with kale in the winter-so why not use what Nature provides locally and now? Both amaranth or verdulaga can be used in your favorite pesto recipe for a healthy and tasty Southwest vacation from basil. Here is an idea for Monsoon Pesto made with tasty weeds! Pestos of course can be made with almost any greens-e.g. Picked and washed true verdulaga/purslane, ready to make into pesto (MABurgess photo) If you want quantity and lack patience to harvest wild carelessweed, the NativeSeedsSEARCH store, 3061 N Campbell Ave, Tucson, has grain-amaranth for cooking or milling, also popped amaranth for adding to baked goods or confections for Dia de Los Muertos. Amaranth weed seed baked into bread adds a pleasing and healthy crunch. They can be cooked as hot cereal or ground into flour– full of healthy, gluten-free carbs and fiber. Amaranth seed is 15-18% protein-far higher than most cereals. Later, when the arching spike of spiny seed capsules matures and dries, you can harvest seeds (carefully with gloves) and winnow the tiny grains in the breeze. As long as there are soft, non-fibrous leaves to pick, they are fair game for steaming or stir-frying as greens or quelites. If your Amaranth patch matures faster than your harvesting schedule allows, don’t fret–all is not lost. Consider that 100g of young shoots provides 42 calories packed with 3-4 grams of protein, 3mg iron, and 4-11 mg of available calcium. The nutrition of Amaranth, our rain spinach, is way up at the top of the chart. The seedhead is spiny but contains nutritious seeds! (MABurgess photo) Mature, drying Amaranthus palmeri image taken at Mission Garden.
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