Sunday, May 20, 2012

Turnips and Brussels

I spent a lot of time in the garden this weekend.  The Saturday produce give-away was successful.  Most of the turnip greens went home with other people.  There were a LOT of greens...
Yes, that's a wheelbarrow full of turnip greens.  These turnips did not produce substantial roots.  We got some, but nothing like the giant softball-sized monster turnips we had last year.  I'm unsure if it was the variety of turnip or how I planted them.  While I did thin them, they may have been too densely packed together.  They produced impressive leaves.

I sold about $10 worth of other produce...dill, mint, and lettuce, mainly.  Probably 15 or 16 people came by and got leafy greens on Saturday.

Today, I thinned the patch of brussels sprouts.  I'm not really sure what I was thinking when I planted them, but there was less than an inch between most of the plants.  Since the ending plant spacing on the packet called for 2 feet between plants, I must have been on crack when I placed that seed.  A huge pile of thinnings resulted.
So, I was about to carry them to the compost pile, when I shoved a leaf in my mouth and chewed.  It tasted good, so I whipped out my phone and googled, "can you eat brussels sprout leaves?"  Survey says 'yes!'  I quickly found a number of recipes for cooked brussels sprout leaves.
I washed them, plucked them off the stems, and cooked them up with garlic, olive oil, onions, salt, pepper, chicken broth, beer, hot sauce, and a little apple cider vinegar.  They were good - Angelia and I both had seconds.

So, brussels sprout leaves are edible, and they taste good.  Who knew?  

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