A little-known fresh spring delicacy we love is chive blossoms.  Chives themselves are greeted with great enthusiasm for about a month in the early spring, when we’ve generally run out of onions, gotten sick of dried herbs, and the new onion greens haven’t appeared yet.  Chives find their way into a lot of our cooking and salads in April and May, but by the end of May (especially if it’s been hot like this year) the greens can get a little boring.  And then - the blossoms arrive!

Chive blossoms can be used in any way that regular chopped chives are.  They are subtler on flavor, and beautiful to behold.  They’re especially nice as a garnish on top of salads, noodles, potato or egg salad, sushi, scrambled eggs, etc.

They come as cut flowers, (we’ll have them at Market) and are really easy to use in cooking:  just take the clump of blossoms between thumb and fingers and gently pull them off the stem.  Then scatter over a dish!

Today’s chive blossom recipe for us:

Cold Udon noodles with Baby Greens & Chive Blossoms

Cook the udon in boiling water, drain, and soak briefly in icewater to cool.  Meanwhile, chop green onions, a few radishes, a handful of fresh cilantro, and pull the blossoms off about 5 chive stems.  Make a dressing by combining olive oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, a dash of maple syrup, and a bit of hot pepper oil, if desired.  I never measure - just add and experiment.  Lime juice is good here too.  When the noodles are cooled, drain them well, pour enough dressing over them to coat, and toss with the chopped onion, radish, cilantro, and chive blossom.  Prepare a  bed of greens on the plate, dress it lightly with a stream of the same dressing, and put a helping of the noodles on top.  Today we added an little cold leftover grilled steak and asparagus from last night.  Sprinkle on a few more chive blossoms for garnish, and enjoy!

We are going full tilt with work preparing to attend the market!  We do all the gardening and growing work ourselves, around each of our other jobs, and it’s been really busy.  We’re still tiny tiny tiny producers, but we’re focusing on quality and uniqueness rather than mass production.  We don’t use any kind of chemicals or poisons on the things we grow, ever.  And we don’t sell things we wouldn’t be excited about eating ourselves!

Greens have been excellent this spring!  This heat, however, may change that fast.  I’m hoping the lettuces can hold out a little bit, with the help of mulch, row covers, and interplanting with things like garlic and onions, that give a wee bit of shade. We expect to be back at the market with Dragonwood’s “Wild Baby Greens” mix at the opening next week.  Why “Wild”?  Mostly just a nickname they got last year - there’s often a little bit of the wild and unexpected, and we take full advantage of the self-seeding and regrowth of some of the crucifers and lettuces that we let naturalize, plus the additions of dandelion, lamb’s quarters, purslane, when they are young and tasty.  We had quite the devoted following of the greens last year, and we’re looking forward to seeing you all again.

The mix we’ve got going right now usually includes at least the following:

6-10 kinds of carefully chosen or heirloom lettuces

Baby Chard

3-4 types of baby Kale

Spinach

Arugula

Mache

Mizuna

Endive

We are usually able to accomodate special orders - if someone wants a bag of a certain green here and there, let us know!

See you at the market on Thursday June 3rd!