Harvest Monday - April 4, 2016

It's definitely spring in my garden now, although the harvests are mostly the last of the winter veggies.

Gustus Brussels Sprouts

I salvaged the last of the Brussels sprouts. Most of the remaining sprouts were loose and full of aphids and those went into the compost. The two plants that I hadn't topped had more firm sprouts that resisted the aphid invasion. Some were fairly large but the remaining sprouts were quite small but still very good. One plant had a good top that I kept, seen on the left, the other was full of aphids. The smallest of the sprouts went into a braise with some parsnips from the fridge (keeping amazing well, still quite sweet), and some spring onions that I thinned from the bulbing onions, and as you can see I used a generous amount of pancetta.

Brussels Sprouts, Parsnips, Spring Onions

The last of the winter sown radishes had to make way for some spring plantings. Here's the best of the bunch.

Petit Dejeuner, Malaga, and Pink Punch Radishes

A couple of the Malaga radishes got to be quite large and split wide open. I used them, trimmed of the dirty bits and then grated, in pita pockets stuffed with hummus, grated carrots, and some fresh cress.

Exploded Malaga Radishes

Verdil Spinach

The spinach is decidedly bolting but otherwise still good. Some of this round went into a dish that I adapted from a really old favorite recipe that Dave keeps recalling even after nearly 30 years - Green Rice, which gets it's name from copious amounts of spinach, parsley, and green onions. Instead of rice I substituted quinoa, and cilantro stood in for the parsley. I think the new version was better than the original. I'll be posting the recipe shortly on my recipe blog.  Click HERE for the recipe.

Golden Corn Salad

I cut a couple of heads of Golden Corn Salad that had grown from seeds that I scattered around the fava plants. These heads are nicer than the ones that I sowed in my winter salad patch. The plants aren't as crowded so they are making much nicer heads that aren't so quick to bolt. These heads are a bit too large to toss whole in a salad so cut the bases off the plants and tossed the loose leaves with some shredded Red Iceberg lettuce. The lettuce added loft to the salad which would otherwise collapse since the corn salad is so soft. The combo of the crisp lettuce and soft corn salad was better than I expected, really quite good and worth doing again!

Rossa Savonese spring onions

I've had a steady harvest of spring onions as I thin out the bulbing onions. These Rossa Savonese, a Spanish sweet onion, are particularly pretty and I can't wait to see the more mature onions (please don't bolt, pretty please). I grilled a few of them last night and they turned out to be deliciously sweet even in their immature state.

Persian Broadleaf Cress

I'm having a fling with various kinds of cress. I enjoyed the frilly leaves of Rishad cress through the winter and now it's time for Persian Broadleaf. These are the thinnings from my little patch. Most of them went into the hummus sandwiches I mentioned earlier.

Here's the details of the harvests for the past week:

Gustus Brussels sprouts - 2 lb., 11 oz.
Golden Corn Salad - 1.8 oz.
Persian Broadleaf cress - 1.8 oz.
Spring onions - 1 lb., 1.6 oz.
Malaga radishes - 8 oz.
Petit Dejeuner radishes - 1.7 oz.
Pink Punch radishes - .6 oz.
Verdil spinach - 2 lb., 15 oz.

Total harvests of the week - 7 lb., 11.5 oz. (3.5 kg.)
2016 YTD - 85 lb., 14.4 oz. (39 kg.)

Harvest Monday is hosted by Dave on his blog Our Happy Acres, head on over there to see what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.