Spring greens: final harvest

After working in our garden for a little while, my husband Ford came to find me in our kitchen. “You’ve got to get rid of all those weeds,” he said.  “They are sucking up all the water for the lime tree.” 

Weeds?  What weeds?  Those are wild greens!  But the lambs-quarter plants were getting huge and it was time to harvest them.  After pulling the plants up, I began plucking off the leaves.  From that big bunch, I ended up with about 11 cups of raw greens.  I steamed them in three bunches and ended up with around 5 cups. I used one for dinner that night mixed with some Swiss chard from my garden and froze the rest in 1-cup bags.   I’m going to use a couple of bags of the frozen greens  this weekend to make a brunch dish for a baby shower.  The mom-to-be is a vegetarian, so we’ve planned the menu to suit her.   We’ll have two dishes from my new cookbook, Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants.  Our main dish will be Squares of Green, which is basically a quiche with greens and cheese.  You could use a recipe you have or find the one in my book.  We’ll also have French Green Lentil and Nopalito Salad, also in the book.  To a  base of  French green lentils, which don’t fall apart when tender, we will add some sauteed nopalitos, chopped red pepper and green onions. It will be dressed with hazelnut oil and sherry vinegar.    We will round things out with a fruit salad. The desserts we have planned are too decadent for me to own up to here.

  If you live in the desert, it is time to harvest any wild greens; anyone who lives further north or at  higher elevation still has several months to go before your harvest.

Spring greens: Lamb’s quarter

Lambsquarter

I’m rushing to get ready for a demonstration in the culinary tent at Tucson Festival of Books tomorrow, but noticed this lamb’s-quarter (Chenopodium berlandieri or fremontii) growing like crazy in my yard.  This is one of the tastiest of the spring greens.  It shows up in March and April in desert areas, but I’ve seen it as late as July in Prescott which is a mile high.  It is sometimes called goosefoot because the shape of the leaves (closeup at the bottom) looks the the footprint a goose might make in a muddy barnyard. 

Because of its abundance and mild flavor, lamb’s-quarter is one of the most popular wild foods gathered not just in the West but also throughout the country.  When gathering, cloose plants less than one foot tall or use the new shoots of older plants.  The stems can be tough, so discard them after you have picked off the succulent leaves. Steam the leaves by placing them in a pot with a tightly fitting lid, add a tablespoon or two of water and cook over low heat for about five minutes.  A little butter and maybe a dash of chile is all the seasoning it needs. 

Lamb’s-quarter is loaded with nutrition — a cup of cooked greens provides about as much calcium as a cup of cow’s milk and more vitamin A than a serving of spinach.  You can use it in any recipes where you would use spinach, or check out the recipes for greens in my book Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants.

Can you see the goosefoot?