re getting ready for spring now it sure feels like spring is in the air even though I know some places are still experiencing snow
And cold weather here on the East Coast we’ve been getting some pockets of actually warm weather and I see the Ducks out in the ponds and I hear the birds chirping so I know spring is definitely coming so stay tuned we are doing a segment on how to have a self-re
Liion garden you know it’s time to get ready for planting so prepare if you’d like to start your own garden if you’ve never done it or even if you’ve done it before it’s really fun and you’ll get some great vegetables and fruits so I’ll be talking about how to have your own
Self-reliant garden and also sharing a recipe for a strawberry risoto when you get those fresh strawberries in your garden or if you can find some locally grown fresh strawberries this is the perfect dish to try and we also have a guest Anthony brocco who has a large
Farm in New York state he’s going to share with us some tips on growing your own also so stay tuned and don’t forget to save the date of April 8th we are doing a repeat a zoom class of my Italian Easter bread bake along we did
Not yet announce the link for Zoom but it will be on April 8th 2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time we’re doing an e Italian Easter bread bake along that is on April 8th so so please save the date and thank you to everyone that attended the neapolitan pizza class that we did
With Rocco from Roco do in Miami Florida uh we did a zoom class he’s a he’s a neapolitan pizza expert and we did sort of a pizza bake along and uh thanks to everyone that attended we had a lot of fun do you still buy seeds every planting
Season if so you’re wasting money and an opportunity to create your own self- relling garden instead you should preserve the seeds from the vegetables you’ve already grown and learn how to store them one of the first steps is to clean the seeds separate dry seeds like beans and onions from their husks once
Dry the husk will crumble away easily separate the seeds from the chaff using a method called screening plants such as Tomatoes squash and melons contain wet seeds that you must separate from the pulp tomato seeds should be fermented first scoop the seeds pulp and a bit of
Water into a jar and keep it in a warm location until you notice bubbling or white mold the process can take up to about 5 days when ready to clean wet seeds place the seeds in Pulp into a bowl with water while the pulp and dead seeds will float the healthy seeds will
Sink to the bottom of the bowl pour the water dead seeds and Pulp out of the bowl strain the final bit of water and Pat the seeds in the strainer with a towel move the seeds to a glossy surface to prevent sticking and place in a cool
Shady spot for several days to finish drying store dry seeds in jars however you will have issues with your self-reliant Garden if you’re seeds are not fully dried dry seeds will not Bend and will break or shatter when you hit them with a hammer if your seeds are not
Fully dried you can store them with silica gel for two more weeks to complete the drying process step two is to control the storage environment according to online seed sales a dark Cool Storage environment is critical for preventing the seeds from starting to grow too soon to preserve seeds for your
Garden you should keep them at a constant cold temperature when you rem remove the seeds from the jar allow the entire container to warm to room temperature before opening it similarly seed should be stored in a climate with constant humidity insect damage is also a concern it’s impossible to weed out
All insects although freezing your seeds prevents them from sustaining more damage add add enough diet Tous Earth to cover the seeds in the jar before sealing to protect them from insects and remember for step three practice makes perfect no matter what you do the storage process will cause some of the
Seeds to die and their longevity to be reduced but through trial and error you can develop your own self- relying Garden so what are you waiting for now is a great time to start storing seeds to create a self- rring garden right Now Springtime is the season that mother nature begins to really yell wake up and Springtime is just right around the corner it’s really not far off from artichokes that can be boiled or baked and rich in fiber vitamin C carotenoids and mineral salts not to mention their natural properties to Strawberry and
Cherries fresh parsley and men have real depurative properties so eat some or use some to flavor your dishes and to get an extra dose of their healthy benefits get these fresh fruits and vegetables grown locally or grow your own as as we’re talking about doing a self-reliant
Garden um get them as local as possible shorter time from harvesting to arrive to your table and you will experience that shock to your mouth wake up all or fresh taste that says wow I’m tasting real food so here’s a dish that will give a true spring wake up to your mouth
With fresh strawberries I’m not sure if depending on where you’re located in the US or really anywhere in the world not everybody can get fresh strawberries yet you know we do see strawberries they’re not they’re coming from all over the place so they might not be local but uh
You know you can try this and when the fresh strawberries come in the local stuff definitely try it again with those you will notice and experience a different taste when you when you taste those locally grown or as we talked about grow them yourself a self- relaying garden and I just want to
Mention I did this risoto with strawberries for a special Valentine’s Day pre presentation for the Stratford Library in New Jersey on Zoom we did do a program actually it was a free program anyone could join in so I just wanted to give the recipe for those of you that
