The Hunting of the Salad

Getting my salad together for February was quite an ordeal after that prolonged spell of heavy frost. Gone were most of the plants that so amply provided me and me chooks with greens over the Winter months. Even the veg in my unheated greenhouse croaked it. Not good.

This, for instance, used to be bright and glossy red Swiss chard that has now turned into an unappetizing bit of snot (sorry). I was spoiled for choice last month for putting together a salad for Salad Days but not this time. So I had a spot of hunting to do. In my potager I found this

red chicory

Sorrel

Mibuna

Wintercress (Barbarea spp) sown by my own slightly grubby hands

Red Russian Kale

Egyptian walking onions

Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta), an edible weed

Lettuce, many heads of it have survived the frost onslaught

Another kind of lettuce (I often sow mixed salad leaf seeds so no idea which one it is)

Wild rocket

In my kitchen kitchen garden I found this

More lettuce

In the fridge this

A jar of sprouts

And finally in my conservatory I spotted a nice big clump of this

wild rocket

With all that salad hunting done I'd become quite pekkish so I put together this plate

my February salad

and added cherry toms, old Dutch cheese, ghurkins and sprouts and sprayed it all with balsamico vinegar & olive oil, then milled some fresh black pepper and sea salt over it

This week I've been sowing quite a lot of munchable goodies so hopefully next month I won't have to hunt high and low to put a decent salad together.


copyright 2012 Y.E.W. Heuzen