Green Your Palate

Living green means eating your greens. Given that each ingredient on the average North American plate travels from 2,500 to 4,000 kilometres from field to fork, making a difference to the planet is as simple as a visit to a farmers’ market   

- By Lisa Ricciotti

LETTUCE PRAISE THE LEAF

Do it: Perk up your salad rut with new varieties of lettuce.

What’s to love? A novel texture, greens that aren’t green,  eye-pleasing shapes.

Green options: Go soft with sweet, delicate butterhead lettuce. Loosen up with red and green leaf lettuce; add the surprise of oak leaf.

Chef’s notes: Fend off boredom with combos of soft, crisp leaves and a rainbow of red and green. Add extras such as nuts, sugar peas or broccoli florets, and unexpected ingredients. Think diced meat, smoked fish, sharp cheese. Use Romaine as a no-carb sandwich wrap, or endive leaves as a cracker-less scoop for salsa. Why not try French lettuce soup?

Healthy hint: Most lettuce is more nutritious than iceberg.

LEARN TO LOVE THE BITE

Do it: Choose a more flavourful leaf.  What’s to love? It’s all about the flavour, baby.

Green options: Arugula, or rocket salad, has a tender but sharp kick. The ruby-leaved radicchio, actually a lettuce, has a bittersweet tang. Mustard greens are wasabi wannabes. Try pretty, peppery watercress and pungent curly endive.

Chef’s notes: The “bite” intensifies as these greens mature. Use raw leaf as accents, mixed with milder greens. For example: Arugula with pears and blue cheese. It’s also great in pesto, or in a sauce-like creamed spinach. Add watercress to soups and sauces. Mustard greens make for a milder flavour, steamed, braised or sautéed.

Healthy hint: Watercress is a good source of calcium. Who knew?

DISCOVER THE DARK SIDE

Do it: Choose a deeper green.

What’s to love? These are the real nutritional powerhouses, packed with energy for your body to make and repair DNA, sharpen brain cells and keep arteries healthy.

Green options: Stay strong to the finish with spinach; get two vegetables in one by eating beet tops; branch out from broccoli with Rapini, an Italian favourite. Be a fashion-forward foodie with rainbow chard.

Chef’s notes: Choose raw, but young greens. For better digestibility, sauté or simmer in water or stock. Add raw chopped spinach to scrambled eggs, cheese quesadilla or mix it into your tomato sauce. Swiss chard can be added to soups, casseroles and stews, and can be substituted for celery

or asparagus.

Healthy hint: Dark greens are rich in phytochemicals such as beta-carotene.

GREEN EXOTICA

This year, you’ve vowed to stop admiring and actually try them. Learn about locally grown Asian leafy greens such as gai lan, sui choy, baby bok choy and amaranth at www.evergreenseeds.com.