Spring Greens

This is a photo of the greens which I picked up last week. You can see the strawberry pints nestled in the middle of all the leaves. What are all these greens you say?

Left to Right on top: a head of red oakleaf lettuce, a head of boston green lettuce, a bunch of beet greens with baby beets

Left to Right on bottom: a bunch of red dandelion greens, a bunch of swiss chard (white rib), and a bunch of hakurei turnip greens with baby turnips



In this picture, there are a few more friendly faces added to the left side:


on top: a bunch of herba stella (a salad green)
on bottom: a bunch of green wave mustard greens

A bit more info (direct from farmer) on these fine veges:

• Red Oakleaf Lettuce: highly-lobed red-leaved lettuce head


• Green Boston Lettuce: head lettuce with leaves having a silky smooth texture - delicious!


• Baby Beets: at this point the beet root on the greens are very very baby. they will grow bigger and bigger as the weeks progress - these are thinnings from a directly seeded patch.


• Hakurei Turnips: japanese turnip, unlike your common turnip - it is tender and sweet with some heat (heat lost in cooking, sweetness retained). so tender they may be enjoyed raw.


• Herba Stella: salad green rich in vitamins A and C, and in mineral salts, mild with slight tang, leaf resembling serpents tongue, long thin leaf with forked tip. Tender for raw eating. Also delicious sauteed just briefly with oil, garlic and salt.


• Green Wave: hot mustard green


• Leeks (not pictured):Delicious leeks of excellent quality. They are tender and crisp and sweet as they are meant to be - not bitter and leathery. Because of this, you may use the whole plant, from its white shaft all the way up the the green tips - as opposed to just the white shaft, discarding the green tips, as most recipes suggest (this is only because of widespread availability of poor quality leeks).

Not Your Everyday Salad Greens (Mache and Cress)

Last week I had the pleasure of trying salad greens that were new to me. I tried cress (photo on left - see the ripe persimmon too?):



Cress comes bagged with these little leaves and long stems. You just dump into your bowl and eat! Cress alone was a bit tangy for me. I prefer it mixed with something (arugula needs to be mixed for me as well). I combined cress with mache (said like mosh). I have had mache before (photo on left) and really like it with a creamy style dressing. Mache comes bagges and in little leaf bunches that look rather like flowers. You grab the leaves all together and pull the stem off. The combination worked very nicely for salad at my house. Why don't you try some?

Lacinato Kale

Ok, so you just bought kale.

Lacinato kale actually. Now what?

Storage
Notice that the kale came wet and wrapped in wet newspaper. I store my kale wrapped in the wet newspaper and in the crisper/vege drawer of the refrigerator.

Cleaning
I have watched greens being washed at the farms when I visit and so I choose not to wash most greens again at home. Sometimes I will look at it and decide that it needs washed again, or will select out the leaves that I want to wash. Fill a clean sink or large bowl with old water, add the leaves, swish, let the mixture settle so the dirt falls down, then remove leaves.

Eating

1) The most useful for me is to chop it into tiny pieces using my food processor, put the kale into a zip top style bag, and throw it in the freezer. Then I can take out a small amount (like 2 Tablespoons) and add to pasta sauce, egg salad, tuna salad, pizza toppings, omelettes, or other foods. The lacinato kale is added to these foods without cooking or doing anything to it first.

2) Lacinato kale makes a good salad too. I prefer a creamy type of dressing with this green along with some sweet things like red pepper, carrots, apples, raisins, or cherry tomatoes. Since kale is a cold weather vege and tomatoes and peppers are warm weather, thereis little overlap. Mostly I go with the apples, carrots, raisins, oh! and dried cranberries.

3) Kale can also be sliced made into a nice pasta topping. After removing the thick portion of the stems, make a tall stack of kale leaves. Roll them up into a cylinder then slice thin to make kale ribbons. Slice and saute a small onion in some butter or oil, add garlic if you wish and brown, then add kale ribbons and cook till just turning bright green. Keep tasting the kale. It will get sweeter when it is done and bitter and yucky when over done.

Need more info on kale? Just let me know with a comment or email. Otherwise, enjoy!