Could not make it and those of you that want to make this risoto with strawberries so it’s four cups of vegetable broth three tablespoons of extra virgin cold pressed olive oil two leaks chopped finely one cup of AR Boro or carnaroli rice a tablespoon of butter
A pinch of salt a cup of proo spaman or dry white wine 10 oz o of freshh strawberries washed and cut in half you’re going to heat the vegetable broth till boiling place the olive oil in a large sauté Pan place in the chopped leaks and sauté the leaks until they’re
Just about Golden place in the rice and toast the rice till it’s coated with oil and all the liquid is evaporated add in the wine or praco stir till all the liquid is evaporated place in a half a cup of vegetable broth and stir till all that liquid is evaporated and repeat
Placing in a half a cup of liquid till evaporated till rice is Al Dente approximately 15 minutes puree the strawberries when the rice is almost done place in the strawberry puree stiring well remove from the heat let it stand for 2 minutes place in 1 tablespoon of butter on top and stir
Till melted serve topped with grated parmesano regano cheese decorate the plate with a strawberry garnish and serve with with a glass of the dry white wine that you use to cook the uh strawberry risoto today I have Anthony brocco from brocco farms in Warwick New York and you
Know it’s eat your vegetables Day on June 17th and I’m always about promoting eating fresh vegetables and fresh produce and Anthony has been doing this wonderful presentation at many places on Zoom but uh many places have been hosting this on well I’m gonna let Anthony tell us all
About it um Anthony welcome uh thanks for being here well thank you for having me and Anthony so tell us um tell us I know you were telling me a great story about why you started doing this it’s a VI Victory uh Garden type of tour well
We what we did was before before the the the co pandemic we were we were talking at a lot of libraries and garden clubs about adapting because what we have is a small farm we’re not a large farm it’s a family farm 20 acres 25 acres actually
And we found that before I had the farm I was an avid Gardener so now that we have the farm there was a lot of tools that we use at the farm that can be used in a backyard garden that are not you don’t need a tractor you don’t need all
These automatic things but there are a lot of hand tools and I had this idea that we could share like small farm methods to be used in the backyard garden to make backyard gardening more fun and more Farm like but with the Advent of the of the uh pandemic yes we
Were not able to go to libraries and do the live presentation anymore so we so we were thinking it was actually one of the Librarians who said to us would you think about doing a zoom uh uh and I said okay I’ll try it but you know we do
Lot a lot of tool demonstrations we’d have a lot of handouts we’ll have to figure out how to handle all this yes we did about six of them last year but then over the winter I had the idea of saying you know instead of doing adapting small
Farm methods to a backyard garden why don’t we turn it into a victory garden a model after the Victory Gardens of World War I and World War II because the pandemic is kind of like a war and you’re fighting especially when when we were talking about food short shortages
As delivery problems um uh food chain and and food safety and all that so people were approaching me saying how do I start my own garden I want to be able to grow at least some food myself so I said you know what we’ll use the old victory garden method so I presented
That to the libraries and they and and garden clubs and they really jumped on it and as I was telling you we went from having six talks last year but pre pandemic we would do about 18 to 20 live uhuh this year we have we’re at 3 actually we just booked one yesterday
We’re at 33 wow wow that’s wonderful I I know that’s been becoming more popular you know gardening at home which I I mean I was happy to hear because you know people were home a lot more right or homebound right yes or or Homebound and
It’s you know a lot better to be out gardening than sitting in watching television so I I think that’s great that you’re out there teaching them how to do that so can you give us some tips for people and uh some things people can
Do that want to just do you know have a backyard garden well you sure there are it depends like everybody’s garden and everybody’s situation is a little bit different so you have people who have full sun people have partial shade people whose Gardens are on an incline
Or they’re on a so they they don’t have a level yard but there are ways to to uh to get around that so you can if you have you can do Terrace gardening for example if you’re if your garden is sloped your yard there’s a way to do it
By terracing so you have little areas if you have a regular level yard you can do an open plan where you just turn some of the soil over and make a garden there or you can frame it in with with wood and make like a raised bed it’s a little bit
More contained you don’t worry about erosion because the the the soil is Con contained in the frame and as I was mentioning to you before a very popular method now is pallet gardening taking old pallets uhuh put in your garden and filling them with soil and in between
Each of the boards or the slats people are planting and it works great because it’s not a permanent Garden you can move it around the boards act as weed blocks so the weeds don’t come up your crops come up um and they look they look very appealing because it’s old wood and you
Can age them by adding some stain or or or mineral oil to uh to bring out the Grain and it looks like almost like a piece of furniture and and that’s a great way too you know with wood now because I actually had I I went out in
