In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

I harvested the last of three Romanesco recently. It was the feature of my salads and some pan roasts. I marvel at this vegetable. Here’s the description from Specialty Produce:

Romanesco is comprised of a small to medium-sized head, averaging 7 to 13 centimeters in diameter, and has a pointed, cone-like appearance made up of several smaller pointed florets. The heads are enveloped by long, fibrous, and succulent dark green leaves attached to a thick, fleshy, pale green stem, and the heads can sometimes weigh up to five pounds. Romanesco florets grow in a distinct, logarithmic spiral not found in other Brassica oleracea species. The heads are made up of branching meristems that grow into a spiral-like shape, producing tiny flower buds in a naturally repeated form. The flower buds never open and remain undeveloped, causing the plant to grow new flower buds on top of the others, repeating this cycle to form distinct peaks on the florets. A defining feature of Romanesco is that each flower bud on the floret is seen as it develops its recognizable conical shape and is not covered like the buds become on broccoli and cauliflower.

A friend came for lunch last week and here’s the assemblage for a "make your own” salad.

Toss in a photo of the first daffodils, February Gold, right on time. (Screening deterred the opossums and raccoons from disrupting the bulbs after planting).

Romanesco lightly steamed then tossed with olive oil, scallions and roasted pistachios. Leftovers topped a mostly spinach salad the next day.

Another salad from the garden bounty with additions of Fuyu persimmon, kumquats and peperoncini peppers.

As the days lengthen the Sunday bouquets are more varied. Here mock orange, alstroemerias, summer snowflake, paperwhite and Sunset Gold Breath of Heaven foliage.

Check the What I’m Planting Now page as I succession plant in the cool season garden. Then head to Harvest Monday, hosted by Dave at Happy Acres blog and see what garden bloggers around the world harvested last week.

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