I am very grumpy about spring. I want more winter, more snow, more skiing.

So spring foods - pfffft bahhh growl.

But I will be cheered up by the first paella.

New potatoes and asparagus. The first rhubarb. Spring greens.

Spring is a long way off yet. John, come here! There’s still plenty of natural snow.

Im looking forward to lighter fare, more stirfrys and salads. I enjoy perfectly stirfried zucchini. I also love asparagus soup and crustless quiche, and make both quite often. I've found I can't trust strawberries at the grocery store anyway. They can look perfect, but get them home, they are hard and white inside. Ugh.

My yard and spring weeding. I allow lots of edibles (weeds) to grow in the grass, greens and chives pop before the grass really starts to grow. I've cultivated weeds in my garden beds to be mostly edibles too, and those tend to pop before most other greens. And herbs- I'm already peeling back the leaf mulch and death layer and harvesting thyme and oregano. Parsley under caps isn't quite sprung back (eheh), but soon. Tender greens from under the caps, and peas. Mmmmm, peas. I think I'm just tired of store greens and microgreens at this point... I want yard eats.

I tend to do more puree soups in spring, most of them are mostly veggie stuff. Things that require me to use fire and I get to cook outside :)

We have these year round but it’s nice when the price goes down in Spring…artichokes, asparagus, rhubarb.

Asparagus mainly. First we get Oregon asparagus and then we get Washington's. What I really look forward to is picking strawberries in early June.

Secret to buying California strawberries, if you have to buy them--there is a variety called Chandler that is picked early spring in California. They might be in markets on/near the west coast now through April. They won't be labeled by name but you can recognize them by shape. They are shaped like a traditional strawberry and are not huge and angular like the Seascape, which was bred by UC Davis for shipping. Those are the awful ones that are too firm and tasteless.

Asparagus, rhubarb, chives, green onions, lettuces and greens.

I have a habit of saving the root tips from scallions when I prepare them.I then put them in potting soil or outside.

I once planted acouple of very sprouted red onions. I no nothing about bulb onions, but had a free patch of soil. I got large scallion like leaves, then flowers that i let go to seed. I gathered these black seeds, but then forgot about them (in my kitchen — someplace).

can I assume these small black seeds were nigella and edible? That red onion plant overwintered for several years.

ETA - our yard used to be filled with dandelions, but now I cannot find a single plant. The cottontails loved them. They became very tame and also enjoyed black oil sunflower seed (bird seed).

Relaxing

Asparagus season here. It won't be artichoke season yet. I can't imagine eating one for breakfast lol. Wild garlic and soon the fresh garlic will be ready.... Huge purple bulbs - less pungent and juicier than later, dryer garlic. Wonderful stuff. Lots of leafy, tender leaves of all types.

It was warm here, though we has a cooler little storm just now. Steamed artichoke, straight from the fridge with a little sauce or dressing is very nice at breakfast! Perhaps best when it's sunny out, though…

It’s still cold here and we’re still getting snow (plus half-inch hail on Tuesday!), but sometime in April it will be warm enough, or missing enough snow, so that Voss’ will open. First you see a robin, then Voss’ opens, and it’s officially spring. :O) This pic was taken last July.

At first I thought "ice cream franks" was one thing. :)

My veggies for soup today are the same as in the last month, but bigger!

I was very jealous watching David Liebovitz biting into a ripe,flavorful French strawberry. Grocery store berries can smell delicious but taste like nothing.

John Liu, I wish you had been here dining with us as my Spanish friend cooked us a beautiful super yummy paella in his big pan on a portable propane burner outside. One of my takeaways on paella is definitely serve with lemon wedges.

Re: enjoying winter and snow, husband came home from his always anticipated Canadian ski adventure with broken ribs and unhappy rotator cuff. But that injury was earned while ice skating so he has only happy memories.

I miss my asparagus bed! I'm eating lettuce, radish and snow peas in a lovely salad plus a snow pea/radish slaw that is delish! I want to find a spicier radish for next year!

Rhubarb! I forgot about that. Yum.

I was really sad to read about someone in the US eating a French strawberry. What must the airmiles be for that poor little fruit? They'll all be hothouse grown at this time of year..... the prize strawberries in France come from just down the road here in a place called Plougastel. They were created here! - as we now them today.

https://www.google.com/search?q=origins+of+strawberry&rlz=1C1GEWG_enFR1108FR1108&oq=origins+of+strawberry&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQABgTGIAEMgoIAhAAGBMYFhgeMgoIAxAAGBMYFhgeMgoIBBAAGBMYFhgeMgoIBRAAGBMYFhgeMgoIBhAAGBMYFhgeMgoIBxAAGBMYFhgeMgoICBAAGBMYFhgeMgoICRAAGBMYFhge0gEINzkwMmowajeoAgiwAgHxBQCh_NBJqPor8QUAofzQSaj6Kw&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

The good ones are small. The ones in the shops at the moment are mostly from Spain. They're huge, horrid and tasteless.

https://www.tourismebretagne.com/selon-mes-envies/gastronomie/les-specialites-bretonnes/la-fraise/

I bet you have some good ones at home?

