Six in the morning, not light yet. I walked up the street and around the corner to get the paper from the shop that opens early. A few brittle-diamond stars trembled in a frozen cloudless sky as if they were trying to hold on to the night. It was one of those clear but very cold mornings that turn into perfectly still days.
It’s my morning routine, the same every day. I like looking at the eastern sky and trying to figure out what the weather will bring. Apart from all that, if you want the paper early around here you have to go and get it. In my street you never hear the thwack of rolled-up papers hitting driveways, fences, trees, windows or cats before 7.30, and I eat breakfast an hour earlier. Not that I get a whole lot of reading done over breakfast these days.
I walked back from the shop with the newspaper under my arm and my hands folded into their opposite sleeves to keep warm. I scraped open the front gate. The stars were nearly gone now and there was enough light from the eastern sky to make out the vague shapes of the plants in the garden. In between some shrubs, I saw something I hadn’t noticed before - a riot of mottled purple in the shape of a fleur-de-lys. The mustard greens are back.
Mustard greens have two advantages: they grow fast, and the snails don’t like them. You can see the snail trails making a neat arc around them and continuing on directly towards the cabbages and broccoli. Snails don’t know what they’re missing. Mustard greens are delicious.
Mustard greens and spinach pie.
Saute an onion, add a scored clove of garlic.
Add roughly torn or chopped washed mustard greens with the water that clings to them. When wilted, add a defrosted pack of frozen spinach or a bunch of fresh spinach treated in the same way as the greens. Cook for a few minutes, let cool slightly and squeeze out excess fluid.
Now fold into the greens a tub of fresh ricotta and an egg. Add salt and pepper.
Lay out a sheet of pastry - filo is good but we used a sheet of puff this time. Place mixture in middle of pastry, fold up corners to make a bundle.
Brush oil over pastry, shake sesame seeds over and bake in an oiled dish or on a tray twenty minutes to half an hour.
It’s my morning routine, the same every day. I like looking at the eastern sky and trying to figure out what the weather will bring. Apart from all that, if you want the paper early around here you have to go and get it. In my street you never hear the thwack of rolled-up papers hitting driveways, fences, trees, windows or cats before 7.30, and I eat breakfast an hour earlier. Not that I get a whole lot of reading done over breakfast these days.
I walked back from the shop with the newspaper under my arm and my hands folded into their opposite sleeves to keep warm. I scraped open the front gate. The stars were nearly gone now and there was enough light from the eastern sky to make out the vague shapes of the plants in the garden. In between some shrubs, I saw something I hadn’t noticed before - a riot of mottled purple in the shape of a fleur-de-lys. The mustard greens are back.
Mustard greens have two advantages: they grow fast, and the snails don’t like them. You can see the snail trails making a neat arc around them and continuing on directly towards the cabbages and broccoli. Snails don’t know what they’re missing. Mustard greens are delicious.
Mustard greens and spinach pie.
Saute an onion, add a scored clove of garlic.
Add roughly torn or chopped washed mustard greens with the water that clings to them. When wilted, add a defrosted pack of frozen spinach or a bunch of fresh spinach treated in the same way as the greens. Cook for a few minutes, let cool slightly and squeeze out excess fluid.
Now fold into the greens a tub of fresh ricotta and an egg. Add salt and pepper.
Lay out a sheet of pastry - filo is good but we used a sheet of puff this time. Place mixture in middle of pastry, fold up corners to make a bundle.
Brush oil over pastry, shake sesame seeds over and bake in an oiled dish or on a tray twenty minutes to half an hour.
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