Elephant Garlic Pie

Back in the 1980s, on a cold day in January I was preparing for the arrival of a newspaper reporter. She was coming to interview me to ask what was in the garden in that cold that month. When she had called a week earlier, she said she was looking for a garden story idea but assumed there was nothing still in the ground and maybe we could do a story on soil preparation. I explained that with our mild Ozarks winters, that yes, I did still have food growing in my garden. Carrots and leeks were still in the ground, lettuce, peas and spinach were growing in a cold frame. As is my custom when reporters come, I invited her for lunch, to taste a bit of the garden.

Elephant Pie

That day we dug carrots and picked lettuce and spinach for her photos. Those went into a salad, which I served with Elephant Pie. Elephant Garlic Pie, that is. I like elephant garlic as a vegetable, it has a mild, sweet flavor that works well in all sorts of dishes. Even steamed and buttered, it's delicious.

Elephant garlic, you may not know, was first introduced to the gardening world by our friends at Nichols Garden Nursery in 1941. (Someone later gave Luther Burbank credit, but the documentation is clear, the first elephant garlic, along with the name, started with Nichols Garden Nursery in Albany, Oregon.

Areas of the famous Willamette Valley, known for its mild climate and amazingly fertile soil, was settled partly by immigrants from Czechoslovakia and Northern Yugoslavia. Mr. Nichols discovered that some of these folks were growing a gigantic variety of garlic, mild in flavor and vastly different from any garlic he had ever seen. The immigrants had brought this unusual garlic with them from the Old Country. He purchased 12 pounds as seed stock in 1941 and began cultivating it. When he finally had enough to sell, he began advertising in newspapers and magazines. In 1953 he gave it the name, elephant garlic. Back then, he was the only one selling it and when you ordered elephant garlic from Nichols, in your order you received a little pamphlet with growing and storing instructions. He sold elephant garlic across the U.S., Canada and to many places overseas.

The original pamphlet that accompanied orders, in 1953

I just planted my elephant garlic this past week from some I ordered from Nichols. I prefer to plant it in September, but things were too busy this year. I've actually planted it as late as the first of December and it has done well, thanks to our fairly mild winters here. Next summer, probably about mid to late June, my elephant garlic will be ready to dig. You can still order some for planting from Nichols. I've seen it in the produce department of several grocery stores if you want to get some to cook, but to get a start to grow, of the original, authentic elephant garlic, order from Nichols. (Every other nursery or seed company that sells elephant garlic, can trace their original sources back to Nichols). Here's my Elephant Garlic Pie recipe. It's like a quiche and you can add a regular pie crust if you wish, but I usually make mine crust-less because it cuts down a bit on the carbohydrates and fat.

Elephant Garlic Pie

5-6 cloves elephant garlic, sliced
1 tablespoon butter or olive oil
4 eggs
1 can evaporated milk
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup chopped fresh spinach
1 cup diced, thinly-sliced ham (leave it out if you don't eat meat)
1 tablespoon cooking sherry
1/4 teaspoon any brand hot sauce
2 green onions, diced
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Saute the sliced elephant garlic in olive oil or butter until tender, about 5 minutes.
3. Beat the eggs and milk together; add the cooking sherry, hot sauce, green onions and salt and pepper. 
4. In a oiled pie plate, layer the garlic, cheese, spinach and ham, then pour the egg mixture over. Dust with a bit of paprika if desired.
5. Bake until a knife inserted comes out clean, about 35-40 minutes. Let set for 5 minutes before serving.

Nichols Garden Nursery also is the source of my favorite sour dough starter. Mr. Nichols got the start in the late 1940s from a friend who'd been a logger in Alaska. They sell it in powdered form and you mix it with your own bread flour and get it started. We make 2 loaves of sourdough bread a week here at the farm. Sourdough bread is considerably easier for diabetics to eat and Nichols' starter is the best tasting I've ever had. (I don't care for the San Francisco sourdough breads, they're too, well, sour, for me, but Nichols' Oregon Pioneer starter tastes lots better). Here are a couple of recent loaves of sourdough bread we've made.

Freshly-baked sourdough bread is simply delicious!

Dried Apple Zucchin Pie

Our zucchini plants are still producing great lots of squashes. The late August planting that I've started doing in recent years works way, way better than spring planting. The pest-bugs are almost non-existent and we can barely keep up with using what 5 plants produce. One year I made sweet pickles, using my mother's 7-day sweet pickle recipe, substituting zucchini instead of cucumbers and it worked very nicely. But this is my first time to use zucchini in apple pie.

Dried Apple-Zucchini Pie

Our friends, Betty and Dennis, were coming for dinner last week. The menu was simple - beef stew, homemade biscuits and pie. The reason the photo is half a pie, is because I forgot to take the photo until after we'd all had a piece. Everyone agreed my experimental recipe was worth keeping, so here it is for you to try. You could use fresh apples, but the dried apples were convenient. If you use fresh apples, be sure to add additional flour to the recipe.

Dried Apple-Zucchini Pie

4 cups of dried apples (we got ours from the Amish Store)
2 cups thinly-sliced zucchini
1 1/2 cups apple juice or water
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons butter
2 rolled-out pie crusts

Combine the apples and apple juice or water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, add the zucchini slices and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Add the lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon and flour to the apple-zucchini mixture and stir to dissolve sugar.

Line a pie plate with one rolled-out pie crust, then fill with the apple-zucchini mixture. Dot the top with butter. Moisten the edges of the pie crust, then place the second crust on top and crimp to seal the edges.

Brush the top of the pie crust with half and half or milk, then sprinkle the top with sugar. Cut slits for the steam to escape. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Let pie sit for about an hour before serving.