Aha, so you're in Brittany. I remember getting off the night ferry at St Malo and cycling through field after field of artichokes and cauliflowers as dawn rose. And of course when I was a kid we had the onion men who came over with their bikes and sold door to door. You have wonderful produce on your doorstep.

I never buy supermarket strawberries and I only ever buy them in season.

Peanut Butter Eggs.

Yes, Floral. Half way between Saint Malo and Roscoff. Pork chop what are peanut butter eggs? 😁

I had to Google the PB eggs. Seems you can get them in Sainsburys now! Some sort of chocolate egg. I was imagining actual eggs with pnb.

There are plenty of recipes out there for making PB eggs, often for Easter baskets or egg hunts. The filling can be regular PB candy filling, enrobed in chocolate, or PB nougat, or PB honeycomb, These are usually thick, flat ovoids, including Hershey's/Reese's from store. There are also pigeon and quail sized egg shaped eggs filled with stiffly sugared PB, covered with speckled sugar candy or occasionally hard chocolate, available commercially, and a few larger ones. A tricky manouver is to fill lager hollow chocolate eggs or bunnies using a narrow piping tip. The proportion of PB or frosting or whatever seems out of balance to me, but, then Cadbury creme eggs are popular. Americans are very fond of peanutbutter. ;)

Peanut butter eggs are chocolate and peanut butter candy, like a Reese peanut butter cup but with a higher proportion of filling. I just buy the Reese ones at Easter time, but here is a recipe: Easter Peanut Butter Eggs (Like Reese's) - Sally's Baking Addiction

It is asparagus season in California, where I am now, and I'm making some asparagus mimosa as I've managed to get some eggs. I also did a big tempura fry up of asparagus (and some remaining winter veg) and some shrimp this week.

Spring colors from pistachio paste to make strawberry cupcakes with strawberry and pistachio buttercream finished with violets.

Peeling pistachios is tedious work.

Pretty!

Got a good deal on spring creamers. And gosh it's 25 pounds of them, heh. I did some creamed up with a pork loin, some got cheesed up. Did a big pan of curried taters (coconut and yellow curry), need to do another pan of those. Tonight is roasted with asparagus and salmon, coming up is with cabbage and bangers, some cold potato salad, some German potato salad. Some smashed, a batch of breakfast burritos for the freezer.. mmm.

And oohhhh, spring greens. A bit of puttering around in the kitchen bins and all the spring seed is popping up. Even better is a patch of miners lettuce that self sowed by the edge of the area, completely unprotected. All I could do to not just swoop it up and eat it all right there. I did sample a few leaves. QA and all that :) The chives are lovely, pulled a pound of butter out of the freezer to make some chive butter.

Yesterday I harvested some chocolate Habanero chilies and ripe jalapeños from large pots in my patio, but the Habanero chilies were extremely small. I had bought the plants online late last spring, and they took a while to flower - probably seven to eight months, but at least they have been growing okay. I'm going to transfer one of them to the back yard and remove an aloe that seems to be getting too much water. Later I will need to learn how to get more water to the chili plant, but I will water it by hand for now.

I made enchiladas using two of the chocolate Habanero chilies, and I could have used more of them - they are that small. However, I do still have some chocolate Habanero chili sauce that I made, and it is quite potent.

Fortunately, chilies do well in the heat here, and it never seemed to get below 50°F last winter. Supposedly we can get a frost here, but I've never experienced one and it's never gotten below 40° while I've been here. My basil went crazy last winter, and now I need to plant more. I bought a small plant at Lowe's when I got steer manure and potting soil, plus a huge pot for the second Habanero plant.

I need to start going to the farmers' markets here - I think there is one in Indio, but none of them are open in the summer, as I remember.

lisaam, very nice!

I look forward to growing it more than eating it TBH. Its so FUN! But I do like the advantage of knowing that my spring produce is grown without pesticides in my own yard. I look forward to the fresh broccoli I grow. I always buy frozen. For some reason I do not like to buy fresh broccoli, but I LOVE it freshly picked from my own garden. I am also looking forward to salads made from my lettuce plants and I am curious and excited about the Black Beauty tomato plant that I ordered. Never tried that one before. But I guess that's a summer thing so doesn't really count.

John, you can still ski here in Michigan too, Marquette got 218 inches of snow this year. Boyne Mountain is still open and has snow, although they got an ice storm over the weekend and I think they are now making snow. Michigan is right on the way to PartyMusic's too! I think we actually have very similar weather, although she gets more snow than I do here, I think.

