PecanSpringsJournal

>>Texas redbuds

The redbud trees (Cercis canadensis var. texensis) are in bloom this week around Pecan Springs, and everybody is out there, snapping photos of those pretty lavender-pink flowers. Green leaves will replace the flowers in another week or two, and by the end of summer the tree will be hung with purple-brown fruits, pods four inches long, flat and leathery. These trees are a sight for sore eyes at a time of year when most other trees are still thinking about putting out their first leaves. But loveliness only one of the many virtues of this little North American native.

The Medicinal Redbud
Dried and powdered, the inner bark was an important medicine. Indian healers used it to staunch bleeding, ease skin irritations and poison ivy rash, and treat sores and tumors. Bark tea was drunk to treat diarrhea and dysentery and used (like quinine) to reduce malarial fevers and ease joint and muscle pain and headaches. The flowers were also steeped as a tea and drunk to prevent scurvy, treat kidney and bladder infections, and ease urinary ailments.

The Edible Redbud
The buds can be pickled:  Cover with a pickling brine of 1 quart cider vinegar, 1 teaspoon salt, 6 cloves, 1 2” cinnamon stick, and 1/2 teaspoon each allspice and celery seed; ready in about 2 weeks. Toss the flowers in salads to add tartness and color. Or saute the buds, flowers, and tender young pods for 10 minutes in butter and serve them as a vegetable. Native Americans roasted the ripe pods in ashes before eating the seeds.

The Pliable Redbud
The supple young sprouts, peeled and stripped, can be used in the construction of baskets. Some Indian tribes used the white inner bark or the red outer bark as decorative elements in very sophisticated work. The bark was also used as cordage and coarse twine, and the roots were used in sewing animal skins.

However you look at it, the redbud is worth a place of honor in the yard.

Read more about redbud: Gather Ye Wild Things: A Forager's Year, by Susan Tyler Hitchcock

>>saffron in your garden

Yes, you can grow saffron--the most prized of spices--in your garden. In fact, if you spot a few purple crocuses blooming now among the last of the fall flowers, they may be Crocus sativa, or saffron.

But restrain your enthusiasm, please. Each blossom yields only three stigma (known as saffron threads). It takes 13,000-14,000 threads to make an ounce (worth about $70), and the process of picking, sorting, and storing the spice is long and laborious. Growing your own saffron is definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme.

But it's fun, and as easy as growing other flowers from bulbs. To get saffron flowers in October, plant the corms, or bulbs, between June and September. (Buy from a nursery you trust, and be sure you get the true Crocus, not Colchicum, sometimes sold as "Autumn crocus." These have six stigma, not three.) Start with a few and divide and replant after they have bloomed. The corms thrive in a hot, dry summer, and do best in a well-drained, friable soil that isn't too rich. If the ground freezes in your area, you might want to dig your corms, overwinter in a dry, cool place, and replant the following summer. 

Twenty-five bulbs can produce about half a tablespoon of saffron threads the first year, more thereafter. You can cook with the fresh saffron threads immediately, or you can dry and store them. Dry on paper towels in a warm place for several days, then place in an airtight container. You'll find some helpful how-to-use tips here.

Don't want to grow it? You can buy saffron in the spice section of your grocery. (Here is a good photo of what you're looking for.) And here is my favorite never-any-leftover paella recipe:

China Bayles' Spanish Paella

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 bacon slices, chopped

6 chicken thighs
1/2 cup chopped onions

1/2 cup chopped celery
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup long-grain white rice
1 7-ounce jar roasted diced pimentos with juice
1/2 teaspoon crushed saffron threads
8 oz. bottled clam juice
3/4 cup chicken stock or canned low-salt chicken broth
1/4 pound cleaned squid, bodies cut into 1/2-inch rings
18 large uncooked shrimp, peeled, deveined

6 clams, scrubbed
6 mussels, debearded and scrubbed
3/4 cup frozen green peas, thawed
Lemon wedges

Preheat oven to 450°F. Heat olive oil in heavy large pot. Add chopped bacon and cook about 6 minutes. Drain bacon on paper towels. Sprinkle chicken pieces with salt and pepper. Add chicken to bacon drippings in pot and cook over medium heat until brown, about 7 minutes per side. Take out the chicken and set aside. Add onions, celery, and garlic to pot and saute until it begins to brown, 8-10 minutes. Stir in rice, pimentos, and saffron. Add clam juice and chicken stock to pot and bring mixture to simmer. Remove from heat.

Pour rice mixture into baking dish. Arrange chicken, shrimp, squid, clams and mussels (in their shells) on top. Sprinkle with chopped bacon and peas. Cover and bake about 45 minutes, until rice is tender, chicken is cooked through, and clams and mussels have opened. (Discard any that don't open.)  Serve with lemon wedges to 6 ravenous diners.

"For those at death's doore and almost past breathing saffron bringeth breath again."--John Gerard, Herbal, 1597

For more saffron history and lore, read the October 16th entry in The Book of Days.