Lettuce Eat

      This past Sunday the family got together for lunch after watching Austin and Ella sing in the children's choir.  What a great job they did!  It was Pop Pop's responsibility to provide the salad greens, though I did ask Em to bring some of hers.  But hers were late in coming, so we went all Bellevue garden.

 

      The first step was using the greens I had picked a few days ago and had left in the fridge in the "salad spinner".  To these, I added the freshly picked greens just spun as shown below.

Fresh Bellevue greens, 4/9/11

      I forget whose idea it was to use a pillow case as a cheap salad spinner, but it sure works well.  We look kind of funny swinging a pillow case around on the front porch in inclement weather, but the proof is in the spinning.  Then you can even store the greens in the damp pillow case in the fridge and they look great for days.

      What would a salad be without some form of onion?  These are fresh onions picked as scallions before they reach the bulbing stage.  These had been onions that were not large enough to bother cutting last year, and got put back in the garden in October to grow on again.  Recycling.

Scallions, grown from last year's small white bulbs

       The last picture is the bed of greens waiting for a little color addition of sweet red pepper slices and black olives.  My what a fresh tomato would have accomplished.

Salad greens in walnut bowl, 4/9/11

      Probably fifteen or twenty years ago my father had a large walnut tree blow over on his property.  He commissioned the very talented wood carver Jack Smollens to create seven salad bowls from the large trunk piece.  Our bowl is certainly destined to become a family heirloom.