If Dr. Seuss Had a Vegetable Garden...

Looking through the seed catalogs in front of the fireplace in the winter is a fun thing for me to do.  I like looking for new seed varieties to try.  We grow open-pollinated varieties of seed so that we can save the seed from year to year.  Of course we'll grow the old standbys, but sometimes it's fun to mix it up a bit and add some variety.  Tonight I'll show you two of the new items that we tried this year.

If Dr. Seuss had a vegetable garden, surely he'd have purple cauliflower growing in it.  I bet he'd eat it with his green eggs and ham.

Geaux Tigers!

As the days are short and it gets dark early, I had to harvest these by lantern-light tonight.  This photo below just doesn't do it justice, but this is a green cauliflower.  I have a row of purple cauliflower, a row of green cauliflower and a regular row of white cauliflower (boring, I know!)

It's not easy being green

Growing amid the healthy green leaves of the plants, the purple cauliflower just reaches out and grabs you.  It is a stark contrast to the dark green leaves.  Of course the cows came running when they saw me harvesting the cauliflower in the garden and I tossed the leaves over to them.  When you harvest broccoli, the plant will continue to make little florets that we keep harvesting and enjoying every single day.  Not so with cauliflower.  When you harvest the head - it's done.  The cows take care of it though.

Live Purple

Now these are just a different color, but they will taste exactly the same as traditional cauliflower.  

During the Spring, I grow some Dragon Tongue Beans that have purple stripes. When you cook them, they lose their purple stripes unfortunately.  We'll test this out to see if they hold their purple color once cooked.  

Beautiful Purple

Tricia put a little butter in the cast iron skillet and stir fried them.  This is my second favorite way to eat them.  My favorite way is to roast them in the oven drizzled with olive oil and minced garlic.  It's like eating candy.  These were cooked to perfection - cooked but not too much.  They still were crisp and delicious.  They weren't off the plant for 15 minutes before they were in the skillet.  From farm to table.  Doesn't get fresher than that unless, of course, you eat it in the field.

A Delish Dish

How about that?  The purple color stayed after cooking.   Tricia always likes the contrast of different colors on her plate.  This fits the bill.  This is the kind of crop that would make Dr. Seuss proud.  In his honor (with apologies to Sam I Am):

I would eat purple cauliflower in a cast iron pot,

I would eat it; you might not,

I would make it disappear from my plate,

While it's cookin' I can hardly wait.

I would eat the green ones too,

It's good for me.  It's good for you,

I'll clean my plate, thank you ma'am.

I like it, I like it, Sam I Am!