Pop Quiz- Can Bear Identify Today's Harvest?

From Theresa:
Here's the Sunday morning harvest from our gardens. I've been trying to convince Bear that all the money I spend up front on the garden gets paid back to us in food to eat, 
so I asked him to come look at what I brought in. 
 Just to make it fun, I asked him if he could identify everything I picked.

(Bear here... Tests are fun?  Only when food is involved... just sayen.)

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1. Here's what we got from our new annual vegetable garden:

Bear correctly thought this was (counter clockwise in the colander): 
orange nasturtium flowers, nasturtium leaves, green onions, and lettuce (center).

(From the big guy...  Doin the seat dance & showin' off now... uh Huh...)

I harvested these annuals for salads. We're growing them in stock tanks:

Bear wasn't sure about this one from the stock tanks-
 and said it was "that weed we've been eating a lot lately"

This is lamb's quarters. 
The young leaves are great raw in salads, 
or the older leaves are great slightly steamed 
and used any way that you would use cooked spinach. We add them to rice dishes.

(Bear here... To be fair... we have been using a lot of LAMB'S QUARTERS lately.) 

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2. He got this one from our perennial vegetable garden right away (probably because I had pointed it out to him when we were sitting in our bay window eating breakfast this morning):
(Bear here... It still counts as a right answer... so there...)

This is Turkish rocket. 
This is the first year we've harvested it, so I am still learning how and when to do it.  
You're supposed to eat the flower buds before they flower, 
when they look a lot like broccoli, but I am too late this time. 
We can also eat the flowers, so I harvested them.
I think this will make more grow back for another harvest.

Here's what the full Turkish rocket plant looks like (this one is 3 years old):

Here's what's the Turkish rocket flower buds look like 
when you're supposed to harvest them, before the buds flower. 
You use it like broccoli, which it obviously resembles, eating it either raw or steamed.
It feels like broccoli in your mouth, but tastes a lot more tangy.

  Bear offered his usual comment to his first bite- "Tastes like plant."
(You know who here...WELL... it does taste like plant...)

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3. On the right is more Turkish rocket.  On the left Bear wasn't sure if this  was parsley or cilantro- 
but he said, "Wait a minute," and put a little leaf in his mouth. Then he knew it was cilantro. 
 
(Yep, it's me... Right answer, a little late... Enough said)

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4. And here was the real stumper.... Bear blurted out that this was broccoli!!

We got a great laugh out of that, since he knew immediately that he was wrong.
(Me... Duh...)

We've been growing lots of rhubarb around the foundation of our bay window
 for a couple years now, where it seems really happy,
but this is the first year we've found the time to figure out how we like to eat it. 
 Today, I'm putting it in a crock pot with some lamb to make a savory stew over noodles.
 Last week we stewed it with brown sugar and almond extract 
to make a sweet rhubarb sauce side dish.

It's been wonderful to see Bear get more and more interested
in our gardens as the years have gone by,
because I surely need his help keeping it going 
and learning how to cook the harvest.
I'm thankful we're in this homesteading adventure together!

(Me getting the last word... Hah... I got her to blog. Summertime is Theresa's tome to be outside and do the yard stuff. To kinda quote her "Now is the time to garden and take pictures, 
Winter is when I can blog about it."  Ain't team work grand...  Type at ya later...)