Leaf Greens Statewide Food Challenge

[Amaranth]

Leafy Greens Food Challenge

Our state is participating in a yearlong challenge to grow and eat more Leafy Greens. This can include a wide variety of foods such as spinach, radish greens, collards, celery, cabbages, purslane, bok choy, parsley, New Zealand spinach, salad mix, and amaranth:cool:. It wouldn’t include things like green beans or green peppers. And they don’t have to be totally green either. Different colored lettuces, multicolored Swiss Chard, or red mustard could be included as well.

In our demo garden we’d like to include at least 30 different items and would like suggestions about what to include from a food perspective. We are trying to plan it from several different angles. We can grow most spring, summer, and fall greens in our area.

1) What favorites do you think should especially be included?
2) What lesser known greens would you like to see more people know about?
3) What exotic ones might be fun to try?
4) What greens popular in other countries and various ethnic cuisines would we like to eat if we knew about them?

And then we’d like great ways to cook them. And perhaps more importantly given the quantity expected, diverse ways to cook them. To help with that, we’d like to do a list of helpful cookbooks and websites. So if a book has a good greens chapter or just has some especially good recipes for specific vegetables, that would be great to include.

If you also have thoughts about what to include to stretch the gardener’s skills, there is a related post in the Garden section of the forum.

[KayLR]

I love watercress...it's peppery, but expensive to buy here.

[folkypoet]

Kale, definitely. Here's a page (http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/kale.html) on some of the health benefits. Turnip greens are also wonderfully nutritious and yummy (and, as a by-product, you get to eat the turnips!). Oh, and I've always loved dandelion greens, but I don't know a lot of people who plant them purposefully. ;o)

[loosechickens]

I'm a big fan of collard greens (although not cooked to death in the southern way, with fat). They grow literally like weeds, so even the most indifferent gardener can grow them (kind of like zucchini in that way), are tender, bursting with vitamin content and tasty.

One favorite quick way to fix them is I spray my cast iron pan with olive oil spray, wash the greens, cut out the stems to put in soup or something, as they are good but just take much longer to cook than the leaves, and if you cook till stems are tender, leaves are overdone. Although you COULD chop up the stems and start cooking them and when almost tender, add the leaves.

Chop up a bunch, enough to fill the skillet to overflowing. I pile those leaves, kind of chopped up into pieces in that hot skillet, pop a lid on, cook for a few minutes until they are wilted, turn them with a fork a time or two, sprinkle with tamari, and as soon as they are all wilted and hot, take them out and enjoy. Whole process takes less than five minutes, and they are great.

[chanterelle]

Amaranth, check the offerings from Italian seed company Franchi.
They are non GMO seeds with quite an organic selection from all over italy and have with many different regional and heirloom greens varieties. Their other veg seeds are terrific as well.
They are not cheap, but I have had excellent germination results with them are find the plants to be quite prolific and tasty and the seeds keep well from year to year. Seeds saved from these greens germinate very well and are true to type.

[pinkytoe]

I recently had dandelion greens for the first time and was surprised at how tasty they were - and no doubt effortless to grow at least in spring.

[daisy]

Lacinato kale (aka Tuscan or dinosaur kale) is my current favorite, both for its taste and its hardiness. I planted some in the fall of 2010 and it is still going strong, despite last summer's intense heat and drought.

[Rosemary]

Kale and collards are favorites of mine, too.

And mache is very difficult to find unless you grow it yourself. It's fairly cold-hardy, although I've had difficulty getting it to germinate.

[JaneV2.0]

I'm not crazy about the stronger-flavored greens. I put them in soups or stews sometimes. I'd probably like them better cooked Southern-style, everything tasting better with bacon and all.

My organic gardener friend has a yard full of different kinds that seem to take care of themselves. I know she grows dandelions (the only food crop I grow!), different kinds of kale, and broccoli rabe, along with every brassica known to humankind, practically.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I like chard, it's the usual default. Kale can be good. Stuff can be done with Arugula (wait is this political? :)). Spinach is the classic green, very popular, but I don't really cook it that often.

I consider this a wonderful cookbook on greens. Very much agrees with how I like to cook (fairly simple recipes - not for great chefs but for time pressed folks wanting tasty food, natural ingredients, healthy, not drowning in grease but not super low fat either, olive oil rather than dairy). And it's wide ranging, lots of recipes for greens alone (and it says HOW to cook each type of green to best bring out it's flavor - some sauted, some boiled in small amouts of water - also how to best balance the flavor of the intense greens). In addition to many recipes for simple green sides, it also has recipes for greens in bean soup, greens in pasta, mostly vegetarian but also a few recipes for greens with chicken, fish, a meatloaf with greens:

http://www.amazon.com/Greens-Glorious-Great-Tasting-Super-Healthy-Beautiful/dp/0312141084/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

[herbgeek]

I'd like to nominate tatsoi to the list. Its a very cold hardy green- I've grown it at both ends of the season- can also over winter. I like it because you can both add it to salads fresh, as well as saute it (usually with soy sauce, sesame oil and garlic, maybe with other "asian" ingredients). Taste is mild, maybe like a cross between kale and lettuce? Its a small plant, larger than mache but smaller than a head of lettuce.

I love love love arugula. Mostly raw in salads, and on sandwiches, but occasionally cooked like on a pizza (just barely wilted). I like arugula with a lemon based vinaigrette, or with feta cheese, nuts and dried fruit.

[Amaranth]

Thanks for all the great ideas. One thing we've discovered is that lots of the greens taste better if grown locally, picked younger, and then eaten shortly after picking. So we think that people will enjoy them a great deal more when they get to do the same.

One new good thing that has occurred near us is that a new grocery store opened with an amazing array of greens. So people can also taste some of the less common things they are considering growing. They even have rare things like yul moo and bitter melon greens.

What else would be fun to plant?

[bubaloo13]

Bok choy is very tasty and I second the tatsoi suggestion. Both are great added into pasta dishes or Asian themed dinners. Kale is wonderful (in all of its varieties) and extremely versatile. Its fabulous in soups, but my current favorite is baking it in the oven to make kale chips - better than potato chips! Massaged kale salads are also very good and make the kale less tough, more tender.

[Tiam]

Purslane is quite good. I'd like to see a "Garden" variety. In other words something that responded to cultivation rather than just finding good specimens of the weed.

[iris lily]

This year--I swear--I will try purslane.

I've been unable to eat it and god knows I've got tons of the weed in my gardens in mid summer.

I don't know why I' can't bring myself to eat it, I'm not a picky eater.