Apologies to all for being a bit late with this Gardeners' Holiday post. Technically, the Age of Asparagus holiday falls on May 1, the cross-quarter day, but that's also May Day, which my Morris dance team celebrates by dancing from the crack of dawn until mid-afternoon, and drinking together after that. So by the time we made it home, I was so tired that I'd forgotten all about the blog.
Fortunately, our asparagus has not been too worn-out to offer for us throughout the beyond week. In truth, once you have got off to a slow begin in April, it got here into its private proper across the begin of May, sending up spears so rapid that we're deciding on new ones each day, from time to time two times an afternoon. Once or twice, I've snapped off the tallest spears within the morning and passed over or 3 others due to the truth they had been too brief...Simplest to pass by the use of the bed over again in the late afternoon and observe that the ones identical spears have now shot up higher than the ones I picked in the morning.
Although the asparagus is growing fast, we nonetheless do no longer have a big quantity of it, because we honestly do not have that many flowers. So the amount we pick in a single day usually isn't sufficient for a meal. Simply leaving the spears in the mattress longer is not an desire, because left to their non-public devices, they will department out into huge fronds no longer suitable for cooking. In reality, a number of the spears we didn't get to fast sufficient?Or considered too small to be virtually well worth choosing?Have already long past to fern. (After some weeks, we'll need to prevent selecting the spears and allow they all exchange into ferns, in order to spend the relaxation of the year accumulating nourishment for the roots to provide subsequent yr's crop.)
And turn it into meals we have. One of the cookbooks on our shelf, Easy Vegetarian Dinners from Better Homes and Gardens, contains several recipes that call for asparagus, and this is the only time of year we really get the chance to make them. So we've picked a couple of our favorites and enjoyed them multiple times in the past couple of weeks. The first, appearing in the "Bravo Beans and Grains" section, is Polenta with Mushrooms and Asparagus. The hardest part of this recipe is actually making the polenta; once that's done, you just keep it warm while you sauté some chopped onion in a pan. As soon as it's tender, toss in the sliced mushrooms and asparagus with some minced garlic, cook it a few minutes more, and stir in a little white wine and salt. Then ladle that over the polenta and top it with some toasted chopped nuts and a bit of Parmesan for a simple, elegant meal.
Good as this recipe is, it's a bit time-consuming. On Friday, after returning from our Morris-dancing adventures, we didn't want to wait for the polenta, so instead we cooked up a pound of gnocchi from Aldi and tossed that with the asparagus-mushroom mixture instead. We quickly discovered that we like this version even better than the original. The tender texture of the gnocchi makes a wonderful foil for the tender-crispness of the veggies, and the little potato pillows soak up the flavor of the sauce much more effectively than the polenta. I think we will definitely have to pick up some more gnocchi at the earliest opportunity so we can make this recipe at least once more before asparagus season ends.
The other asparagus recipe we've been eating lots of is Roasted Asparagus with New Potatoes, from the "Bumper Crop" section of the cookbook. Last month, we actually tried this for the first time with real new potatoes, since we picked up a bag of little fingerling potatoes as a splurge on a recent trip to Trader Joe's. These tiny potatoes can be roasted whole, side by side with the asparagus, drizzled with a little olive oil and salt, and they'll come out tender in under 15 minutes. The recipe says to stir in a bit of fresh rosemary and pepper, then garnish with toasted pine nuts and Parmesan and call it a meal—but we've taken to adding the extra step of dumping the whole mess into a pan and cooking it up with a couple of beaten eggs for a bit of additional protein. This makeshift frittata is both hearty enough and flavorful enough to make an all-around satisfying meal. And while it's particularly delicious with those buttery little fingerling potatoes, if you don't happen to have any, you can just dice plain old baking potatoes into chunks and it'll be nearly as good.
The other crop that's at its height right now is the rhubarb. Last year around this time, the four plants started sending up long flower spikes, which looked fascinating, but seemed to slow their production somewhat as they diverted energy from leaf and stalk production to the important business of germination. (Kind of like human adolescence, when the reproductive urge becomes so overpowering that it's hard to concentrate on anything else.) So this year, we've been ruthless about seeking out and snipping off those flower stalks before they get too tall, and the plants have rewarded us by developing into massive bushes of greenery. This week, we harvested the first crop of the year and turned it into Skillet Chicken and Rhubarb for last night's dinner—and there's still plenty out there to be enjoyed in the form of pies, crisps, and crumbles.
For summer is a-coming in, and winter's gone away, o!
