It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. I’ve settled into a seasonal pace here with gardening. The chores outside are minimal, which leaves me time and energy for daily walks. And I can harvest things pretty much on an as-needed basis. I made a cutting of the Jernigan’s Yellow Cabbage collards last week to cook up for a side dish. This variety has large yellow leaves with a mild flavor, and it’s one of my favorites.
Jernigan’s Yellow Cabbage collards
Jerniigan’s Yellow Cabbage collard leaf
I’ve got various kinds of greens growing in the greenhouse for cutting as needed. We had mushroom and soba noodle soup last week, and I cut red pak choi and purple stemmed mizuna to add to it at the end of cooking. This was an Asian flavored soup, broth based and seasoned with ginger, garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil. It’s loaded with mushrooms too.
greens for soup
The fall planting of lettuce in the greenhouse is ready for cutting now. These Salanova types in the photo were the first to get ready, along with a few leaves of Bergam’s Green I plucked to go on a sandwich. With any luck we should have lettuce from the greenhouse throughout the winter, which is really a treat to have in the colder months here.
Salanova lettuces
Bergam’s Green lettuce
I also cut some greens to go on the lettuce salad we enjoyed one day for lunch. This time I got leaves of Mars Landing and Purple Moon kale along with French Sorrel. The sorrel adds a tangy lemon flavor, and the leaves are especially tender this time of year.
greens for salad
I still have quite a bit of kale maturing in the outside garden now. This cutting was from White Russian, and was just enough to go in a dish of kale and sweet potato hash we enjoyed last week using some of our smaller sweet potatoes. The smaller potatoes and ones with damage from voles (or my digging fork) don’t seem to last as long so we try and use them up first.
White Russian kale
In non gardening news, I baked a batch of Pretzel Sandwich Buns last week. It was my first time making these, using a King Arthur recipe, and I am happy how they turned out. After forming into round buns, the dough is lowered into a boiling soda water bath that gives them their characteristic chewy exterior. They made for sturdy buns for ham and cheese sandwiches we enjoyed for lunch one day. I froze the extras for later use.
Pretzel Sandwich Buns
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!
You have a huge variety of leaves – lots of different colours and interesting shapes.
Salanovas seem very popular in the US Dave, hard to get hold of here. I did manage to get some a few years ago and I liked the red leaved ones, the green ones degraded very quickly in winter
I do think the Salanovas in general don’t hold as well for me as many of the other lettuce varieties. I try and keep that in mind with my harvest plans.
I learn something every week from your blog Dave… I never would have thought of putting greens in soup! As it soup season now, thank you for the tip! And thoes buns look magnificent
I love greens in soup, whether they’re a minor ingredient like they were in the mushroom soup or have a starring role like they will in the Portuguese Kale soup I’m cooking for tonight.