Garden Dreams Coming True
It was a midwinter day. We were engaging in a gardener’s favorite wintertime activity: looking through seed catalogs, planning and daydreaming. As so many gardeners do, we were dreaming about the growing season. We tried not to acknowledge the sight of our frozen garden, the gray emptiness of the ground, the garden fence that seemed to have no purpose in January. We were dreaming of the summer when the gardener no longer remembers the barren soil, the empty beds. With our inner eyes we saw all shades of green in our garden beds, a fence covered with climbing beans, we saw red tomatoes hiding under the leaves, shiny peppers asking to be picked, colorful flowers being visited by bees and butterflies, and busy hands weeding, watering, mulching, picking …
The gardener waiting for the arrival of spring is impatient, she wants to dig and plant. She can’t, so she keeps busy and compensates by looking through seed catalogs. And as she does there is so much hope, so much expectation, that shopping for seeds becomes almost a mania. As if buying a lot, much more than one can plant, or as if ordering the seeds right at that moment could bring the first day of spring closer.
As I was browsing through seed catalogs with my children and planning what to plant and where to build new garden beds my son suddenly said: “Let’s save one garden bed for snack food.” I wasn’t sure what he meant exactly, but I was a very proud mother at that moment. I felt that engaging the kids in gardening activities from an early age was paying off. My child was hoping for snacks from the garden. I couldn’t wait to hear his explanation. It turned out he wanted to plant vegetables he and his sister like to munch on raw, preferably super-freshly picked and right in the garden. My son was dreaming about a garden bed filled with crunchy kohlrabi, buttery salad turnips and radishes, kale, peas in tender pods, and lemony sorrel.
At last, the spring has arrived. We opened our garden shed, took out the tools and went to the garden to start the new gardening season. Turnip, radish and kale seeds were planted directly into garden beds. Kohlrabi seeds were put into planters, emerging seedlings will be kept in the greenhouse for a few weeks. Sorrel, being a hardy perennial, was already there in the garden, the first leaves of the season were ready to be picked.
Although sorrel is not very well know in these parts of the world, it is well worth planting. This plant with spear-shaped leaves, native throughout Europe and Euro-Asia, somewhat resembles spinach but its pleasantly sour taste will surprise everyone trying it for the first time. Sorrel is also one of the first greens to come back in early spring, it is ready to be harvested before some other plants are even planted. When established, the gardener can forget about it, it more or less takes care of itself. As a child, I remember picking sorrel leaves growing among the grass under my great-grandmother’s sour cherry tree. I had assumed at the time that sorrel was a wild plant.
In the kitchen, sorrel can be treated as a salad green or leafy vegetable. Use raw sorrel in salads, wraps and sandwiches. The most common sorrel dish is a sorrel sauce, but the tart green leaves work well in soups and sautés as well. Sorrel combines well with potatoes and eggs. The lightness and lemony tang of sorrel sauce nicely compliments dishes made with red meats.
But of course as all young gardeners know, sorrel is best eaten as a snack, just by itself, preferably right in the garden. And as my children were munching on the first leaves of the season, I knew that our garden dreams will all come true.
2 medium potatoes; peeled, sliced and precooked
1 small onion, sliced
3 packed cups sorrel
6 eggs
¼ cup Swiss cheese, grated
2 tablespoons canola or safflower oil
pinch of pepper
salt to taste
Heat an 8-inch ovenproof skillet over medium heat. Add oil. Add onion and sauté 10 minutes or until tender. Add sorrel and cook, stirring just until sorrel wilts, about 2 minutes. Add precooked potatoes and gently mix with onion and sorrel.
Beat eggs, combine with salt and pepper. Pour egg mixture over vegetables in pan. Cook until edges begin to set, about 3 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese.
Finish the frittata under the broiler. Using the “low” setting, the top of the frittata should be about 4-5 inches from the flames. Take the frittata out as soon as the top starts to brown, this will probably take no more than a minute.
Cut into wedges and serve with fresh salad.
Leftovers make a great cold lunch.
