Eventually Exquisite

Very sticker and not pretty either

Eventually something happens.  The cardoon(s) have been in uglyville limbo for two months!  After the  fluffy, purple, honeybee-attracting blossoms closed up and morphed into brown, stickery balls, I've been waiting.  Checking to see what was next has been on every Things I get to do today list since then.  See, there it is:  "Check to see if the cardoon is making a pretty puff ball."  Until today the answer has been no.

Biggest blossom ready to send out fairy puffs

Suddenly, but just one at a time, the hundreds of seeds in each head are putting out their two-dozen wings and soaring off on the wind:  destination unknown.

Individual seeds ready to take the next wind.

They spring from a clamped-tight ball or from the golden fur of the first flower to bloom on the stalk.  Either way, the fairies are playing games with these exquisite parachutes.  Magic on the wind!

Thistle Soup

Cardoon plant is about 4 ft. across and 3 ft. tall

Not even Eeyore likes to eat thistles. "Hot!" he says. Sharp points, I say. These big cousins to thistles and artichokes have their own share of spines.  The points are definitely not for eating.

I knew nothing about cardoons when I was gifted some seeds last spring. They are cold-hardy perennials, so in the middle of winter, when fresh greens were scarce, my lovely hens celebrated Christmas with a feast of cardoon leaves and thought it was the best.

Since these are the biggest edible thing in my garden right now,  I decided to make a favorite soup from Moosewood's Restaurant Daily Special "Artichoke Heart Soup,"* substituting prepared cardoon stalks for the celery and artichokes.

Can be topped with Parmesan cheese for extra punch

The result was excellent in flavor and texture and was a creative way to use produce on hand.  I love to go into the garden, especially when not much else is yet available, and harvest a good portion of our dinner.

De-stringed, boiled and ready to go.

So if you decide to plant cardoon, here are a few tips: They can be started early spring indoors and moved out.  The outer stalks can be harvested--remove the edge spines and leafy portion.  It will then look much like celery--remove the rib strings.  Cut into 1" lengths and boil in salted water with several tablespoons of lemon juice for one hour or until tender.   Now its ready to be cooked into something that even Eeyore would eat.





*CARDOON THISTLE SOUP
(serves 5-6)
1 T olive oil
1 cup thinly sliced onions
3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 cups cardoon pieces chopped coarsely in a food processor
1 can chopped tomatoes (14 oz.)
2 cups frozen or fresh peas
4 cups broth--more is you like it thinner
1 T fresh lemon juice
1/2 t dried basil
1 t salt
1/4 t freshly gourd black pepper
Grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Warm the oil in the large non reactive soup pot and sauté the onions and garlic on medium heat for 5 minutes, until lightly browned, stirring occasionally.  Meanwhile chop the cardoon pieces.  When the onions are golden, add the cardoon and cook for 5 minutes,  continuing to stir.

Stir in the tomatoes, stock, lemon juice, basil, salt and pepper, increase the heat to medium-high, and cook for about 10 minutes.  Stir in the peas.  Heat through.  Serve topped with grated cheese, if you wish.

Chicken Christmas

Handsome cardoons are artichoke cousins.  Stalks are edible.

Cardoons are a favorite Christmas present--if you're a chicken.  We all live in our own little world.  From the human view point, we would say that we see the real world.  However, there is a dog world, a cat world, a worm world and a chicken world and a. . .    Every sentient being has its own world.  In my chickens' world, cardoons are Christmas.







What is Christmas to a chicken anyway?  Let's have a go into the chicken world:  Feet grip the perch all night.  Dark is turning to slate gray to light.  Hop down from safety and out into the open.  Flap, flap to the fluffy straw below.  Thirsty.  Shiver as the cold water goes down.  Fluff feathers to be warmer.  Tuck one foot up into warm belly feathers for a time. Warm foot down, cold foot up. Warm foot down, cold foot up.  Gobble some greens on the floor.  Swallow, swallow, swallow until the whole leave is down.  Eat pellets.  Oyster shells--peck them, eat them.  Scratch, peck and eat dirt on the floor.  Outside the coop, scratch, peck and eat bugs in the dirt.

Cardoons for Christmas Eve Dinner

All this is to say that a day in the life of a chicken is scratching, pecking, eating, preening from light in the morning until dark at night. Rather obviously they don't know Christmas from scratch.





One of the Things I get to do today, this Christmas Eve (their very first), is teach my chickens about Christmas.  From their point of view it looked like this: Dark things falling down on top of them. RUN!  Big greens on the ground.  ????  Quickly but cautiously inspecting the greens that fell out of the sky.  Food?  Peck, peck, peck.  Food!

So you might say that the hens don't and won't ever get it about Christmas.  But if it's about the spirit of giving, then maybe they know more than we think.  One of them left this for me yesterday.

Very first egg from any of these chickens--maybe from Latifah.