Amaranth and Wild Greens

[Dino_Pizza]

My vegi garden (entire yard, flower pots etc) is full of Amaranth this year. Last spring, I planted a few seeds from my 90 yr old aunt, let it go to flower and I thought I saved them but they flew everywhere...a good thing!

Amaranth is an ancient plant used for grain by Aztecs and Africans (and gluten free folks) but old world Europeans cut the tender tips about twice a week while they are growing to get lots of tender green leaves for salads or lightly boiling and dressing in EVOO and lemon.

Here its growing in my planter


And here I've just picked them:


Here is link to a guy who took a pic of his finished dish, that I was too lazy to take. Mine looked the same but greener since my stems are still young and didn't get the purple stems yet. Vleeta ? Amaranth ? B???? ? Vleeta, Amaranth, Reparation, Salt, Ingredients, Wash ? tobias cooks!

They have beautiful drooping seed heads and I'll post those later this year.
-Dino

[Les]

Re: Amaranth and Wild Greens

Interesting. How does it taste? It almost looks like a Basil plant (my gardening is extremely limited, I leave that to the wife. My job is to get it water)

Les

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Amaranth and Wild Greens

Les, it tastes like fresh pea shoots with a lemony edge (cooked or raw) with a pleasant 'green' taste that isn't tart or astringent like some spinach can be. It only looks like basil when very small. It will get 4-5' high by end of summer. There are cultivars used by florist that have 12" long, arching, purple-magenta seed pods used in flower arrangements too lately. Pretty versatile yet old plant.