Summer Salads in Florida

"Filipino White" Sweet Potato

Opuntia cochenillifera

Molokhiya (Corchorus olitorius)

Last week I splurged and used a BOGO to get me some Wishbone Chunky Blue Cheese dressing that is HFCS free (though a touch of partially hydrogenated soybean oil.....I eat SO little transfats I thought "what the heck?").....I made a nice salad of one half molokhiya leaves and one half young cowpea leaves.....I'd have used Okinawa spinach leaves but mine have been hammered this year by snails...it was very good! Next time I will add sweet potato leaves, especially those from "Filipino White" as they are extra tender, plus very young pads from my thornless Opuntia cochenillifera cactus plant. Nice to enjoy the rare decadence of bleu cheese dressing but in summer! Here in Florida, summers are too hot for the usual salads greens like arugula and lettuce and others we have to grow in winter here, so I am enjoying exploring options growing in my lush WEEDY summer gardens. John

"Every 10 years or so, the US needs to pick up some small, crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.": - Michael Ledeen