Home Grown Salads
Growing cut and come again salad leaves
Following a recent trip to the supermarket I have decided that buying lettuce is for the upper classes only, £1.95 for a bag of ‘picked, washed and ready to eat’ is a crime against humanity. That said, it’s not much cheaper to buy in the hotel trade, especially as summer draws to a close.
I never buy lettuce at home, haven’t for a long while but I eat a lot of it. Why? largely because I sow too much of it and it keeps coming back! A packet of salad leaf seeds costs between 50p and £1.00 and will provide dozens of cuttings of fresh, crisp leaves.
They can be sown direct into a bed or container grown, in a greenhouse or on a windowsill and many varieties can be cut and left to re grow up to four times. There are plenty of varieties, try the crisp cos varieties which are suitable for winter sowing. Personally, I like the bitter taste of endive; radichio is excellent both raw and cooked and there is a large leafed cos like endive called cornette which is very good.
The secret to enjoying home grown salads is to cut them as required, refrigeration is best avoided where possible and then to season them with salt, pepper and a light drizzle of good olive oil or vinaigrette. Drenching lettuce in your favourite low calorie dressing is a sackable offence. Vinaigrette should be used as a flavour enhancer, you want to be able to taste the fruits of your labour.
If anyone requires a recipe for vinaigrette then let me know.
I’d love a basic vinaigrette dressing recipe please.
I know what you mean about salad prices - something is not right somewhere when you see what I saw the other week:
A bag of salad costing more than a fresh whole chicken.
Salad ranks alongside razor blades and new release DVDs as being nothing more than a dream to the proletariat
RC
September 2, 2007 @ 6:22 pm
Rod,
Will post a few vinaigrette recipes over the next day or two.
Miles
September 2, 2007 @ 7:24 pm
Miles,
What a good idea, a cut and come again salad. I have long been disenchanted with the ready mixed salads in bags. As you describe it this can be grown by anyone and I shall certainly follow suit. Family and friends will also be enlightened.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge in such a wonderful way.
September 2, 2007 @ 8:32 pm
I always like the idea of things like this. It is also at such times I wish I had a garden, well one large enough to grow my own produce in.
I look forward to the basic - vinaigrette dressing recipe.
September 3, 2007 @ 12:04 pm
SC,
What you need is one of those Victorian walled gardens with a gardener!!
Miles
September 3, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
“Victorian Walled Garden - Yes Please”
Miles,
I have had gardeners do work for me in the past, cutting hedges, lawns etc.
I gave one gardener a bottle of Brandy at Christmas, as a bit of a Christmas bonus. I should have given him the bottle though once he had finished the garden, still you learn by your mistakes.
I knew it was going to be bad once he started the petrol powered strimmer up, It was more like a hand held rotovator than a strimmer, all I could do was go back in doors and wait. Still he seemed to be happy in his work.
September 3, 2007 @ 5:00 pm
SC,
Great story! I know someone who would do your garden for a bottle of brandy!
Miles
September 3, 2007 @ 5:16 pm
“Great Story! - Its’ No Story - No work of fantasy or fiction, I lived it and saw it with my own eyes”.
I still break out in a sweat when I hear a strimmer.
Ref. Do the garden for a bottle of brandy, in these hard times, I would even do my own garden for a bottle of brandy.
September 3, 2007 @ 5:28 pm