I've got a small sorrel plant in a pot in the garden that is putting out some nice tender new leaves. It's the first time that it's grown large enough that I can harvest some leaves without seeming to cut back half the plant. The sorrel and a couple young fennel fronds, along with some parsley and celery leaves, were chopped and incorporated into a skillet souffle. The sorrel leaves are shown above on the right, and going counter-clockwise are the celery leaves, fennel fronds, parsley, plus some flowering shoots from the Lacinato Kale.
The souffle recipe is from Jerry Traunfeld's book The Herbal Kitchen: Cooking With Fragrance and Flavor. The souffle is sort of a cross between a traditional souffle and a fritata, with a base of bread crumbs, milk, egg yolks, herbs, and cheese all folded into the beaten egg whites and baked in a hot skillet.
The Lacinato kale started to bolt a couple of weeks ago and I finally remembered this week that the leafy flowering shoots are quite delicious if you pick them when the flower buds are still small, like sprouting broccoli.
This is a young Early Portuguese garlic plant. At this size all you can use almost the entire plant like a scallion. It's very mild and tender. I used this young garlic to season some fresh artichoke hearts that I bought from a local grower.
Here's the harvest totals for the past week:
Piracicaba broccoli - 5 oz.
Cutting Celery - 1.75 oz.
Golden Chard - 1 lb., 5 oz.
Green Garlic (Red Janice, Early Portuguese, Madrid) - 4.5 oz.
Kale Shoots - 2 oz.
Olive Leaf Rapini - 8.75 oz
Red Florence Fennel - 12.5 oz
Romanesco Broccoli - 3 oz.
Sorrel - .75 oz.
Total for the week: 3 lb., 11.25 oz.
Total for the year: 28 lb., 3.5 oz.
Eggs this week: 10
Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, so head on over there to check out what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.
What a wonderful harvest! It’s not too much, but it makes a gardener happy.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t know that kale flowers can be eaten. I must taste this sometime.
That sounds so delicious right now. Right now I'm so hungry and that would really hit the spot. What does sorrel taste like? It isn't something I've ever grown.
ReplyDeleteAll those lovely green leaves, and the purple fennel fronds - beautiful and delicious. I love sorrel - we eat it a lot in salads as well as the traditional sorrel sauce. The Portuguese garlic looks a bit like the wild leeks which grow everywhere here and taste wonderful.
ReplyDeletewhat a nice harvest, I have been buying my greens and look forward to harvesting my own in the future.
ReplyDeleteYum, I'm hungry now, a slice of your soufle would hit the spot.
ReplyDeleteThe young Early Portuguese garlic looks like the kind of leek I was searching (don't remember the name).
I wish I can get hold of some ramps, I know our desert climate is not suitable for it, but I would like to try anyways.
The harvesting is really starting to ramp up I see. I love sorrel if it weren't for the oxalic acid, I'd eat a lot more.
ReplyDeleteThat's all so pretty. I wonder if my garden doesn't get into a rut because of my cooking, not the other way around.
ReplyDeleteJust out of curiosity, how long did it take you before your sorrel produced that much? I have three plants, and when I cut the leaves, it always looks like I've destroyed them (which is why I'm so hesitant to do it). They were sown last spring for my husband who grew up eating sorrel; it's quite sour for my taste.
ReplyDeleteGreat-looking harvest! Now you've made me curious to try a budded kale shoot...
That looks like a great haul from your garden! I'm trying the Piracicaba broccoli this year, and it's good to hear it is doing well for you. I may have to sneak a few garlic plants too later on.
ReplyDeletevrtlarica, It's enough to make this gardener happy :)
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Daphne, sorrel is a sour green, sort of like a tart spinach. I like it in small amounts mixed with other greens.
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chaiselongue, I haven't tried sorrel sauce, I imagine it must be good with fish. And sorrel in a mixed salad sounds good too. Now that my plant is large enough to sustain a few harvests I'll have to try it in my next mixed salad.
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keewee, oh, homegrown greens are much better than store bought, I'm so happy that I can harvest them year round.
mac, one nice thing about the souffle is that it is sturdy enough to enjoy as leftovers, I got dinner and a couple of small lunches out of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with wild leeks, it's interesting that both you and chaiselongue thought the green garlic looked like wild leeks. I thought I saw wild ramps starts available somewhere, have you tried the seed finder on Mother Earth News website?
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Ottawa Gardener, The harvests are increasing with the longer days! I haven't experimented much with sorrel, so I don't know how much I can tolerate, or like for that matter.
Stefaneener, interesting thought, I certainly like to grow what I like to eat, but I like to cook new things so that helps to keep the garden out of a rut.
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Meredith, I bought my sorrel plant last year (spring?) and it was really quite small, about a 3-inch round pot. I let it grow without harvesting more than a few leaves all year. It went pretty dormant this winter and is now starting to grow like crazy. So I'm not sure how long it took to get to the size it was when I bought it, but it must have been less than a year.
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villager, the green garlic is good with sauteed Piracicaba, or any greens...
I can't believe you've already harvested 28 lbs of food. That's crazy! That cutting celery sounds really interesting. Is it a Chinese variety?
ReplyDeleteThomas, I can't believe that we've actually eaten a lot of that 28 pounds, some is still in the fridge. The celery is actually a Belgian heirloom.
ReplyDeleteNice selection of greens! I have never eaten (or grown) sorrel. You certainly grow a nice variety of items in your garden.
ReplyDeleteWow, amazing harvest for so early in the year. I was trying to figure out where you lived based on the photos and guessed San Diego area. Wrong. You're north of me and have waaaaaay outdone me in earliness and abundance of crops. I'm only three miles inland in Orange County and it's cooler on the coast. And I loved your list of seeds in an earlier post. You have a wonderfully exotic and eclectic collection of veggie seeds.
ReplyDeleteI searched Garden Web and found ramp bulbs at www.rampfarm.com
ReplyDeleteand placed my order for 32 bulbs, they are under 2' of snow now, I may not get them anytime soon, that will give me some time to "create" a shady environment when the starts arrive.
I don't know why I'm going through all these troubles to find and grow something just to have it on our table.
kitsapFG, thanks!
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Lou Murray, There is a community with the same name as the one I live in in the San Diego area. I actually met someone from there when I was hiking in Utah last fall - that was a little strange. In spite of being further north my garden has a couple of advantages over yours, it's 9 miles from the coast and on a very sunny south facing slope. I do like to try different veggies. :) Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment!
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mac, Oh that's great that you found the ramps! I understand that compulsion to try to grow *exotic* things, well, not understand really, but I'm very familiar with it...