Greens in May
Chef cooking tips, Gardening, healthy cooking
Greens in May
In the culinary world, greens apply to wide variety of vegetables. From delicate lettuces to brusque hardy kale. In this post I will share some ways that I have grown and served heirloom types of lettuce, spinach and kale. from our home garden this spring.
This spring has been cool, windy and rainy here in Southern Missouri. That being said, the cool weather has produced some of the most beautiful salad greens I have every grown. In this post I will share how I have been using them in my home cooking along with some tips of how I grew them.
Spinach and Lettuce
First salad of the season- Baby greens with honey white balsamic vinaigrette with oranges, red onions, pecans and feta. Delicate baby lettuces are best served with a light dressing made with the highest quality vinegars and oils such as EVO or grapeseed oil. Spring greens also go very well with one of my favorite recipes Curry Chicken Salad get the recipe at my recipe page https://chefpliska.com/my-recipes/
Grilled marinated Red Fern Farm chicken thighs served with my salad made for a tasty meal. I started by first boning out the local raised chicken thighs that I purchased at the Farmers’ Market from my friend Spencer and then marinated them in honey, garlic, red wine vinegar, whole grain mustard and olive oil. Once marinated, I rolled them and passed two long skewers through them making it easier to grill them all together. For more info on their farm go to https://www.facebook.com/TheRedFernFarm/
This year I grew radishes in grow bags. Did you know that radishes are one of the fastest vegetables to grow from seed to harvest in 3 to 4 weeks. For best results use a light airy soil mix with good drainage.
Ways to cook with Kale
This monster KALE survived in one of my raised beds from my winter garden. I surrounded and covered the roots with a thick layer of leaf mulch through the cold months. These four plants exploded into this giant in the spring. Many people do not like the bitter flavor of Kale but here are three ways to cook with kale which are very tasty: In a lamb, pearl barley and kale soup. Colcannon potatoes made with Kale in place of the traditional cabbage. Potato, sausage and cheddar cheese frittata (open faced omelet) for a hearty breakfast. Chef Tip– Kale can be chopped, blanched and frozen which works well for preserving the harvest.
Three steps of how I raised my lettuce- Started in seed trays in our unheated green house at the end of February. Up potted to larger pots and then climatized them by placing them out in the sun for a couple hours each day for a week (also called hardening off the transplants). Lastly transplanted them in the garden bed and also grew some in a plastic storage box in the green house.
Heirloom Lettuce Varieties
The early spring lettuce planting were all heirloom seeds that we purchased online at https://www.rareseeds.com/. They included Flashy Butter Gem which are a type of Romain with dark red streaks. They all germinated well and produced some very nice heads. Another new lettuce this year was Merlot which are in the photo above. Very mild flavor with delicate leaves. I also had success with another heirloom Romain variety named Parris Island Cos. Lastly, our Spinach was a huge success with the best harvest to date. In full disclosure, I am not sponsored or affiliated with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (rare seeds.com) however I highly recommend them for growing your own seedlings. In closing, it is extremely gratifying to grow some of your own vegetables from seeds and when combined with good cooking skills they cannot be beat. Until next time keep on cooking and growing.
