If not then you won't be looking daily in awe at this beautiful, tall, elegant, hardy, colourful, nutritious, tasty, versatile plant now beginning to wave wonderful, vibrant flower heads in the breeze! And, unless you buy it from the Asian stalls in the Central Market, you probably won't get a chance to have it for dinner until next year.... or if you are in the northern hemisphere, you'd better get some seeds and start sowing.
I am addicted to leaves; I have written about it before several times. Raw or cooked leaves are almost always a part of my meals. In summer this means lots of variety in my salads.... every kind and colour of lettuce, peppery watercress, fiery or mild rocket, nasturtium flowers and leaves, sweet potato leaves, herbs like basil and various mints, young beetroot leaves, baby spinch, Asian greens of dozens of sorts and new leaves of amaranthus, etc etc. For cooking I use the older leaves of all these plants, plus kales, brassica leaves and rainbow chard. I even adore lettuce soup which is so much nicer than it sounds!
Tonight I made a quick meal with onions, zuccini slices, tomatoes,celery, fennel seeds ( another passion of mine), olives, tinned chick peas, basil, watercress and some left over liquid from a small jar of artichokes I ate for lunch.
Most of these ingredients were eaten within half an hour of being picked....I call food gardens health insurance.
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| How could you NOT want these in your garden? | Just chop some of the leaves and add to anything... the flavour is mild | And don't forget to have a tub of watercress to pick from too. |
Oh... did I mention that I felt so great after that dinner that I made myself an incy wincy little fluffy, banana pancake for dessert and topped it with lashings of maple syrup, a dusting of coconut and a good squeeze of lemon? I cooked it and ate it before I remembered to take a photo... so I thought I'd let this little dude show you how its done!
Life is good.... enjoy it while you can!
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5 comments:
Hi Kate,
I did try amaranth here in the wet tropics, but it was decimated by bugs. Thought I might try again once "bug season" is over! I was also told I had got the grain amaranth, not the leaf amaranth! Where do you get your seeds? Green Harvest only had the one type.
Mine is very tall so I think it is the seed amaranth which I originally bought to feed my chooks. Eden seeds has some but I don't know if its the same as mine.... I could send you some of my seed, Africanaussie if you like. Send me an email via my other blog:
http://vegetablevagabond.blogspot.com/
Hello Kate,
I sowed amaranth but the plants that have grown best are the 'weeds'.They aren't the pretty crimson ones but they are bushy and growing well anyway(as weeds usually do).
I have changed my blog address from the one you have listed here.It is now www.sunny-corner-farm.blogspot.com
All the best
tracy
Thanks Tracy - I have now changed the address of your blog. Are yours the leaf type of amaranthus? How do you like to eat them?
Kate: This is one of my fave plants both to eat and to look at, and it reseeds every year. Plus, the gold finches love it and they are so pretty!
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