What Vegetables Are You Eating Right Now?

Let me interpose, for a moment, some green leafy vegetables between our carnivorous sausage-making and pork-stewing. This is a hard time of year for vegetables. Spring is in the air, green things are stirring, and we're dreaming of gardens. But there's really not much actually growing yet. What vegetables do you eat right now, in this last stretch before spring ramps and baby greens?

I personally like kale. Kale is nearly impossible to kill, even in the winter. It grows in cold frames and in nearly-frozen ground, bringing up dark green leafy goodness all winter long. I can find gorgeous fresh lacinato kale like the chopped bunch above all through the early spring, and I love it!

Here are a few kale recipes for omnivores and vegetarians both, to tide you over until the baby spinach shows up.

• Kale Chips: How To Eat a Bunch of Kale in One Sitting
• Recipe: Kale Salad with Pecorino and Lemon
• Recipe Review: Kale and Potato Puree
• Recipe: Hearty Kale and Sausage Soup

Your turn: what vegetables are keeping you happy and well-fed right now? Do you resort to frozen vegetables? Are root veggies still on the menu?

(Images: Faith Durand)

Comments (19)

the dark leafy greens: collards, kale, mustard greens
beets, always, because I can never have enough!
and frozen haricots vert (most often tossed with red wine vinegar, miso, and sesame seeds)

I can't wait for baby greens and snap peas and asparagus!

What a gorgeous photo! Kale is fantastic: so healthy and so yummy.

One of my favorite ways to prepare it is roasted in a sauce of coconut milk, lemon juice, smoked paprika and sea salt. I can't even describe how amazing that tastes. I got the recipe from the chef of Scratch Kitchen in Montreal.

Mustard greens. With anything.

Fresh produce is relatively easy to get where I live, even this early in the year, because of the moderate climate. I've been eating lots of cabbage, carrots, broccoli, mustard greens, and potatoes - but I can't wait to grill some fresh asparagus!

ass-per-gass. ;) and 'taters. This is Idaho, after all :D

I cooked the wine-braised cabbage you'd featured for St. Pats and it was great. Cabbage is one of the veggies that I struggle with. Sure, stir-fry, cole slaw...but how else? This recipe promised it would get better stored a couple of days, so I'll have left-overs tonight. Thanks.

asparagus over here! nice to get fresh green something after squash!

asparagus here too! and shelling peas.

i need to try more of those greens. right now we're eating leeks, sweet potatoes, potatoes, butternut squash, frozen corn, and...asparagus. it's here now, too. yum.

I made the kale chips last weekend, asparagus is now a weekly treat, wonderful spinach is the foundation of my daily salad at lunch and we had some fantastic brussel sprouts earlier in the week. I'm lucky to live in Northern California.

Jeez, you guys are making me hungry! We've been eating garlicky greens (kale, beet greens, chard, never tried mustard greens -- sounds good though) over steaming hot smashed potatoes about once a week all winter. Somehow it just never gets old and it's a great quick dinner when everyone comes home from work late and starving. I love the suggestion from a few weeks ago to put a fried egg on top of garlicky greens -- maybe that will be this week's exciting twist on the ol' standby.

Rainbow Chard, Asparagus, red and golden beets, fennel.

Root Veggies, but I just got my first bunch o' asparagus. The central valley has it's down falls but produce is not one of them...

I just discovered the glory that is properly-roasted brussels sprouts.

Other than than, I've been eating a lot of asparagus and artichokes lately.

My CSA sent us parsnips this past week, and a recipe for ginger-parsnip soup. Paraphrased, it is: Briefly saute a mess of grated ginger (a good Tbsp). Add a chopped parsnip (or several - the one I used was foot and a half long!) and a quart of chicken stock. Cook until the parsnip is very soft, then blur with an immersion blender until smooth. Add about 1/4 cup cream and salt and sugar to taste. Faintingly good. And it makes the house smell fantastic, too.

does anyone know of a good way to get...um...slugs out of a bunch of chard? there was a slug in the last bunch i got from the farmer's market and i could barely eat the greens even though i was pretty sure it was the only one. i ended up only eating the leaves that i had the time to look over individually...the rest went in the fridge and stayed there till they went bad :(

Nettles! Two weeks of them at the farmers market, but it looks like that gravy train has ended, as the place I was getting them from was simply harvesting its wild nettles (as opposed to cultivating them), so there was a very limited quantity. Also, from the same stand (County Line, out of Petaluma I think), ancho cress (spicy and beautiful), fava leaves (shapely and tasty), and lacinato kale, eaten raw (but sliced thin and massaged with olive oil first).

Home grown sunflower sprouts. I buy a large bag of bird food seed and throw them in a pot of dirt. I have enough to clip about every other day to eat with my bento lunch or toss on a salad.

kale - i'm enjoying it for as long as it's here - i had half a bunch for breakfast this morning, with a soft boiled egg and a rusk of bread. yum. looking forward to delicate spring vegetables, too.