Getting the most out of your lettuce harvest!

So, as you already know, if you've been reading this blog much at all, I started growing my own food with a couple AeroGarden setups last December. I have gone from some seeds/seed pods and water to a kitchen that looks kinda like a jungle with all the potted plants (from transplanting) everywhere as well as the AeroGardens, and it's ALL edible, and in many cases, also medicinal. Which is awesome, but isn't really what this post is about.

This is, specifically, regarding my lettuces, which, by now, I have divided and regrown countless times. I went from 6 pods initially to... I don't even know now. I have lettuce everywhere. 

Seriously, just today I harvested about 2.5 POUNDS of lettuce leaves, cause even though I still had about 1/2 pound left in the fridge (and I eat a LOT of salad), it had gotten tall and big enough to interfere with the grow lights and keep new leaves from growing properly! 
There's still enough left on the plants that I could make another huge salad just with another harvest, but I can also let them grow just fine for another few days or so before I have to prune any more. 

That is a freaking LOT of lettuce! 
I have enough excess now that I can start trading my extra salad greens with a friend who keeps chickens, for fresh eggs. How awesome is that!? (It's pretty dang awesome!)

Anyway, initially, I was thinking the harvest "season" for them was going to be a lot shorter than it is, because that is what everyone said, including the AeroGarden folks. Well, I've already had about double the "expected" harvest season, but I still thought I was going to need to "retire" some of the plants pretty soon. Here's why. 

At a certain point, the lettuce starts to bolt, no matter how well and faithfully you've been pruning. The stalks start getting taller and more woody, and you still have a decent amount of leaves, but you also have the lettuces trying to flower, and you've got a lot more thick stems that are just too tough to enjoy in a salad, even if you chop them up pretty well. So, in terms of growing "real estate", if you have a limited area in which to grow all that you are going to grow, you end up with more by-product than it's worth to keep the plants growing, rather than starting new plants, which are almost exclusively tasty, tender, lettuce leaves. 
Right?
Wrong!! 
As it turns out, these stems and flower buds are totally usable in anything where you'd use broccoli stems, carrots, thicker asparagus, etc. 
Like the awesome "stratarole" that is in the oven as I type this. 

Also great chopped up and roasted with root veggies or Brussels sprouts, tossed in stir frys, minced finely into soups, sauces (like spaghetti sauce), or anywhere else you want to sneak in some extra leafy green veggie nutrition. 

And, speaking of nutrition, get this; The stalks and stems often have an even higher concentration - up to double for certain nutrients, like vitamin C - of the vitamins and minerals found in the leaves! 


The flavour of the stalks is generally going to be similar to the leaf flavour profile, and may be a little bitter, owing to lactucarium - the milky, white sap that is produced in this phase of growing (which also has medicinal properties, as a mild sedative and analgesic, in sufficient quantities). It's perfectly edible and not at all harmful, but you could rinse it off if you wanted to. I never bother. Once the stalks are cooked and even lightly seasoned, it's not at all noticeable, and even less so cooked along with other ingredients. 

The leaves you get from these stalks are going to tend to be a bit more bitter than when the plant was younger, but as long as you're mixing them in with your younger lettuces, it isn't at all unpleasant. You may not be as prone to want to munch them directly from the stalk as you harvest, like the more tender leaves, if you prefer only sweeter lettuces, but they will still be a super tasty addition to your salads too. 

To keep harvesting the stalks and leaves, just use sharp scissors or small pruners and cut the stalks right off, as far down as you feel like. Just make sure there is still some budding leave growth showing below the cut, and it will be all good. Strip the leaves off and put with the rest of your leaves, and store the stems like you would store broccoli or asparagus. 

I suppose there may be a point at which even this extended harvest ends, but it's been four months, and I have yet to find it. I'll update when/if I discover it. 

Enjoy your new cooking vegetables, and please feel free to comment or contact me with any new recipes or uses you find with it!

Recipe ~ Creamed Lemon Herb Chicken Rice Bake

As always, if you just want the recipe, without the story behind it, click here, or check out the AllRecipes Link. And if you make it (or someone else makes it and you eat it), PLEASE leave a review there too!

 
As is often the case, this recipe came about because I needed to use up stuff before it went bad, and my search for a recipe didn't yield the results I wanted. 

 This time, I had a lot of extra thyme on my hands, from the necessary pruning of my herb garden, a couple lemons that were beginning to get elderly, an abundance of carrots (3+lbs!), and a nice bunch of kale that was in danger of being squished too much in an overly full produce crisper drawer. 
So, it was time to start getting creative. Some kind of lemon thyme chicken and rice was obvious to me, so I started looking on the net. 