There are still no spring vegetables here, although my lovage is peeking through, the garlic is just starting to grow and the rhubarb is still thinking about it. My thyme and sage overwintered well and so I've had those pretty much all winter anyway. The asparagus won't peek up for at least another 4 or 5 weeks, I'm afraid and strawberries won't be ready until a couple weeks after that.

I'm just waiting for my asparagus and strawberries. I planted lettuce today, but it'll be a while before that's ready too.

Annie

Re "Spring creamers". Are they what I'd call new potatoes?

Yes, Floral, that's what it is here in Michigan at least. It's my understanding that they are called "creamers" because they are/were often cooked in a creamy dairy based sauce. Grandma used to add peas and little pearl onions. I loved 'em.

Annie

Yes, spring creamers are new potatoes. The really small ones :) And yes, cooked in a cream sauce is traditional. My mom often did peas, sometimes asparagus. And also, because they are very creamy when cooked up compared to their more mature growth. They can be fairly sweet too by comparison- one of the dishes I made the other night my love asked if there were roasted chestnuts in it. We also eat those, so it was a fair guess.

A few weeks later into spring and early summer, those can be big enough to be salad potatoes. By then they have converted some of the sweet, and picked up more starch.

Interesting. I've never seen new potatoes served in a rich cream sauce here. The traditional way is simply boiled and served with butter and mint. The potatoes' own flavour is the star. I often use a method shown me by a French colleague where the potatoes are cooked whole in oil and/or butter in a lidded heavy casserole on the stove top.

I'm with Floral. It's obviously our roots peeking up above the soil LOL.

I do the taters in oil too. And a lot of garlic. I tend to roast them off covered in the oven instead of on the stovetop. I got some of those in the fridge right now- thinking on making some hash with them. I've got a mess of turnip greens and porkchetta in the fridge too that is awaiting a pile of taters to be simmered in it. Not sure what's for dinner. I do still have one more bundle of fresh asparagus in the fridge to consider too.

I've not tried them with butter and mint. But I know I got some mint leafing out under the mulch. What's that about? Do you make a mint butter, or mince up the leaf and sprinkle it over the buttered taters? I've got some whitefish in the freezer, or maybe veal something.

This time of year I crave fresh greens and fruit. My garden is still just mud but we have been having some warmer spring like days. Rain interspersed with snow and ice. Spring greens include the earliest garden produce, foraged foods and young shoots from edible ornamentals. Fiddleheads are a local favorite which I like but don’t love.

I’ve never heard of spring creamers, nor of cooking potatoes in such a way, but then I’ve never heard of mint with potatoes either. Spring is still a long way off here, but I guess rhubarb would be what I look forward to and that is typically ready in late May for me.

'Spring greens' has a specific meaning here. It refers to a particular type of cabbage which doesn't heart up and is eaten young, not any other kinds of greens. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_greens_(Brassica_oleracea)

Here you go, John, come to Michigan and ski on Mount Bohemia. They have gotten over 300 inches of snow this year, counting yesterday's storm.

300 Inches of Snow: Michigan Peninsula Hits Impressive Milestone

PM, my rhubarb seems to correlate roughly with the morel foraging season, which is usually in May. That's when I get asparagus too. I don't even plant potatoes until Mid May, so the only "creamers" I have in the spring are from the store or whatever small potatoes are still in storage and not meant for seed/planting.

Annie

We always look forward to goose eggs. We've just got hold of some. They weigh 7oz each.

Large hens' eggs for comparison.

Floral, are there specific dishes you use the goose eggs for? I love sunny side up duck eggs (like once every three years as a treat), and they're useful in other cooking, but I've only handled goose eggs once and so long ago, I don't remember what for or why.

I don't care much for most fancied up potato dishes, but waxy peeled new potatoes, with just a kiss of olive oil and a nice sprinkling of freshly chopped fresh mint, and a little flor de sal, are delightful! As always when using mint, a little restraint is all. It should taste fresh and herbacious, not like toothpaste. :)

They are so rich I just fry them and serve on a pile of roast vegetables. Too expensive to use as an ingredient in a recipe. One makes an ample meal.

I wish I could give you all my beautiful day. Misty blue skies, 75-80°F, slight salty breeze, but the good kind, not rotting or fishy/birdy, just a whiff of salt and fresh. Beautiful Spring day.

Not ”Spring food” but chile dusted puffed water lily seeds were a perfect snack on my beautiful day. (Ashapops— they're boughten)

in 2024, we have had some record breaking hot summer days, and some record breaking single digit cold winter days.

Forsythia in my garden is blossoming, and that is a wakeup call that 2025 spring is arriving. Ramps are coming up, soon hostas will be on the menu, asparagus will be following. Gogi greens, malabar spinach, lambs quarter, violets, purslane ----------- Let's see how long I can minimize food inflation due to all the tariffs.

Pork shoulder was on sale. I made SV pork shoulder with jackfruit seeds, garnished with forsythia blossoms. Pork skin was fried, not SV'd.

dcarch