The garden is not only giving us plenty to eat right now, it’s actually giving us more than we can eat. The recent warm weather may have given way to more seasonal (make that COLD) temperatures, but the plants seem to still be going in overdrive!
big bowl of tender lettuce leaves (click on any photo to enlarge)
We had enough tender Simpson Elite lettuce in the greenhouse to have two wilted lettuce salads this week. I like to use the thinner leaf lettuce for wilting, and Simpson is one of my favorites. My wife heats up a vinegar and sugar dressing and pours it over the lettuce right before we eat it. Ok, there’s a little bacon grease in there too, but just enough to give it a nice flavor.
wilted lettuce salad
We also had some baby lettuce from another cutting of the container plantings. Some of these containers have given us three cutting of baby greens, and they’re still going strong. I’ll probably let them go for a little longer, unless I need the containers for something else. I also have quite a few of the larger lettuce plants ready to harvest, so I will likely be giving some away this week.
baby lettuce from container
The overwintered spinach is also going to town about now, figuratively speaking. I harvested over two pounds of it this week, enough to saute some for a side dish and enough to freeze. The season for spinach here is so short, we like to enjoy it while we can. It will start bolting sometime next month. The Gigante Inverno (giant winter) spinach has done well for us again, with large, tender pale green leaves. And Space is always a dependable performer for us too.
Space and Gigante Inverno spinach
I also harvested enough komatsuna for a stir-fry and a pound of pak choi from the greenhouse that had started bolting. I’m going to make Green Choi soup today for lunch with the pac choi.
making butternut squash ravioli
We also used up some of our last butternut squash to make butternut ravioli this week. I’ve been dying to try this recipe ever since Clare from Curbstone Valley posted it several weeks ago. I made a brown butter and sage sauce to put over it, with a few pine nuts thrown in for good measure. Some sauteed spinach on the side made for a lovely, mostly homegrown meal.
butternut ravioli with brown butter and sage sauce
The ravioli tasted divine, if I do say so myself. We used our new ravioli mold, which definitely made for prettier and more uniform ravioli. We froze quite a bit for use later. It’s great to have homemade ravioli in the freezer. It tastes better than the pricey stuff you see at the grocery. I even made some lowfat ricotta cheese to use in it.
straining the ricotta cheese in cheesecloth
That’s what’s going on here this last week of March. For more harvests from gardener’s around the world, head over to Daphne’s Dandelions and see what’s growing!