Out with the Old

My patch at the community garden has blessed me and my friends and family with lots of broccoli and salad greens this past season. The collards were abundant and I made use of some, but this season my collard tastebuds weren't as attracted to the leafy green collard buddies I usually befriend. 

End of last week I pulled ut the remains of the broccoli and the collard greens. The broccoli were still producing florets, but once the plants start bolting (flowering) the florets become somewhat bitter, at least that's what my fan club said at the table. I'm chuckling, because I like the greens whatever condition they're in. Once I put some seasoning and onions or ginger in with them, they are completely subdued and no amount of bitterness shines through. The Ethnic Vegetarian Cookbook gives me lots of ideas. It's on the Zoobird bookshelf! Ha! Every time I look at the Zoobird Bookshelf I smile, because it reminds me of Portland. I hope to be in Portland for PedalPalooza if all goes well. Also, Chandra has given us some interesting recipes, as has new Zoobird member Carla and her wonderful Veg Indian Cooking blog. 

But, I became a little anxious and each visit to the organic grocer nearby greeted me with all sorts of temptations. So, last week I piched up some serrano pepper, basil and some spinach sprouts. Funny, sort of. I meant to get some eggplant sprouts, but wound up with spinach accidentally. No matter. They're all in the earth now and I hear there's showers predicted all week. Nice! 

  
Here's one of the tomato sprouts next to a kale plant. All of these sprouts are from a local grower known to G'Villians as Farmer John.

This is one of my kale from the past season. I transplanted 6 of them and this is the only one left. I make some mean (mean as in delicious) mahalopeno roughies from this kale. That's jalapeno, kale, pineapple and cukes.

This is one of the spinach sprouts. I meant to get eggplant, but the spinach was where I saw the eggplant sign. So, this is what I wound up with. You know, I bet we wind up with more food over time from the spinach than would have with the eggplant.

Here's some sweet basil on the left and seranno pepper on the right. I wanted jalapeno, but I got tempted by the seranno, especially with the basil. I am dreaming of stir fried basil, Thai style. Click here to see some recipes for my fav Thai dish: Pad Krapow

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