There are lots of recipes out there for lemon thyme chicken, and it's pretty popular and is definitely tasty, but wasn't quite what I was looking for. I wanted something more hearty, that would be an entire meal, and didn't need a ton of steps. I was also kind of craving a creamy sort of dish, and knew I wanted the carb base to be rice. 
Most of the recipes I found that were even close to what I was thinking called for a ton of extra steps and extra pans that were, IMO, unnecessary. Also, pre-cooking the chicken and onions in extra oil, just to put them in a pan that already has oil? Why? More time, less healthy. Just no!


So, that is how this dish was born! 
It is perfect for when you will be home, but have other things to do, cause you can do a few minutes of work and then just leave it to do its thing with minimal checking and no stirring, turning, basting, etc. 
It's also great for tossing in small amounts of whatever veggies you have on hand, but not really enough for a dish on their own. 

You do need to make the marinade and put the chicken in it at least a couple hours in advance, but if you just put the chicken straight from the freezer into the marinade the day or 2 before, you will be marinating it whilst it thaws, so more efficient and easier. 

Here are a couple photos of the marinade mixture all ready for the chicken to be added. 

I like easy! Don't you?

Don't forget to save the bones for free, delicious, homemade chicken broth!
              

Creamed Lemon Herb Chicken Rice Bake

INGREDIENTS:

    •  6-8 or so chicken thighs w/skin and bones (you can do skinless/boneless, but it will be less flavourful and more dry)

 
    • Marinade
        • 1/4 Cup olive oil
        • 1/3 cup lemon juice
        • 2-3 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
        • 1 med-lg sliced onion
        • 5+ cloves minced garlic
        • 2-4 sprigs thyme
        • 1-2 sprigs rosemary
        • 2 Tbs or so oregano
        • 1 Tbs onion powder
        • sm-med lemon sliced
        • Black pepper to taste (I use about 1 Tbs)
    • 2 cups uncooked rice
    • 4-5 cups chicken broth or water
    • 1 can French onion soup*
    • 2 cans cream of mushroom soup*
    • 1/2 tsp salt or to taste
    • 1/2 tsp black pepper or to taste
    • 1 large or 2-3 med/small carrots, sliced or chopped (optional)
    • A handful or so kale, roughly chopped (optional)
    • Whatever veggies you have on hand and need/want to use
              
*(You can omit the soups, and use extra chicken, beef, or veg broth, and add a cup of milk and a couple Tbsp flour)

DIRECTIONS:
Earlier in the day or up to 2 days prior:
    • Combine marinade ingredients in a Ziploc type bag. Tear the herbs into smaller pieces and rub/bruise them between your fingers as you drop them into the bag.
    • Squish everything around in the bag, rubbing bag sides together, until everything is well combined and onions are kind of soft.
    • Add chicken to bag and squish around more until all chicken is well coated
    • Squeeze all excess air from bag and store in the fridge at least an hour or so, preferably overnight, up to 2 days, turning the bag over once or twice a day to marinate evenly.
Day of:
    • Preheat oven to 350°F.
    • Remove chicken from bag and set aside (or just be careful when dumping marinade stuff)
    • Combine rice, veggies, soups, water/broth, and half the marinade mixture (including solids) in a cast iron Dutch oven or greased casserole dish.
    • Stir well, until everything is evenly distributed.
    • Dump chicken and remaining bag contents on top of rice mixture.
    • Arrange chicken, lemon, and onion pieces evenly across the top.
    • Season chicken with salt, pepper, or other seasonings (I use Montreal steak seasoning) to taste.
    • Bake for an hour or so (until rice is tender and chicken internal temp is 175°F**).
   
**(Yes, the chicken is SAFE to consume when cooked to 165°F, but thigh meat should be cooked to 175-180°F in order to dissolve the connective tissue, resulting in more tender, juicy chicken. Science! It works.)

2019/2020 Garden update #6 ~ First lettuce harvest!

 The "Farm" and transplants, as of today, January 15th. 

 

Here is the lettuce and herb side on the 13th.

And the tomatoes on the 13th. Looking lively.

 

I decided to try light reflectors to get light to the lower leaves of the transplants. We'll see how that goes.

You can just barely see the little sprouts peeking out on the lavender, sage, and cilantro.

Lavender - 2020.01.13

Sage - 2020.01.13

Cilantro - 2020.01.13

 
And the PGSC is ALREADY sprouting on day 2!

