Friday, August 23, 2013

Weeds 'n roses


Name of my new band.

This is the rose I moved to the roof so it could live out its last days. But then it refused to die. The amaranth that germinates in its pot every summer shows solidarity. Amarathus retroflexus, pigweed. Lucky pigs. We have become so stupid about what we eat. It's an excellent vegetable, scoring high nutrition, flavor and texture points.


The amaranth seeds have spread to other pots and I leave the plants to grow to long arms before I cut them back and carry them into the kitchen.

The Frenchman - not big on salads, as a rule - wolfed a recent Caprese incarnation. We have perhpas a week of farmer's market tomatoes every night , and I am partial to the giant green ones, with yellow blotches, whose name I have forgotten. Their flavour is slightly sharp, and they are very juicy.

For this salad I sauteed the finely chopped leaves and seedheads of the amaranth with some thinly sliced preserved lemon, allowed the mixture to cool, and topped the usual tomatoes and mozzarella with the lemony green relish. The last of the purslane finished it off.


The Frenchman licked his plate.

6 comments:

  1. by green tomatoes with yellow blotches do you mean yellow stripes? Could they be green zebras? They are quite tart and have a great deal of gelatin inside the seed cavity. One of my favorite tomatoes

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    1. "Cherokee" - I subsequently found a photo of them at market - much bigger than the Zebras (which I also love, and grew last year).

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    2. I was wondering Green Zebra also. It's one of my favorites. If you like its tart flavor, you may want to try the French heirloom Jaune Flamme, a beautiful, orange, tennis-ball-sized tomato, http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/540/. Both GZ and JF are productive, trouble-free, early fruiting plants.

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  2. Sign of a good cook - the fed lick their plate : ) I do it all the time. My husband is my personal chef.

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  3. Thank you for the mind jog, I have been trying to remember Cherokee Purple all summer.

    Now I can rest and lick my plate.

    xo Jane

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