harvest - greens and herbs

We finally started to get some greens from the garden last week, and we are really enjoying them.  Some of them are varieties that we grow every year, and some of them are new this year.

thinnings of a-choy lettuce, rosemary, baby onion, stalks of celery with flowers

A- choy is a Taiwanese lettuce.  It's tender and has a very unique flavor that I don't really know how to describe.  I quickly cooked these in boiling water for less than a minute.  Then mixed in some olive oil, salt, and chopped garlic.  Simple and delicious!  The rest of the harvest in this bowl were used to make a soup base for a chicken stew.

rosemary, thyme, oregano

Most of our perennial herbs grow almost all year round here.  I prune them at least twice a year (except the rosemary) to make sure they grow well (and they do.  They don't disappoint me).  I normally just compost the trimmings.  I hate to see our bounty going to waste, so I decided to try my hands in drying herbs.

I tried drying the oregano in the oven with the door open at 140 degrees.  They turned brown and crumbly really fast.  The result was tasteless.  I will have to find another way to dry the oregano.

For the thyme, I placed them loosely in a big paper shopping bag, and the shopping bag is kept out of direct sunlight and in a dry place.  For the rosemary, I tied the branches into bundles.  Each of the bundles are hung upside down with a brown lunch bag over it (I poked holes in the bags).  We'll see how they turn out in a couple of weeks.

mizuna, hon tsai tai, dwarf choy sum 

This is not our first time growing hon tsai tai and dwarf choy sum, but this was our first time tasting them.  We grew them last year, but the bugs ate all the seedlings and didn't leave us any.

I don't think I'll grow the dwarf choy sum again after I use up all the seeds.  They don't grow any faster than the other greens that I seeded at the same time, but the harvest is much... uh... dwarfed.  I haven't decided how I feel about hon tsai tai.  I'll grow them again in the fall to see if it's a keeper.

baby lettuce, rosemary, oregano, mizuna, thyme, summerfest komatsuna, garlic chive

Sunday was my birthday, so we picked a bunch of things to make my birthday lunch.  The lettuce, mizuna, and summerfest komatsuna went into the salad.  This is our first time growing the summerfest komatsuna, and I'm really impressed with it.  It's very fast growing and tastes superb in a salad.  Too bad it's a hybrid, so I can't save the seeds.  I'll have to keep buying them.

The rest of the herbs were used to make the crust for the lamb...

Yum~ happy birthday to me!