One of my favourite parts of spring is the reappearance of local vegetables on our grocery store shelves! Whether it’s fresh leafy greens or asparagus, it is an excellent reason to head to your local farmers’ market or greengrocer with a focus on BC-grown food.
Here are a few recipes that are packed with spring greens and delicious, whether you serve them for breakfast, brunch or dinner.
Spring Greens with Baked Eggs
(Prep time: 10 minutes, Cook time: 20 minutes)
In this recipe, eggs are baked in a bed of garlicky spring greens. It’s perfect next to a slice of bread or oven-roasted potatoes.
1 large bunch of leafy greens (kale, chard or spinach)
2 Roma tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1⁄4 tsp salt, to taste
4 eggs
1⁄4 cup of Parmesan cheese
Preheat the oven to 375 F.
Wash and finely chop the leafy greens. Dice the garlic and chop the tomatoes.
Heat a large, ovenproof frying pan on medium heat. Add the olive oil, chopped tomatoes and garlic. Cook for five minutes, until the tomatoes have started to soften.
Add the greens and the salt and cover with a lid until everything is bubbling and the greens are tender, about five more minutes. There will be quite of bit of liquid in the pan, perfect for poaching the eggs. Taste the vegetables and add more salt, if needed.
With the back of a spoon push the vegetables aside to create four wells in the frying pan. Crack an egg into each of the wells. Sprinkle each egg with a pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper. Top the whole pan with grated Parmesan cheese.
Place the frying pan in the oven and bake uncovered. The eggs are done when the whites are set, but the yolks are still runny, about 10 minutes. The exact cooking time will depend on your oven, so keep an eye on them.
Garlic Roasted Flowering Shoots
(Prep time: 10 minutes, Cook time: 20 minutes)
In the spring, kale, cabbage and other brassicas send off flowering shoots. These flowering shoots are a tender and delicious delicacy. They are a bit harder to find at the farmers’ market, however, if you’re a gardener, let your kale and broccoli go to flower. You can harvest the flowering shoots every two or three weeks.
Flowering shoots can be prepared in the same method as asparagus: fried, steamed or sauteed. However, our favourite way to cook flowering shoots is to roast them in the oven.
1 bunch of flowering shoots (from cabbage, kale or broccoli)
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
1⁄4 tsp salt, to taste
Preheat the oven to 400 F.
Wash the flowering shoots and trim off the ends.
Spread the shoots out on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat.
Finely dice the garlic and spread it over the shoots. Then sprinkle on the salt.
Bake until the shoots are soft enough to easily pierce with a fork, and some of the leaves are browning. It should take between 15 to 20 minutes depending on how thick the shoots are.
Savoury Crepes
(Total prep time: 30 minutes)
These savoury crepes can be served with the sauteed leafy greens or the oven-roasted flowering shoots from either of the recipes above. The trick to making crepes at home, is to make them smaller, about the size of a typical pancake, rather than the giant crepes you get in the restaurants. Small crepes are easy to flip, fill and serve.
Crepe
1⁄4 cup butter
1 cup flour (all-purpose or whole wheat)
11⁄4 cup milk
2 eggs
Pinch of salt
Filling
Oven-roasted flowering shoots from the recipe above
Slices of cheese
Mix the crepe batter before preparing your filling as the flour needs to soak for at least 15 minutes before cooking. For a really quick meal, the crepe batter can be mixed up two days in advance and stored in the fridge.
Melt the butter. Mix together the flour, eggs, milk and salt. I recommend adding the milk last as cold milk causes the butter to harden before it’s fully mixed in to the batter. The crepe batter will be very liquidy.
Heat a griddle or frying pan on medium. Stir the crepe batter one more time, then pour a 1⁄4 cup of batter onto a hot griddle. Flip the crepe over when the edges have started to dry out and the centre of the crepe is bubbling. Cook it for another minute, then move to a plate. It will take about three minutes to cook a crepe, if the griddle is hot enough.
Fill the crepes with two flowering shoots and top with a slice of cheese.
Either serve immediately or place a few filled crepes on a cookie sheet and keep them warm in the oven until you’re ready to serve.
