As someone who grows a lot of food, I try to really maximize the time my plants can stay in the ground, which will hopefully lead to a longer production cycle. But in some cases, it also can lead to some fun and tasty creations. In the past whenever one of my leaf producing brassicas (collards, kale, cabbage, etc) had gone to seed and begun flowering I would pull it out to give room for the next crop.
This normally makes sense because when a brassica begins flowering the leaves never get quite as big as they once did and the production will inevitably drop off. But I really didn’t have any new plants to put in at the time, so I decided to leave my flowering collards in for the time being.
I am so glad I did! I decided to cut some of the flowers and stems off to allow more energy focussed on the leaves but was then left with a hand full of these florets. That is when I thought I would try taking them inside and steaming them like I would broccoli rabe. They were delicious, so much so that Dr. Miller and I have been cutting florets almost every day to enjoy with our lunch or dinner. So if you have some collard or kale plants that are starting to flower, give this a shot and let me know what you think!
If you go ahead and try this recipe, let me know what you think and share a picture on my Instagram and Facebook page of how it turned out!
