Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Making a mountain from a mole hill; A garden salad.

It is summer and we had yet eaten a decent summer salad from our own garden. Or at all? I just can't get myself to buy lettuce or the lettuce mixes anymore, they always disappoint. When one has had a taste of the good freshy-fresh stuff from the garden, it's hard to go back to anything that isn't fresh picked. I decided to make a fun project out of creating a salad from anything edible in our yard. I thought it would be interesting seeing as I never got around to planting actual lettuce. We ended up with a really awesome lettuceless salad.

The greens: amaranth, borage, purslane, French sorrel, baby beet and chard.

Baby crookneck squash and blooms

Borage and sunflower petals

Baby carrots

I also threw in some basil and oregano blooms. It's worth noting the borage leaves were quickly blanched and then thrown into an ice bath. They are prickly little suckers!

Dressed up with a simple vinaigrette. Delicious!

5 comments:

Marlyn said...

OH! That is fabulous! My borage all died off. Glad to see yours going strong!

We had for dinner last night, two beautiful crooknecks and a pile of green and purple beans. And tomatoes. Tomatoes tomatoes tomatoes. Red, green, yellow, striped, purple, black... Gorgeous, delicious, tomatoes! I have lettuce in a cool lower bed coming along nicely. Oh, and my watercress! Love it!

kendra said...

Don't you love how you might not think you have much for a salad but after a little garden stroll you find a you have a beautiful bowl full?

I keep forgetting that we can eat borage flowers! I'll have to include it in our salad tonight. Unfortunately though it's too dang hot to get lettuce to grow at this time of year, so we have to buy it, which always kills me.

MAYBELLINE said...

Your carrots look like real fatties. What variety are you growing? I need to consider what to plant next once the salsa garden has expired.

Shauna said...

This post reminds me of a comment my Dad made when I pulled out a (store bought) package of mixed baby greens---

He said it looked like all the stuff he pulled out of his lawn as WEEDS. HA!!

Erin said...

Kendra I do love it! I've been doing it more since I read the post on your blog :)

Maybelline those are Red Cored Chantenay carrots. They are tasty little fatties indeed, but in prior years I have found they are better harvested young because they tend to get bitter as they mature moreso than other varieties I have tried. I just happen to have a lot of that seed so I keep planting them :)

Shauna that is funny ;)