 We have been celebrating a little bit every day in the garden But today we are celebrating even a little bit more because we have cooked meals and Salads and all sorts of gems from the garden This is an abundant harvest that we were able to put together from whole foods in our yard And a lot of people when they first get into whole foods cooking get a little intimidated I think you need all of the special equipment and all of this expertise and technique, but really basic cookware sharp knife Dating board and that's about it. You can pretty much make everything here with very little instruction or guidance And it's delicious. Yes And we what we did everything here as we would normally do things simply but we especially wanted to stick to that to show how accessible it is to eat healthy homegrown food right from your yard and You've noticed and probably just about every video. I've been nibbling in the garden So I've been eating the whole time we talked about eating the microgreens, you know when you're thinning So we've been eating all along But today we're excited to share these Meals with you and we have created a few things here that are Like really easy common things that you're gonna be able to do with the foods that you grow from the free-seed project pack and Almost all the food here is from the garden from the free-seed project But we added in a few other things to share a couple other exciting little lessons so the Salad is the first stop. I think that's the easiest literally no cooking. It's basically just assembly So we did a nice arugula salad From the seed pack and then we used a mix of veggies the carrot ends from baby carrots That were too smaller that we cut off from the bottoms of the larger carrots some tomatoes, but we also foraged Which is a huge thing when you're gardening the more you get into it the more you realize how many edibles are around So this is Spanish needle, which is a weed But it's a medicinal edible wonderfully abundant Flower you can add for a little pop of color And then you can use whatever dressings you want some simple olive oil and balsamic or whatever you have in the fridge But I think in most cases a salad is probably the easiest place to start Yeah, so with the salad the most common greens you're gonna use from the pack are the arugula kale when it's younger mustard greens and then We also have you know the onion the chive all of the herbs can go in there and Then as far as the weeds we also have per slain and we have the spider wart in here and Some of the other weeds that you're likely to get in your garden That would be wonderful to eat in your salads would be plantago or or plantain Dandelion is another one stinging metal is another really common one So I have videos on how to harvest the weeds and I would highly recommend watching those those will be in the Description and in the guide so that you can learn the edible weeds in your garden to add to your salads and your cook dishes if you want to start doing cooked meals the next thing I always Start with and I think is a nice basic way to take whatever you do have in the garden or have access to is What I like to call Buddha bowls So I start base of the bowl with some sort of grain rice or millet or sorghum or whatever else you'd like to put under There and then I put some sort of mixed vegetables Sometimes I'll add in sauteed greens, but I always try to have some sort of root vegetables Carrots are from the package turnips radishes a lot of people eat radishes raw which obviously you can they're delicious Roasted to you can mix in beets anything else that you have I roast those in the oven just with some simple salt and pepper and olive oil and Then I garnish with some sort of sauce. You guys do have basil in the pack We didn't have time to make pesto But that's a great sauce or any other mixed sauce and some herbs herbs on top of everything It's a great way to get all sorts of micronutrients and add a huge burst of flavor Yeah, and then moving on we have the sauteed greens and sauteed greens are One of the most common foods that I eat it's a way to just pack in lots of nutrients and there's a dish in Grease that's called horta and that's basically just sauteing all of the greens together whether wild greens or from the garden and doing that in olive oil with salt and lemon very simple and What's great about this dish is that you can use your older greens for this as well That might be a little stronger flavored might be more bitter or might be more strong and That sauteing helps to reduce that that that strongness and make it more palatable So from the garden from the free seed pack, you're gonna be having a lot of your kale Your mustard your arugula your radish greens and your turnip greens all make wonderful Wonderful greens for your sauteed greens and then of course eating the weeds we have purslane in here and dandelion and You know your plantago and a lot of your stronger flavored weeds will be wonderful in the in the horta in the sauteed greens and of course adding in your Your your dill your basils as garnishes and cooking with your chives and your onions All of your herbs can go into this to to bring out the flavor So we have kimchi and this is yet another way to store and preserve the bounty over time So end of season if you do have too much abundance or if you just want to try something different Fermented foods can be a little intimidating even for myself I've been gardening and saving for years and I'm just starting to get into fermenting and I remember just like always feeling like what if I don't do it right or You know like there's so much that could go wrong and then once I did it. I