Everyone we know succeeds with broccoli in Las Vegas. Except us. With over a dozen plants, we had one small head of broccoli filled with aphids. Not exactly appetizing. But all was not lost: Over the weekend, we pulled the plants and harvested the leaves.

We took any leaves without excess leaf damage. A little damage doesn't bother me (I even think it might mean it's a yummy leaf!) but too much creeps me out. I washed them well, cut off the stems which are not tasty and shredded the rest for blanching.


I steamed them for 3 minutes until they were limp but still bright green, cooled them in ice water to stop the cooking process, squeezed as much water out as possible and bagged up several servings for the freezer. Broccoli leaves are a bitter green, best eaten steamed or in stir-fry. We like to add ours to pasta with tomatoes and spices or with ravioli. They are not for everyone, but when you grew this many without a single head of broccoli to enjoy, you take what you can get.

We plan to start our broccoli again this fall and overwinter it, in hopes of more broccoli and less insects. Do you think the caterpillars will still love me?



You can read more of Tara's blogging on gardening, food, and family life on her blog, The Organic Sister.

We are a family of impatient and over-extended gardeners, so we don't start lettuce as early as we can, or should, for our climate, and by the time we do, we're ready to eat those fresh greens now. The solution is to buy seeds and started greens at the same time. Plant the seeds, give them a good watering, cover them with wet burlap, and while they wait to sprout, your starts are already hale and hearty.

The clumps are the giveaway.




Salad burnett has a lovely peppery flavor. You can eat it on its stems or easily strip the tiny leaves from the stems for a more delicate texture.


Sorrel, a personal favorite - both for its vibrant purple ribs and its sweet and lemony flavor.


Mesclun greens, best eaten this big or smaller. Flavors range from slightly bitter and licorice-y (the serrated, long green leaves) to hot mustard (the purple and green mustard leaves) to sweet and tender (a looseleaf lettuce thrown into the mix).

But see? We are growing them from seed, too. Here's our new lettuce bed, which is well-shaded for the Texas heat. It is also somewhat sheltered by the nearby crepe myrtles, so we're hoping it will make a nice space for a makeshift coldframe to inspire us to finally buckle down and grow some winter greens next fall.


We have a lot of petrified wood.


Family stepping stones are a fun garden accent and a great project to help young children remember and celebrate their loved ones. This one was made during a visit by some dear friends, a couple and their then one-year-old son. You can find out how to make them today on Z Recommends.


Wonder how this back edge will turn out... not very weedy, but will the weeds love the new soil?

We supplemented the flavorful greens from our garden with some good old-fashioned foraging.


A discarded broccoli plant yielded some surprisingly tasty flowers that would add a great visual accent to our salad. It isn't even in a pot anymore! Flowers in salad are always fun, and broccoli flowers, as it turns out, are quite sweet.



Another depleted broccoli plant yielded up some spindly broccoli. Broccolini, I say. It's as tender and flavorful as the stuff you'd pay too much for at the grocery store.


Then we went hunting for one of my favorite greens of the season.


Would you believe it's in this picture?


Green briar, a prickly vine in our Texas climes, would hurt anyone but a goat under most circumstances. But the tiny green shoots? Delectable.


Preparing the meal took under half an hour, much of the time spent making a new invention of Z's - cut-out pieces of flatbread toasted in our toaster oven, which made fantastic croutons.



Setting the table.



A meal of fresh salad with balsamic vinaigrette, plus spicy chipotle field roast (fake sausage) for Mom and Dad, and garlic-stuffed green olives, acai and blueberry juice, and hummus for everyone.




A lovely way to start our spring!

I harvested a bumper crop of pumpkins this year, and am happily storing them under my stairwell. Winter squash (like pumpkins, butternut, and others) store really well at or a bit below room temperature; as long as you don't put them in front of the heater or freeze them, they'll stay good for months.



As I need them, I bake my pumpkins and puree the flesh. The recipe for this is easy: Cut the pumpkin in half along the center, as if it was wearing a belt, then remove the seeds and any stringy flesh you can get out and place each half cut-side down in a oven-safe dish containing one inch of water. I use glass pie plates, but you could use a rectangular casserole dish, too. Bake at 375 degrees for about an hour, or until when you poke the pumpkin with a fork it feels about as squishy as a nicely baked potato. Then, I like to use a ice cream scooper to get all the flesh out. Stick it in a food processor and puree!

The next step is to make something tasty. I have three favorite things that I do with pumpkin.

Pumpkin Pie

I use Mollie Katzen's recipe in the Moosewood Cookbook. Delicious and a little different from the kind you make from canned pumpkin. Try it out!

Pumpkin Soup

If you are an intrepid soup maker, pumpkin puree is an ideal starting point. All you really need to do is saute some onions and garlic. Once they are done, combine one part stock (chicken or vegetable) to two parts pumpkin puree, toss in the onions and garlic, and add ample ground pepper, paprika, chili powder, and any other spices you like in a zesty fall soup. That's all! This is great with thick hearty breads, or just chunky crackers.

Ultimate Pumpkin Muffins

After nearly ten years of searching for the ultimate pumpkin muffin recipe, I stumbled on this one last fall. I am confident that this will be a recipe you like, and I've worked out two easy variations on it that are really delicious. The muffins are incredibly moist, rich, and wonderful.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp of each: cinnamon, nutmeg, alspice, ginger
1 cp pumpkin puree
1/3 c melted butter or canola oil
Two eggs
1/4 cp water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift all the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Beat eggs in a separate, large bowl. Mix all the wet ingredients into the eggs, stir
well. Gently pour the dry into the wet and stir until all mixed - don't over stir, and never use a mixer. Be slightly delicate with the batter.

Bake in muffin cups for 25-30 minutes. Makes one dozen muffins.

Fall seasonal variation: Stir in 1 cup diced frozen cranberries.

Decadent dessert variation: Replace the 1/4 cup of water with 1/4 cup of cold leftover coffee. Stir in 1 cup dark chocolate chips or shavings.