Monday, June 28, 2010

Harvest Monday - summer surfeit

It's not quite the ratatouille season but the garden is overflowing with greens, flowers and seedpods. The early crops are coming of age and I've collected lots of seed already so if anyone wants some Good King Henry, let me know (email under profile).

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The kids helped me harvest some daylily - among my favourite salad ingrediant, mustard seedpods and red currants.

My big harvest today was immature mustard seedpods - some for salad, others for stirfry and the rest I am going to try to pickle as a sort of 'green' mustard. I'll let you know how it goes. Speaking of under used vegetables, after being enamoured once again with squash blossom, it got me looking up unusual parts of vegetables to munch such as squash leaves with peanut sauce and sprinkling corn silks onto salad. If you have anything else to add, I'd love to hear it and perhaps try it out.

12 comments:

Robin said...

I've never heard of eating daylilies. I just love looking at all my daylilies...I don't know if I could eat them.

Taylor said...

Oh yum! I LOVE the flavor of daylilies! So sweet and crunch. And something about eating them is so luxurious- like I'm an 18th century French princess.

thyme2garden said...

I'm just as surprised as Robin here. You can eat daylilies, really? Are they tasty?

Unknown said...

Corn Silks on Salad? Neat!

Anonymous said...

I love your Harvest Monday posts - always so unusual harvests.
I have never eaten daylilies and don’t think I could eat them.

Angela said...

I use to find daylilies at the farmer's market when I lived in the northeast. The mostly sold unopened buds, though. Tons of them.

Funkbunny said...

I sprinkle calendula and borage flowers into salads and onto cakes - so pretty!

mac said...

I like to eat daylilies fresh or semi-dried, too bad my lettuces are gone and the flowers are just coming in. I use the semi-dried one in soups or braising type of dishes.

Daphne Gould said...

I've heard of eating daylilies though I've never done it, but I've never heard of eating corn silk. Squash blossoms are a typical salad addition for me to brighten up the color. I'm not sure I taste them much, but they look pretty.

michelle said...

Too bad the giant rats, uh, deer don't give me a chance to sample the daylilies. Do you think kale seed pods would be good?

Another interesting and informative post, thanks!

Ottawa Gardener said...

I think daylily petals are heavenly too. They have a very satisfying crunch, I agree Taylor.

Alison, I've never heard of the corn silks thing either. Something I ran across when writing another blog post on the underused parts of vegetables. I'm curious to read experiences of it and the other unusual ways of using vegetables.

Robin, Thyme, Vrt, Angela: We tempura the unopened buds but I plan on frying some up with garlic too. You can also eat the tubers (mixed feelings about this) and the early spring shoots.

Mac you've inspired me to semi-dry some of mine for soup things.

Daphne you have got to try stuffed, battered, and fried squash blossoms - yummy.

Michel: When we get the rural place, I'm putting up giant rat fencing...

Funkbunny: Yeah, I love calendula ange borage. They look pretty growing together too.

miss m said...

Daylilies have great texture. The crunch is nice and so is the taste although quite 'perfumy' in some cases (I guess it depends on variety). Sadly, I don't tend to use them in the kitchen all that much. I have yet to try squash leaves and corn silks.