Leafy greens

Just an evening's harvest! Kale, spinach, lettuce and chard.

It is really exciting to know that most of what is at the Farmer's Markets right now are growing right in my garden. This won't last much longer, but as of right now, we are overrun with greens! We eat huge salads twice a day, pack the greens into our morning smoothies, give it away, freeze it, and still can't harvest fast enough. Our Arugula already bolted a few weeks ago, turning bitter and ending it's life as an edible. Our spinach bolted shortly after, shooting up to over three feet tall and blooming funny little yellow blossoms. The leaves aren't as sweet and succulent as they were at the beginning of the season, but luckily they aren't bitter either. 

Not wanting to let anything go to waste if I can help it, I have been harvesting the spindly spinach (with an occasional taste just to be sure it's still edible) and pureeing it, freezing it in ice cube trays exactly the same way I make my daughter's baby food.  

Leafy greens are PACKED with amazing nutrients - making it onto the list of "super foods" several times!

Gotta love the green foam! My girls won't eat spinach in leaf form (still too hard to eat leafy things), but they drink green smoothies like there's no tomorrow. As Lexi told me this morning, "Mama, I WUV 'sinach!')." Drop a few spinach cubes into the blender with your other ingredients and you're good to go. I also stir one spinach cube into my 14-month-old's oatmeal every morning, and she gobbles it up happily (one of the few foods left that she won't fight me over).

Tools of the trade. My Vitamix blender has turned out to be one of our better investments. I use it daily for so many things. Though because of it's amazing wonders in pureeing, I do think we may be needing a bigger freezer soon...