Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The spring greens are still coming on here. Last week I made a cutting of Simpson Elite lettuce from the greenhouse for a salad my wife made. I added a few sprigs of cilantro to go along with it. The cilantro is starting to bolt, and it will be scarce for a while. It tends to bolt real quickly here in summer, even the so called bolt-resistant varieties like Calypso and Santo. We’ve had a nice supply all winter, and I need to plant some more soon. I’ve got one growing now called Marino and we will see how it does.
Simpson Elite lettuce
I also had a big harvest of spinach as I cleaned out the bolting plants in cold frame #4. It’s mostly the Giant Winter variety, plus a little Viroflay.
spinach harvest
We used some of the spinach for salad and some for a quinoa patty dish my wife cooked up last week. The spinach and quinoa are mixed with egg and bread crumbs plus seasonings, then shaped into patties and cooked in a skillet. They were tasty, and made a nice main dish meal for us. I love quinoa, and I’m looking forward to making Michelle’s Green Quinoa Pilaf while we still have spinach. It will be on the menu when I cook next week. I am thinking it will also serve as a main dish with another veggie on the side.
Spinach and Quinoa patties
The overwintered kale in the greenhouse is beginning to set flower buds but there are still lots of leaves to be cut. That’s True Siberian in the below photo, and it went into a Kale, Beans and Pasta dish my wife made last week. I cooked up a pot of Runner Cannellini beans for her to use in the dish, which was either camera shy (not really) or else I was too hungry to stop and take photos.
True Siberian kale
Asparagus is still coming up slowly but surely. We had some grilled last week as a side dish. My wife likes to use a grill pan but I throw caution to the wind and put it right on the grate. Of course that means I occasionally sacrifice a few, while hers are safe and sound! We sometimes grill it plain but this time she used my recipe for Grilled Asparagus.
grilled asparagus
On a side note, I think cats are pretty funny, and our Ace is definitely a character. He loves to make up new ‘games’, and his latest is drinking out of my wife’s water glass. Her first thought when she saw it was “I wonder how long he’s been doing THAT?” and her second was to grab the camera. I was sitting in the chair right next to him with a bird’s eye view, and I have to say it didn’t look like his first time doing it.
Ace in the water glass
Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!
We have just recently sown our coriander/cilantro – I still haven’t acquired the knack of producing a successful harvest.
Your wife is a woman with the same instincts as me – see something different and grab a camera.
Good job the cat only got to drink water – it might have had a shock if the glass had contained Gin and Tonic! I’m afraid I have no harvests to show off, again, but I like to see what you and the others are producing. I have some Radishes that are looking promising, so I hope to be able to contribute again before too long.
I was checking for asparagus over the weekend with nothing in sight. Just as well as I got another few inches of snow last night.
That spinach just looks so fresh I can almost taste it …
Oh God, that’s too funny about Ace – I’m sure that you’ll be giving all of your water glasses a good once over before taking another sip from now on 🙂
Yum asparagus! We had some this past week too, but unfortunately from the market not garden. No sign of my asparagus yet – the temps are supposed to go up as of this Friday so I’ll wait another couple of weeks before I really start to worry 🙂
And that Simpson Elite lettuce looks lovely! I had plans to sow some this weekend, together with a few other varieties, but found that I was completely out of seed. Oh well, it’s on my purchase list for next year.
Spinach and Quinoa patties, great idea! Has your wife posted the recipe? I have to laugh at Ace’s antics. My Jake learned that trick too. I take a glass of water to bed just about every night and just set it uncovered on the nightstand, or I used to until I caught Jake with his face in there one night…
Sorry I forgot to post a link to the recipe:
http://www.skinnytaste.com/quinoa-and-spinach-patties/
It makes a lot and next time I think I would cut back on the quinoa a bit, though we did eat it all in two meals. I am thinking kale would also be nice instead of the spinach.
Your grilled asparagus looks delicious! I’ve got some asparagus coming up as well and will have to try your recipe.
I agree; cats are hilarious! My cat was drinking from my water glass all of last year and then seemed to randomly stop as quickly as she began. I never figured it out but it seemed like suddenly she preferred to drink my water than her water and then suddenly she was back drinking her water again. I’m sure your wife has exchanged plenty of cooties with the kitty already!
Thankfully we keep the bathroom door closed so the cats aren’t drinking from the toilet and THEN the water glass!
Grilling the asparagus is one of my favorite treatments. I sometimes put the grilled asparagus on a pizza.
The quinoa and spinach patties look fantastic, just the sort of thing I love to eat (but am not very good at making).
Haha, our cat Minxie does that too if we leave a cup of water unattended. Sometimes if it’s the end of a cup I just let her do it to see her fit her face all the way in (and sometimes hold the cup for her to make it easier ) it’s amazing the small space her head fits it!
Dave-
Thanks so much for hosting Harvest Monday! As always, I am equally inspired by both your gardening talent and your cooking talent. I really do appreciate you sharing recipes. As I try to eat better, and grow new things for the first time, it can be a challenge to learn good ideas how to use each vegetable. Your Ace is a hoot. My late cat Solomon did try to drink out of a milk glass a time or two.
Oh I’m so jealous of your asparagus, I can’t wait to get a harvest one day..
And cats are incredibly cheeky when it comes to drinking out of glasses, I’ve caught all of mine doing it at different times, especially if I’ve got a glass of milk – it needs to be jealously guarded!