We were hoping to bring salad greens to share for Thanksgiving weekend and, with the continuing of unseasonably warm weather, our goal was easily met. Mesclun at top, and at bottom (left to right): puntarelle, fennel, cime di rapa, and beets. The beets could have stayed longer in the ground, however, with lower temperatures predicted over the holiday, we decided to harvest while the greens were still usable.
We’d harvested fennel last month, and left this final one to see how it would fare. We never expected it to bulb up and were even more surprised to find it resprouting off the same root for a third time. With the Pugliese dish Fave e Cicoria as inspiration, dinner that night was made up of a silky puree of fennel, potato, and celeriac, topped with a saute of puntarelle and cime de rapa, and a generous pour of good olive oil — a simple feast before the week’s festivities.
Join the weekly harvest at Daphne’s Dandelions…
Diary of a Tomato 
Isnt’ it wonderful to have fresh garden food to contribute to the holiday meal? I have some celery that is regrowing from the roots left in the ground of previously harvested celery bunches. I used some of it on Thanksgiving to use in my Waldorf salad. I love it when plants (like your fennel) give us multiple cut and come again harvests.
I didn’t know celery also resprouts! Both fennel and celery are from the same Umbel family, so it makes sense; maybe a characteristic?
lovely harvest! What is puntarelle? do you know another name? I don’t recognize it.
It’s an Italian green, slightly bitter and related to dandelion leaves; another name is Catalogna Chicory.
That Pugliese dish sounds lovely – as does your version. Those baby beets look great- what did you do with them?
I confess, we grow beets as much for the greens as for the root end, so we aren’t as concerned when the beet isn’t fully mature. If I have enough of them, the baby beets are great for pickling. Otherwise, I just peel and throw them into a pan of roasting vegetables. They might stain the rest of the vegetables but we don’t mind eating pink food…
Nice harvest! :) I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Lynn