Using the Greens

Pork Chop and Rice Noodle Salad, originally uploaded by lisbear18.

I'm getting more and more excited about the garden produce. So far I've used some parsley and chives, the garlic shoots, and a fair bit of salad greens. Today, I tasted a few early strawberries. Yes, Edmonton is that far north that strawberry season is beginning as it ends elsewhere. Unfortunately, one of the strawberries wasn't that great. But they're still better than the ones in the store, which I don't buy.

Anyways, I planted some chard today and I'm excited about that. It was delicious last year and totally new to me. I'll be looking for some good recipes for it. I'm also on the lookout for green bean recipes since I'm confident that they will be abundant later in the summer. In the grocery store I'm looking for blueberry season to start. I think they're actually my favourite berries. I'm especially stoked to make blueberry pancakes and maybe oatmeal-blueberry muffins.

This photo is a main course salad that I made using mixed greens for the garden. I dressed them in rice wine vinegar and sesame oil and added some sliced cucumber. I topped that with rice noodles that I mixed with sesame oil, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and sambal oelek. I also added sauteed garlic shoots and onion. The meat on top is a pork chop that I skillet cooked after marinating it--for too short a time really--in soy sauce. The meal was pretty good except the noodles were clumpy. Clearly I don't quite know how to handle them right. . . kind of like at that inferior Vietnamese restaurant.

Joys of Summer

Before I get into some more recipe oriented posts, I thought I'd take a second to reflect on the wonders that an Edmonton summer can bring to the food obsessed.

First off, there is some good that the rain and perpetual threat of rain during the month of June does. By the way, I don't think I'll ever get used to rain, I think I'm some sort of desert creature--although I require a lot of water to drink. But, the plants that are just starting to grow in the Campus Community Garden are not desert creatures and the rain helps them grow and flourish. Some of the first plants available for eating--what good is a plant you can't eat?--are the lettuces. Look at this assortment of mixed baby greens I cut on Saturday:

You can't find that in any grocery store, seriously. They were so colourful and tender. And amazingly tasty what with the peppery arugula and other milder greens mixed together. A little red wine vinegar, olive oil, and pepper and I had one delicious salad.

I'm also thrilled by the thought of the other wonderful things the garden will produce for me to eat--if I put in a little work helping with the weeding and watering. There will be strawberries and raspberries, so sweet that I won't touch the ones in a store after tasting them. There will be sweet peas, green beans, yellow beans, spinach, chard, cucumbers, and at the end of it all garlic and tomatoes. Plus, I can pluck fresh herbs every now and then to make my food truly special.

Now, garden fresh veggies and berries are the healthful joys of summer. I am also partial to another summertime treat, gelato. Gelato makes ordinary ice cream seem . . . inadequate when compared to its smooth, rich texture. I really like gelato. But, I've had it just once so far this season at a new cafe called Da Capo on 109th Street. The mixed nut flavour was a generous portion as a small to stay and was so nutty and so delectable. I am very partial to nut gelatos. If you don't have allergies, try them. Gelato is also available at Block 1912 on Whyte and at Leva on 111 Street. I think both are good. Gelato is never really cheap but it's so worth the expense.