Life of Wry

We thought we were prowess personified with our summer garden. But I’m not sure anything beats growing our own broccoli this winter. Trying to remember when we planted those broccoli plants …. let’s see, looking back in the photo archive …. it was October 2. That is a full four months from planting to harvest.

We haven’t figured out how many heads of broccoli a single plant will yield, so we’ll just enjoy them as they come and hope they keep coming. Time will tell. (And so will the internet if I do just a little bit of broccoli research.)

Here is first-ever, inaugural broccoli head:

This was picked two nights ago. We probably made a mistake by integrating the broccoli into the pasta dish because we lost the pleasure of actually tasting it. This was angel hair with a sauce I’d made (and frozen six months ago) of roasted tomatoes (from our summer garden), basil (also from the garden), garlic, etc. We had it with some turkish meatballs I’d made last week which were heavily spiced. So… yeah… hard to appreciate the fresh broc!

(That small spot of darkness is a concentrated pile of brown bits from deglazing the pan after frying up the meatballs… oh my… intense flavors.)

Anyway… tonight we decided to harvest another head of broccoli and this time eat it unadulterated:

That is chicken that was simmered in homemade teriyaki sauce, some pine-nut rice, and — star of the show — garden broccoli! So bright green.

Those were two excellent but culturally confused dinners! At least we’re getting in our super foods.