My own garden and I have some raised beds but the price of wood now oh my gosh it’s horrible and then you it’s even hard to find sometimes right so you know doing a pallet guarden I think makes a great substitute if you don’t want pets and as I tell everybody in the
Talks pallets you can get them go to any tile or Granite place they have signs take them because they want to get rid of because everything’s delivered on the pets oh example my son he works at a garden center a few days a week and his
Boss said to him tell your father if he needs any pallets we have so many pallets the plants get delivered on and I said you know what I’m going to follow my own advice and what we started doing at the farm is we don’t grow a lot of
Herbs because herbot little goes a long way so making a line of of pallets and we’re growing the herbs in the pallets right outside our Greenhouse so yes when people come to the farm they see all the nice different the oregano the basil the the the the the sage
Things like that and they’re perennial so they’ll come back every year and just can uh that’s the other thing too if you have a pallet garden you want to grow herbs a lot of times in this in the fall you just cut them back and then cover
Them with some straw and it’ll protect the roots so they come back strong next year oh that’s a great idea so in other words you’re saying so with a pallet garden so let’s say the season is done you’re going to just put straw on top of
Them we’ll cut back we’ll cut back all the irregular let’s say leave it just a little high cut it back and then cover cover it with some hay or St you can buy hay bales are only like $5 a bail right and little goes one Bell goes a long way
Yes just cover it with the straw over the winter it’ll keep it the roots from freezing and then in the spring you can just take the straw off and then uh they’ll come back with sage uh all the all these Rosemary they’re all perennials most herbs are perennials um
So they’ll kind basil isn’t it’s an annual but they’re uh certain ones especially oregano we’ve been growing oregano in the same area at the farm for 10 years the same plants so wow wow and herbs herbs I think are probably a good thing for people that maybe haven’t
Really done gardening to start with right right you find yourself a good uh uh Garden Center that in your area to go to go I always recommend a garden center over a box store because you’re going to get Superior product in the garden center and you have people who work
There that know what they’re talking about so and you get a better product for example the farm this year we usually go to another Farm to get our plugs of Basil which is like 288 little plugs of of seedlings in in a flat and we transplant them but they were out of
Basil so I went to the Garden Center where my son works and they had some beautiful basil from South Jersey but I would never find that anywhere in any it would be terrible transplanted it and it’s fine so if you so that’s what I always recommend go to a good Garden
Center for your fertilizer for things of that type you don’t want to use any synthetic fertilizers you want all natural everything natural same thing with any insecticides or herbicides that you may need to control there’s always a natural solution you know yes to it and
That’s what I promote in in in the in the in the talks is to make it as natural as possible for example when people a lot of time people will come to be oh I bought some nice boards to make my raised bed well what did they buy
They bought the treated lumber Tre Lumber P from alahh yes yes you can’t use that so I would say you know what you should do I have a method what you do is you buy your regular Spruce fur or pine boards yes then we came up with a
Concoction that we saw in PBS years ago yes mix natural mineral spirits or or denatured alcohol yes with boiled linseed oil okay and then you roll put it on with apply it with a roller and it soaks into the wood two or three coats it’ll last as long as the treated lumber
It’s non-toxic oh that’s great yes that that is one thing I’m glad you brought that point out the um treated lumber you cannot use that for a bed so people don’t realize it and it is cheaper than the cedar so people might go to that but
It’s not not not a good way but if you get pine pine is very porous Pine lends itself if you’re going to do the coating that I said with the with the denatured alcohol or or the natural mineral spirits mixed with the linseed oil it’ll
Soak in it’ll soak into the wood and you do two or three coats and it lasts we’ve used our we did that in our our rais beds in our Greenhouse yeah in 2010 we’re only replacing the boards now and they’ve been in in in a greenhouse they’re in all kinds of conditions
They’re in heat they’re in cold they’re in constant moisture and they lasted 12 years well so they’ve lasted well that’s good that’s good to know I didn’t know that because I the last raised bed I just got Cedar which just cost a fortune theaters especially that oh gosh hor so
I will I’m gonna try that for my next one that’s a that’s a great idea definitely good idea so I guess um the last thing would be wo so do you think I just going to say what would be the first types of things you think people that aren’t really experienced gardeners
Should grow and we had said herbs is there any hers is one thing anything that you can buy that’s already started uh uh that’s already like if you can get little little potted little sets you know where you pour a set so I recommend for people start with tomatoes the the
Basics Tomatoes eggplants Peppers zucchin unless you have a big area zucchini is going to take up a lot of room you don’t want to do that unless you really want zucchini you’ll maybe get one plant in a 4 foot area so exactly what you want to do is you want
