Week 3: July 5, 2011

Red Cross & Buttercrunch Lettuce, Salad Turnips, Green Onions, Spinach, 

Garlic Scapes, Yukina Savoy, & Purple Mizuna

                        We have more tasty salad greens this week, and a few new treats.  Yukina Savoy and Purple Mizuna are common ingredients in commercial salad mixes, but not every day grocery store items.  The first planting was eaten by flea beetles, so I covered this seeding with row cover and it still has holes in the leaves.  The first green onions are ready and so are the salad turnips.  Last year the green onions did terribly, so these are the first ones I have ever successfully grown.  The spinach is bolting, so I think this could be the last pick until fall, and we are coming to the end of the Buttercruch, my favourite lettuce. 

Japanese Salad Turnips: a treat best eaten raw.  You can slice the turnips up for salad, or just eat them whole.  I like to sauté or steam the tops like any other leafy green.    We have white and pink varieties. 

Yukina Savoy: Tatsoi’s bigger, better, more nutritious cousin.  With its white stems and deeply wrinkled dark green leaves it is a common ingredient in commercial salad mix, and makes is an excellent addition to stir fries.  I like it best raw.

Purple Mizuna: white stems and sharply pointed leaves that have purple edges.   Mizuna is tasty raw with your favourite dressing, and on sandwiches. 

Important Note

Please wash all of your vegetables thoroughly before consumption.  In order to save labour we do not wash any of the salad greens, and most things are only sprayed off to cool them down or remove soil from their roots.   

*****

Cliffleigh Farm Salad

            Wash and spin a variety of salad greens.  Keep the leaves whole and the stems attached.  Arrange the greens on a platter and put it in the center of the table.  Give each person a little bowl or plate for salad dressing so they can pick out a selection on the greens and dip it in their dressing.  Encourage everyone to try each different green and pick their favourite.  This salad is best if you eat it with your fingers, and share the experience with friends. 

            Our friends, Tony and Barb of Cliffleigh Farm in Vanderhoof, serve this salad frequently.   We have shared the first ‘snips’ of salad greens in April and the last of the greens in November.  Tony and Barb have perfected the use of raised beds in their greenhouse for producing vegetables over an incredible time period in a far harsher climate than ours. 

Stir Fried Greens

1 large bunch of greens, Yukina Savoy and turnip tops would work well

2 Tbsp peanut or canola oil

 1” piece of ginger, peeled and sliced

4 – 10 garlic scapes, cut into 2” sticks

1 tsp sesame oil

Keep the Yukina Savoy leaves whole, and chop the turnip tops into ribbons; wash carefully.  Put the oil in a large wok over high heat.  When hot, put in the ginger and garlic scapes.  Give a few quick stirs, the garlic scapes should turn deep green.  Now put in the greens, stir and cook for about 3 minutes or until the greens have wilted completely.  Put in the sesame oil and toss.  Serve immediately. 

**  J **

            This past weekend was the Fryatt family reunion and pig roast.  We had twenty four people camping at the farm and about fifty for the pig roast on Saturday. The pig was born in April from one of our sows, and my Dad was worried it would not be big enough because last year the reunion was in August.  Piggy dressed out at 82 lbs, and I think we will be eating pulled pork for months.  

            This is the only time I get to see my all of my aunts, uncles and cousins, as they all live in the Fraser Valley.  We stayed up late every night visiting around the campfire.  The last three weeks have been very busy, so I am looking forward to a weekend that does weekend that does not require extra organization.