was like oh This is so simple. I don't know why I wasn't doing this the whole time Literally all you need is salt technically for like the crowds and all of that kind of thing literally just salt and massaging if you want to take it a Step further and do something like kimchi. You're literally just adding in herbs in addition to the salts and it creates its own juices and Firmance and is stable for a long time for making your sauerkraut or your kimchi You have some really great herbs in the pack. That's your dill seeds your cilantro seeds Those are in the beneficial insect attract attractive mix and then you have mustard seeds as well those are three really wonderful seeds for adding to your kimchi or your sauerkrauts and Those herbs your basil your dill your oregano Those can all be dried and saved long term and those can be added to your you know your croutes as well and then lastly we wanted to share these mulberries and These mulberries Gotta eat a few These mulberries I Was biking over and I foraged these and we just have to mention foraging because so much of the abundance that there is We don't have to do any work for and often it's about getting connected with our neighbors getting to know our neighbors This is a mulberry tree that produces gallons and gallons and I met the woman She can't come close to eating them on she's so happy for us to stop by the tree and harvest so adding the foods that you forage from your neighborhood and my We'll have a link in the description that has my beginner's foraging guide Which has lots of videos on foraging the weeds and foraging fruits and everything that you would want to forage So I try as best as I'm able on site to not have any waste or very very little waste Especially when it comes to food products so, you know the carrot ends the tops of the tomatoes like the even the carrot tops or Any of those veggie scraps onions the onion peels all of that can be used to make super flavorful stock So whether you're a vegetarian or vegan making a veggie based one if you eat meat saving the bones from chicken and making your own stock is a really amazing way to add nutrition get more Value out of your garden and what you've grown and it just adds so much flavor So I always save the ends of all of my veggies I put them in the freezer until I have enough to make a batch of stock and then I make large large batches of stock And that's just a great way to reduce your waste I have a video on my channel that goes through five different ways to use Your veggies before it gets to the compost pile. So we'll have a link for that in the show notes Yes, absolutely. So we're gonna talk a little bit about your herbal teas now in the pack You have the Tulsi holy basil you have chamomile and you have lemon balm those are three of my favorites herbal teas and you know again if you're just getting into to you know herbs and herbal teas and maybe even herbalism some people might find it intimidating but You can make tea from these either with just fresh leaves and the stems and the flowers Or you can dry them and save it for later and make tea. It's really that simple with all of these You don't bring the water all the way up to boiling It's okay if you do but just below boiling is gonna be more ideal with these to get the most nutrients and the most medicine out of it So I want to show you a very simple Method here if you have window screens you can take those screens out You can set these up and this is a way where you can dry a lot of herbs You can use an electric dehydrator. Those are wonderful, but for all these herbs they can be done just using the natural You know dryness of the air so here I have some of the lemon balm and then I also have some of the Tulsi basil here and I have some herbs that are from previous batch that are already dry and you want when they're when they're done. They should basically like crumble that's when you know that they're done and Here's some herbs that I had dried previously that you can see they're they're nice and crisp and they're crumbled so the the holy basil is wonderful for just a anti-anxiety just a calming relaxation and even if just smelling it does that for you and The chamomile also helps with sleepiness or helps. Sorry helps you to get to sleep at night So those are two wonderful medicines and the lemon balm that one's like for me That one's kind of like really perky helps lift me up And Elise labor is excellent too flavors wonderful and Elise said she likes to add that to other teas that maybe like the moringa that don't have as lovely of a flavor to To add that, you know nice Yeah, yeah, I keep fruit really simple So I love to mix in herbs fresh herbs with fresh fruit So I put a little cilantro in with the mulberries that he foraged Sometimes I'll put in mint with watermelon. It just adds like so much Flavor and nutrients and everything else that it's just a wonderful way yet simple to just like make it this like Elevated fancy dish when it's anything but and another thing to not forget is The leaves of mulberry are edible as well There's actual varieties that are grown specifically for the leaves but a lot of plant species fruit trees or Otherwise, there's uses for the leaves in addition to the fruit itself That was the first time I've ever had mulberries with cilantro and it's it's delicious Definitely something that I'll continue to do So we're really excited to have shared how you can eat so much of the food that comes in the pack But don't eat everything because we want you to save seeds So you can turn your one pack into hundreds of packs for people for the years to come So in the next video, you're gonna learn how to save seeds