To uh start with those and you go to your garden center so maybe you get four tomato plants you get four pepper plants a few eggplant then with lettuce you can buy them already started or lettuce is so easy you just drop the seeds in and
They come up it’s it’s like weeds they just come up so lettuce you get some good satisfaction out of that any type of lettuce is you can buy little um packages of them and I also recommend uh like dealing there are seed sources that
I have um that uh what I do is um when I do the talk I have a series of handouts that I do that I show on the on the screen all my recommended seed sources recommended books to read and all that I can make that available to your audience
Oh yes definitely definitely we can U make that available people can actually um what what I’ll do is I’ll put this on my blog and uh we’ll do a post about this podcast and if you can send me that information anybody listening we can make that available right yes definitely
Um and Anthony tell us where can we find like if somebody wants to attend on Zoom one of these presentations um if you look on my website which is uh broof arms.com we have a farm talks page and we have a listing of all the libraries
Uh where the talks will be we have a three-part series we’re doing with the town of Valley Cottage uh they want me to do three talks one just take everybody through all the different steps so beginning the end of June July and August we have a few more coming up
Now but we’re kind of at the tail end of the season but we’re always adding more because the libraries are always calling me and the links are on the library website so you can sign up and uh we’ll be doing one I think we’re doing n
Tonight we’re doing the town of Mawa and I have to look on my schedule that’s okay people can people can look it up and also I just want to mention brocca Farms I’m still intending to get out there one of these days because that looks like you you have
Such wonderful I know you have organic and sustainable produce and I’ve heard a lot I know the last time you were on my show you were telling us all about this special soil right that’s there so um you know people need to take a notice of
Your farm too and the things that you’re producing there that’s correct because we are like today what happened was uh we were with this week we’ve been planting all our tomato plants uhuh different varieties so uh we waited after the rain to put them in because
The soil is nice and moist and yes so we’ve been putting in we have 15 varieties we’re growing this year hybs to heirlooms and that’s the thing when you have your Garden you can experiment no one says you just have to grow Roma tomatoes to make sauce you can use any
Tomato to make sauce you know make some heirlooms together get some cherry tomatoes mix them together you can experiment that’s what you want to do you want to have fun with it um and there’s one particular source and I mentioned this in all my talks yes there’s an organization called Seed
Savers organization they’re out in the Midwest and I make that available with my handouts they are an organization that saves seed or they get heritage heirloom seeds that they can trace the lineage back hundreds of years so if you want a particular let’s say Mar you want
To grow a particular tomato like they’ll tell you well this tomato started in Italy in the 1600s it was brought to the United States and the seeds are still they’re still breeding it so the seeds are available today yes yes and that that’s so interesting yeah that’s interesting
Oranization but nobody knows about it no and people you know most people think okay a tomato is just a tomato like what they see at their grocery store they don’t realize there were zillions of types of tomatoes the grocery stores only sell one or two types maybe because
They don’t want to be bothered with all these different varieties but you doing the garden yourself you’ll have a chance to actually right try some of these varieties if you get to that Seed Savers oh that’s great thanks so much for all the info and thanks so much for being
Here I know you really busy too and uh hopefully people will somebody will also some of my listeners will also attend some of your presentations and I’ll have this information available on my website and that’s broof forms.com right that’s correct yes they can find you there thanks again Anthony we’ll be talking to
You soon thank you okay take care bye bye bye thanks for listening to the Maria Liberati show and thanks to my producer sir Britain Roselle and thanks for joining us and don’t forget to save the date April 8th an Italian Easter bread bakealong we will be announcing the link
And more information on how to register for that the uh registration will be limited so if you’d like to you can sign up for my blog go to Maria Liberati dcom sign up for my blog and you’ll be you’ll get an email letting you know when the
Program will be um when you can register it is on April 8th at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time um it will be on event break so you will be able to register on event break but we haven’t sent out any links yet so it’s not registration is
Not open yet but please save the date that’s April 8th and in the meantime you can find me on Facebook at Chef Maria Liberati on Instagram at Maria Liberati on Twitter at Maria libera on LinkedIn at M Liberati on Pinterest at Maria Liberati on my Roku channel the
Basic art of Italian cooking by Maria Liberati and you can also find me in my book series the basic art of Italian cooking my GM mind World award-winning book series and you can find those books anywhere books are sold online or offline and you can certainly find them
At mara. comom and artofliving premium media.com until next time peace love and Pasta