Although I'm just getting started, I've already taken my first harvest from the yard: wild violets. The yard is covered with them, and since we don't use any synthetic products on our lawn they are edible.
The flowers don't have much of a distinctive taste, but they are beautiful and they make an ordinary salad seem like something exotic. The leaves have a very mild, fresh taste and are not the least bit bitter. The dark green leaves and the purple flowers contrast nicely with the yellow-green hearts of butter lettuce or romaine. When I served our salads on Sunday, I think this is the first time in 9 years of marriage that Doug was stunned by the food's presentation -- hey, I'm usually making casserole or some other "gloppy" stuff.
No special preparation is required: just pick, rinse, and eat. Sunday was such a beautiful day that I was looking for any excuse to be outside, so I probably spent 1/2 hour to an hour picking violets. I was surprised how well the leaves and flowers held up after sitting in the sun for that long. I put them in a bowl of water in the refrigerator until dinner, then I dried them in the salad spinner before using them. I refrigerated the leftovers in the salad spinner, and they still look fresh today, two days later. On the other hand, the dandelion flowers I picked the same day (they're edible too, but that's another post) began to close up within an hour, even in water.
I have read on the Web that violets are high in vitamin C, and very high in vitamin A: half a cup of leaves contains well more than a whole day's supply (so don't overdo it).
2 comments:
Morning,Angie !
Your violet meal reminds me of back home. My grandfather used to pick wild "yarbs"(herbs) and add them to everything we ate.He'd just go out in tne yard and pick what he needed to spice up chicken,wild game,or homegrown garden salads.
One thing you left out in your salad was wild onions.If you don't know what that is ,just go out and step on differant things until you smell onions!! then look for a tall"ish" onion looking thing in your grass.Pick a few( don't overdo it) and add them anwhere you would use raw onions.They also cook up great in hot dishes as well ! ENJOY !
Jim
I wonder if the wild onions are the same thing we called "onion grass" when I was growing up. They look like a clump of grass, but when you pick them there's a distinct (but mild) onion smell... kind of like very thin chives. I always wondered if they were edible. :-)
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