Fresh Recipes from EatingWell’s Garden

By Carolyn Malcoun, Hilary Meyer, "First Harvest," March/April 2011

Fresh spring recipes and inspiration came when we planted and cooked from our own garden.

Recipes Inspired by the EatingWell Garden
Spring Turnip Frittata
Radish, Celery & Snap Pea Salad
Chicken with Creamy Braised Leeks
Roast Leg of Lamb, Cauliflower & Shallots
Seared Strip Steaks with Horseradish-Root Vegetable Slaw
Chard Dumplings in Chive Broth
Farm Fresh Dinners
Recipes Fresh from the Farmers’ Market
10 Spring Dinners in 30 Minutes

Gardening Tips and Advice
EatingWell's Guide for How to Start a Kitchen Garden
Container Gardening with Salad Greens
13 Easy-to-Grow Vegetables and Herbs
The only 5 tools you need to start a garden
EatingWell Garden Plan PDF
Gardening

Our husbands met us after work one evening to get started. The four of us stood side-by-side in the cold early-spring rain and dreamed about the robust tomatoes, bulbous eggplant, bright sunflowers and spunky chives we’d soon be pulling up from what was now just a scraggly patch of weeds. We went home and pored through seed catalogs. I couldn’t wait to try rare red iceberg lettuce; crisp, refreshing and flushed ruby-red. Dan insisted on ordering hot and spicy Spanish winter radish seeds. (I think he just liked the catalog description, which suggested enjoying them with a frosty mug of beer.) Hilary wanted to experiment with growing romanesco, which looks (and tastes) like the alien love child of broccoli and cauliflower. Inspiration tickled me to plant tons of cucumbers so I could try making my own pickles.

For weeks, our bodies ached as we prepared our plot—pulling up sod and tilling the soil. There was work to do at home too. Seeds to start. Plans to draw up. Trellises to build. We traded organic gardening books and took notes on how to thwart critters naturally since we weren’t planning to use any chemicals.

Next: The Planting Begins »