Amaranth, and garden eating

I harvested a handful of massive amaranth leaves for my dinner.

I mentioned before that I had never heard of amaranth until I began growing it this summer. Now I love it. It grows so quickly, doesn't mind the heat, has been bug-proof (knock on wood) and despite being eaten down to the quick by rabbits last month, the plants are now all about 30-50cm high and covered with big leaves. If you garden, grow amaranth! I have only a few plants, in a tiny area, but they are so vigorous that I seem to be getting a large harvest anyway. You can eat the young leaves like lettuce, which is great now, at high summer, when lettuce is a bit fussy about high temperatures, and cook the large leaves like spinach, good for when the spinach is not yet ready (at least mine isn't).

Amaranth is popular in all around the world. I found and made this Indian curry recipe (the first one on the page). Try it with spinach if you don't have amaranth. Yum yum yum.

Of course curry doesn't exactly 'go' with the insalata calabrese I served alongside it. That's just how it is with garden cookery. Sometimes you simply have a basket of rapidly ripening tomatoes, a basil plant that's longing to be eaten, a small jungle of amaranth needing to be picked, and a serious craving for buffalo mozzarella all in one day. Of course there are surely ways to work all these things into a single cohesive meal, but I don't have anything against a mismatched salad and main course. After all, it's just me I have to please!

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