This Week’s “Plant to Plate”: Pinon Pine

“Plant to Plate: Native Plant Foods from the Americas” is a series that introduces you to different plants from the Americas through a brief history, tips for cooking, eating and growing, along with a recipe.

This week’s feature: Piñon Pine

Recipe: Piñon Stuffed Bell Peppers

Toasted Pine Nuts

Pine nuts can be found all around the world, but the Colorado piñon is a variety found in our own local region. Pine nuts are a versatile food appearing in everything from pine nut cookies to pesto basil sauce. The featured recipe for this installment of Plant to Plate incorporates pine nuts into stuffed bell peppers. With this recipe I fed myself and my three roommates, so it is just enough food for dinner for four and works great with a side salad.

A brief history

Colorado piñon pine (Pinus edulis) is a slow-growing evergreen tree found on the high plains of the Front Range, canyons of the Colorado Plateau, and lower slopes of the Rocky Mountains. These trees produce large, edible nuts, commonly refered to as pine nuts. Piñons probably moved north into the southwestern U.S. from Mexico and now, “Piñon Country” covers most of the Southwest.

Colorado Piñon

The first recorded use of the pines as firewood and food dates back to about 6000 years ago. Piñons were extremely important in many Native American cultures. The Navajo have a myth that a squirrel planted the first piñon, which served as the oldest food source for their earliest ancestors. Native peoples continued to rely on pine nuts as a readily available and highly nutritious food. The Ancestral Puebloans of the Colorado Plateau took advantage of having such a constant food source to take a risk and experiment with agriculture, resulting in the cultivation of corn on the plateau.

Eating

Pine nuts were eaten in a wide variety of ways––raw, roasted, boiled, ground into flour, made into nut butter. The Northern Paiute preferred to roast the nuts twice; once with the shells on, and again with them removed. Native Americans also used piñon sap as glue and to varnish baskets and the Hopi used the resin to waterproof pottery. The Navajo burned the resin and inhaled the fumes to cure head colds.

Growing

Piñon pines are quite drought-tolerant, making them very suited to the Front Range. They grow well, as long as proper precautions are taken to combat bark beetle infestation. Piñons prefer alkaline soil, which isn’t usually a problem as most Western soils are already alkaline.

 Cooking and eating

Pine nuts add a sweet, rich flavor to any dish.  I’m a huge bell pepper fan, so when I saw this recipe I was instantly sold.  This dish is very easy to improvise; in fact, I developed this recipe based on looking through a number of different stuffed pepper recipes and deciding what exactly it was that I wanted in my final product. You could even make a similar rendition using mini bell peppers instead of large ones for a fun appetizer.  These peppers also make for a satisfying gluten-free meal option.

Recipe: Piñon Stuffed Bell Peppers

Yield: 8 stuffed pepper halves

Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, finely chopped (1 cup)
1 bunch green onions, finely chopped
2 Tbs. olive oil
1/4 cup of pine nuts, toasted
3 ribs celery, finely chopped
1 Tbs. ground cumin
1 Tbs. ground chili powder
2 cloves garlic, minced (2 tsp.)
1 small pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed
1 can diced tomatoes, drained, liquid reserved
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 small package frozen corn, thawed
1 cup cooked brown rice or quinoa  (I used both)
1 cup grated pepper jack cheese
4 large bell peppers (any color), cored with the tops removed, sliced into halves

Directions: 
Heat oil in saucepan over medium heat. Add chopped onions and celery and cook until soft. Add cumin, garlic, and chili powder and sauté 1 minute. Stir in spinach and tomatoes. Cook 5 minutes, or until most of liquid has evaporated. Stir in black beans, corn, pine nuts and grains and cook for 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Preheat oven to 350°F. Pour tomato liquid and water into bottom of baking dish until the liquid is about 1/4 inch from the bottom . Place pepper halves in baking dish. Spoon heaping servings of the stuffing mixture into each pepper and cover dish with foil. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, then top each pepper with cheese. Cook for another 10 minutes and enjoy.

Recipe modified from two sources: Vegetarian Times and BellaOnline.

Sources:
Dailey, Robert. “Pinyon: The Desert Pine.” 2006. <http://www.suite101.com/content/
pinion-the-desert-pine-a2425>.
Lanner, Ronald M. The Piñon Pine: A Natural and Cultural History. Reno: The University of
Nevada Press, 1981. 56-71.