The Slowcook at Spydog Farm The Slowcook at Spydog Farm

Breakfast: Cheese Omelet With Fresh Broccoli

June 30th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Posted in breakfast, garden

The incomparable taste of real broccoli

The incomparable taste of real broccoli

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Shopping: none

Have you ever had broccoli fresh out of the garden? This is nothing like what you buy in the grocery store. Even at the farmers market. It may be an entirely different vegetable, the flavor is so much more intense and, well, cruciferous like.

Unfortunately, our hot and humid springs here in the District of Columbia are not particularly favorable toward broccoli. Sometimes we don’t have much luck at all. This year it was wet and cool, so we have several very healthy plants. Still, they don’t produce those big, round, dense heads you see at the store. Ours are smaller, branchier, sometimes just a wee head or several of them on a single plant. These are, after all, the would-be flowers of the broccoli. If you let them go, they will bloom and eventually go to seed.

I had collected a few small heads and simply steamed them on the stove top this morning to go with my cheese omelet, made with free-range eggs we buy at the farmers market, and some Niman Ranch bacon from Whole Foods. The broccoli made this a memorable breakfast. If you ever get the chance, do try growing your own. It’s definitely worth the effort to know what real broccoli should taste like.

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  • keri

    Oh, Ed, you are so right.

    I didn’t even like broccoli for most of my life because all I had ever tasted was flash frozen or long-traveled. We’ve been going through about a pound of broccoli a week now (which is a lot for us). I lightly steam it and throw it in salads, too.

  • Ed Bruske

    Keri, I’ve come to like the broccoli fresh out of garden so much I’m planning on planting a whole lot more of it for the fall.