Harvest Monday May 6, 2019

Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The harvests here last week were very similar to the one before. Asparagus is the star at the moment, and we’ve cut over five pounds so far. That’s the pre-trimmed weight, so some is lost when the ends are cleaned up. Lately we’ve been getting around a half pound a day of it now that the weather has warmed a bit.

We certainly had enough to make the first asparagus mimosa of the season. It’s a simple treatment that highlights the fresh asparagus. I steamed about a pound of asparagus and topped with kosher salt, capers and grated hard boiled egg, then drizzled with some Greek Koroneiki olive oil. We made a meal off this one day for lunch, along with a piece of crusty sourdough bread.

I cut the last of the overwintered Simpson Elite lettuce from the greenhouse. Simpson Elite is an improved selection of the heirloom Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, and it is much more bolt resistant than the parent. The plants got quite big, and the one in the photo weighed almost a pound. The outer leaves are huge, and would serve nicely as wraps for a savory filling.

We had other plans for this one though. Much of it wound up in a Classic Wilted Lettuce Salad my wife made using her old family recipe. I have a spring planting of Simpson Elite growing in a cold frame bed that should give us another taste of it next month.

I cut a few of the microgreens I have growing inside under the lights. It’s my own mix of baby collard greens,  red mizuna and Tokyo Bekana. These went in a Mediterranean style salad we had for lunch one day that included some of the Simpson Elite lettuce plus Gigante beans, artichoke hearts and olives.

And I made another cutting of the overwintered Splendid parsley from the greenhouse. This flat leaf parsley from Wild Garden Seed has a great flavor, and is one of my favorites. It survives our winters quite easily under cover and I can always count on it to give us lots of leaves before it eventually bolts, which it is doing right about now.

I used most of the parsley to make a tabouli salad, along with a few spring of mint from the garden. For the bulgur I used Bob’s Red Mill Red Bulgur, which had a more hearty texture to it than some I’ve bought which tended to mush up too much after soaking. That worked quite well for this salad.  The tomatoes were store bought though. I have more overwintered parsley hanging on in the greenhouse so we may see this dish again in the near future. It made for a cool treat on a warm day.

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!