Broccoli Rabe
 

As I haven't seen any broccoli rabe in the stores for a few months, I bothered to ask the produce guy at Lees in Westport what was up.

His response was that nobody bought it anymore so they don't carry it very often :doh:

Now I understand we're running out of oil, the earth is warming, the US dollar is plunging and the Middle East will soon be a nuclear mess...

BUT NO BROCCOLI RABE???

WTF is wrong with this situation?

The world may indeed be ending.

-spence

grow your own

It's always still up here in NY, cooked right (Have to cook it perfectly or else it's horrible) with a little olive oil and garlic - "solid" Spence, maybe you should answer this in the Ask Spence forum.

Ice

Done that before, but it's only good for a few cuttings until it bolts. Also takes a lot of square footage to grow...The problem is a few good meals and it's done for the year. I need just in time rapini.

-spence

It's easy to cook as long as you blanch it for 3 min before you finish it in the saute pan. I like mine very simple as you mention, good olive oil and garlic, always some red pepper and sometimes a little salt packed anchovy or good balsamic.

If you don't blanch it it's bitter as a mother.

-spence

Red pepper, no doubt!!!

broccoli wants to bolt when you get these real hot days into the 90's
and then that's when i'll top it...and get all the side shoots to grow...

most gardeners seem to think the spring time is the best time to grow vegetables...
which is false. my best producing gardens have always been in the fall.

Spence,
I don't know how close you are to Providence but if you can't get rabe in your area it will be in and around Providence for sure.By the way,I LOVE my rabe bitter.Olive oil,garlic,pine nuts,hot pepper flakes.A beautiful Italian delicacy and acquired taste for sure.

As I have not been in The Green Grocer in Portsmouth yet,maybe its worth a shot?

I noticed that its not at my local Hannaford any more. Last time I was at Whole Foods, I bought some, though...freaking hippies must've cornered the market on it.
Hey Spence, make sure you're wearing some kind of cardigan or v neck sweater when you go in there...they don't seem to like me when I pull up in my Avalanche with the fishing stickers and the huge "I Love Jugs" sticker on the back to the Whole Foods in Cambridge.
I tell them to get back in their electric cars...nothing to see here!

:cheers2:

Not a big fan of the cardigan, although now that I'm not fat any more perhaps I'll give them another go.

-spence