WINTER GREENS

I took this picture of our black kale and tatsoi this morning. How wonderful to finally have some rain and indeed to be able to grow an abundance of fresh greens in your own garden instead of having to buy them from the supermarket! They are SO easy to grow and seriously high in antioxidants.

Currently I am fertilising my vegies every 2 weeks or so with homemade chicken poo fertiliser, aternating with Gropotion - whichever is handiest. I am always being careful to avoid splash my homemade liquid Dynamic Lifter on the leaves and always wash my vegies well before preparing.

I love kale and recently made some kale chips which were delicious. (Simply get a bunch of kale, remove stalks and then rip up into 4cm pieces. Toss them in some olive oil, salt and chili powder or paprika and place them in a baking tray for 10 minutes at 120C - yum).  But I have always been a bit uneasy about regularly munching a lot of anything containing oxalic acid. Kale, spinach and silverbeet are the biggies and apparently are not so good if eaten raw in large amounts.

You may be aware or even into the current trend of making green smoothies using kale. I have made these in the past and found them sustaining and largely, depending on the ingredients, very tasty. Common things to add are veg juice, raw kale, fruit - particularly bananas, nutmilk, chlorella, bee pollen and other 'superfoods'. I usually feel pretty energised after drinking one of these concoctions. But still... I can't seem to shake that that nagging doubt everytime I harvest my kale and silverbeet and consider using them raw in salads or drinks.

So, I decided to do some research on this and after trawling around the internet for a while Googling 'Kale - pros and cons', I have come to the conclusion that although it seems that it's not going to kill us to eat these vegies raw occasionally, it is preferable to lightly steam and discard the water they were cooked in as this will contain oxalates. A particularly delicious side dish I love to cook makes good use of silverbeet and takes minutes. Simply fry a couple of onions in olive oil with 4-6 cloves of garlic and a bit of fresh chilli; add a bunch of silverbeet, splashes with white wine, then put the lid over the frypan to steam the silverbeet. After 3-4 minutes, discard the cooking water and then serve with goats cheese, black pepper, seasalt and lemon juice. Optional slivered almonds to add more protein.  

So, back to the kale.... I have decided to eat my tatsoi, rocket, lettuce and other asian greens raw, and lightly steam the silverbeet and kale.

Mung bean sprouts are another handy and ridiculously easy green to grow which you can grow indoors all year round. I always have a jar growing in the kitchen. Lightly steaming these sprouts is also recommended. 

Happy green eating!