Platinum Girl Scout Cookies - 2020.01.13

 
 The rosemary sprout is a little taller.


 And the tarragon and oregano are going to town. :D

Tarragon - 2020.01.13

Oregano - 2020.01.13

Still nothing on the new Thai basil. Hope springs eternal.

New Thai Basil (started 2020.01.07) - 2020.01.13

 
Here's my tower o' sprouts. The lowest tier is actually ready to harvest at the next watering in this pic.

The microgreens are more than ready for another "haircut" too.

SO excited about my first lettuce harvest!! 
Here, you can see the harvested lettuce, a little bit of basil, thyme, and dill, and some microgreens, all ready to go into a salad. 

Here's a closer look at the microgreens.

 
And the lettuce. It's not a lot, but enough for a decent sized salad, once I put other fixin's in it.

 
And my beautiful dill, basil, and thyme. They are SOOO aromatic! Even just those tiny bits.

And here's the salad, with leeks, lettuce, sprouts, herbs, and microgreens. The leeks in there are the ones that were originally the ones I'm currently regrowing. Everything else in the bowl, I grew myself.

I didn't grow the tomatoes or avocado that are also going in. Those are from Imperfect Foods, which is an AWESOME place to get massively discounted, fresh farmed produce, as well as other foods now. They buy up the stuff direct from farms and other places that is not pretty enough to grace the displays in the supermarkets and groceries, and then give a crap-ton away to food banks and meal programs and whatnot, and sell the rest for really cheap. 

If you click my link and sign up, we'll both get $10 credit there, which buys a LOT of produce.

 
Here's the lettuce after the harvesting.

Gardens update #5

Above, my "Farm" garden, transplants, and one container of microgreens, as of today, January 11th. 

Here are the lettuces yesterday, along with the thyme, dill, and one of the basils that I moved from the smaller garden, cause they got too tall for the lights at the level they need to be for the tinier plants.

And tomatoes yesterday. All but one have sprouted now, and most are growing nicely. 

Only one day later,  the lettuce is almost doubled in size!

The tomatoes are taller too, but not nearly as dramatic as the lettuce.

 Here is one of my containers of microgreens. Crazy growth! And that is after a couple times harvesting.

Microgreens, 2020.01.10 before harvest

Here it is after the 10th's harvest.

Microgreens, 2020.01.10 after harvest

 And the other container on the 10th, before and after harvesting, respectively.

Microgreens, 2020.01.10 before harvest

Microgreens, 2020.01.10 after harvest

The basil cuttings are coming along nicely. they are much healthier than the original plant, actually.

Cuttings from Winco "living basil. 2020.01.10

 Here are the small gardens, regrowing scraps, and cuttings. 
The leeks and green onions are really taking off, and the original, remaining Winco basil stem is already looking healthier from being just in the water with a small amount of nutrients.

The first garden is doing well. It's already about time to prune the basils again, have the first mint cuttings in water, the chives are starting to look like chives, and the parsley is getting there.  Plus the second dill is peeking up above the label there. We're just not going to discuss the Thai basil.

 Here's a closer look at that little dill sprout.

  
Meanwhile, the new, DIY oregano and tarragon seed pods are sprouting now.

The oregano just barely, but it's VERY green and lush looking, so I think it will do well.

The other thing I did today is use one of the grow anything pods to plant Sammy's Platinum Girl Scout Cookies seed. So there wil be regular updates forthcoming on that as well.

Platinum Girl Scout Cookies - Started 2020.01.11

That's all for today! Stay tuned for the next instalment.

Aerogarden & kitchen scrap regrowing update #4

The new to me, "used" Aerogarden arrived, and I planted oregano, tarragon, cilantro, and rosemary right away.

Also, as you can see, the scrap regrows are doing quite nicely as well!

 And here are some close ups of the freshly "planted" pods.
The rosemary is an AG pod. The others are DIY with separately bought seeds.

2020.01.06 Classic 6

I had to wait an extra day for the lavender and sage seeds to get delivered, but they are now started as well. 
Can;t wait ti see if they take off!

2020.01.08 Classic 6

Here's a good shot of the Harvest.

The new Thai basil  doesn't seem to be doing anything. We'll see.

I also cut down the stem and put the Winco basil directly into water, to see if it would root better.

And, speaking of roots, this basil cutting is going to be ready to transplant soon.

These little basil cuttings are starting to root.

And, last, but not least, we have things happening in the tomato garden!