Local gardens are spilling over with fresh greens this time of year and farmers’ markets are doing good business. I have a booth at the Sunrise Market in Sulphur Springs, selling fresh produce, eggs and homemade bread. Despite the rain last Saturday, we had a good turnout.
Rapini, also known as broccoli rabe, is a leafy green with small spikes of broccoli-like clusters. I sold several bunches of rapini at the market and gathered more for dinner on Sunday.

Sautéed Rapini
1 bunch of broccoli rabe, cleaned and tough stems removed
1 Tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. garlic, minced
1 pinch red pepper flakes
Salt to taste

Blanch the broccoli rabe in boiling salted water for one minute. Remove and immediately plunge into ice water. Once cooled, drain and let dry.

Bring olive oil to medium-high heat in a sauce pan. Add garlic and red paper flakes. Cook for about a minute and add the broccoli rabe. Toss around in the oil. Turn the heat to low and cover pan with a lid. Cook for 5 more minutes. Taste and season with more salt, if necessary.

Sunday dinner consisted of a huge leafy green salad, with sweet radishes (tender leaves included), young peas, onions, asparagus and rapini, all from my garden. I added store-bought tomatoes and avocado as well as a chopped boiled egg laid by one of my chickens.

The salad was dressed with a concoction I made of equal parts oil and red wine vinegar, and to that I add a small amount of Dijon mustard, fresh chopped herbs, minced garlic, salt and pepper. Refrigerate the dressing in a glass jar and just give it a good shake before using.

Support the local farmers’ markets and eat healthy.

While I haven’t fished lately, just don’t have the time, I think the key to catching fish is being able to think like a fish. Sometimes you also need to think like the bait. My biggest catch was made in a small pond outside Miller Grove. I remember telling myself to “be the sluggo.” I concentrated on guiding the lure to mimic the movements I imagined that creature would make in the water. It worked!

Cleaning fish doesn’t bother me. That is with the exception of catfish – one of God’s more bizarre-looking creatures. I am more than happy to leave that chore to others. So I was really pleased when a friend brought over two gallon-sized freezer bags of catfish fillets. One went into the freezer and the other was that night’s dinner.

Catfish Fillets with Sweet Potatoes and Fresh Greens
Catfish fillets
1 small onion, sliced
2 Tbsp. dill weed, roughly chopped
1⁄2 cup fat-free yogurt
1⁄2 cup fat-free cottage cheese, puréed
1 Tbsp. chives, finely chopped
Small sweet potatoes, peeled
Garlic cloves, slivered
Salad greens
Fresh baby sweet peas
1 lemon, juiced
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut across the sweet potatoes without slicing all the way through. Place potatoes on a baking sheet. Insert a sliver of garlic in each cut, lightly mist with olive oil and add salt and pepper. Bake for 40 minutes.

Prepare a pouch with a large piece of foil. Spray olive oil on the bottom and place fillets in a single layer with onion and dill on top. Lightly add salt and pepper and seal the foil pouch. Place in a baking dish and bake with the potatoes for the last 20 minutes.

Mix yogurt and puréed cottage cheese with a little salt, pepper and chives. That can be used like tarter sauce with the fish as well as a dip for the potatoes.

Sweet peas are still producing in my garden. I like to pick them early and we eat them raw in salads. Prepare a simple salad with micro-greens and peas.

Each serving consists of a 4-oz. catfish fillet, a small sweet potato, yogurt-cottage cheese sauce, fresh greens and peas. Garnish with freshly squeezed lemon juice. Each serving is about 259 calories with 6 grams of fat.

The vineyard is starting to green-up again after April’s frost damage. Over the weekend we pulled the last of the trellis wires over the two-year-old vines, so everything is ready to flourish. The herb garden is also thriving and Sunday afternoon was spent weeding and cleaning that patch. It was a beautiful weekend and a lovely Mother’s Day.

My boys served hamburgers cooked on the grill and baked baby potatoes for dinner on Sunday. I made it diet-friendly by placing my patty on a thin whole wheat roll with onions, lettuce and mustard. Just a dash of garlic salt seasoned the potatoes. It was a minor diet divergence, but I had been good all week.

One low-fat dinner that came out really well was the salmon patties served with fresh vegetables and a dollop of yogurt sauce. I’m not a big fan of canned meats, but I bought canned salmon. The can was a dollar more than the other brands and I hoped that would imply fewer bones to pick and discard. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Salmon Patties
16-oz canned salmon, picked for bones
1 small onion, diced
1⁄4 cup bread crumbs
4 egg whites
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. parsley, chopped
1 pinch salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine all ingredients. Form 8 patties and place on a pan sprayed with cooking oil. (I placed mine on a Silpat mat and no oil was needed.) Cook for 15 minutes until brown.

I had a bunch of asparagus spears ready with a light spray of olive oil and a dash of garlic salt and placed them in the oven for 10 minutes. I also steamed a head of cauliflower with a sprig of rosemary while the patties and asparagus cooked.

I love tartar sauce with fish, but instead I added about a quarter cup of chopped cucumber and 1 chopped green onion to a cup of fat-free Greek yogurt. I added a dash of salt, a tsp. of honey and 1⁄2 Tbsp. of chopped fresh dill.

With two patties per serving, the dinner feeds four. Each serving had 268 calories and 8 grams of fat.

That dinner didn’t seem like diet-food. Perhaps I’m just getting used to less fat. The next day for lunch I had a cold salmon patty with mustard on wheat bread with lettuce and tomato slices. The patties are great served hot or cold.

Other than onions, I planted my garden after the Easter weekend. I normally plant in mid-April, but the late freeze discouraged me and I decided to wait. That same late freeze damaged my grapevines. I’m just now beginning to see the vineyard start to green up again.

With the first buds gone, I’m expecting the second budding to produce a significant drop in fruit. That means this season, I’ll have more foliage to manage with less grapes to show for it.

Spring is a very busy time on my little farm, so I try to keep dinners easy, quick and healthy. Last weekend I made tuna steaks served with fresh vegetables and salad greens.

Tuna Steaks with Greens
1-1/2 lbs. tuna steaks
2 tsp. lemon zest
1 Tbsp. rosemary, minced
1 cup parsley, finely chopped
3 tsp. garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
1 bunch asparagus spears
8 button mushrooms, sliced
1 head romaine lettuce
1 handful mixed salad greens
1 tomato, chopped
1 lemon, juiced
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Wash asparagus and trim ends. Clean button mushrooms and slice. Drizzle about 2 tsp. olive oil over all. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Toss to coat. Bake for 10 minutes, flipping and tossing the vegetables halfway through the cook time. Remove and let cool.

Mix together lemon zest, rosemary, parsley, garlic, 1 tsp. salt, 1⁄2 tsp. pepper and 1 tsp. olive oil. Spread mixture on both sides of the tuna steaks and place in an oven-safe baking dish. Cook for 8-12 minutes.

My advice if the tuna steaks are fresh and a pink middle is preferred, bake 4 minutes per half-inch thickness. If the steaks were frozen and thawed, cook 6 minutes per half-inch thickness. My steaks were frozen and about an inch thick. I cooked for 10 minutes. There is no need to flip the steaks halfway through the cooking time.

Toss together torn romaine leaves and mixed greens. Serve by laying a bed of greens on each plate. Place the asparagus spears, mushroom slices and chopped tomato on the plates. Lay 4 ozs. of sliced tuna steaks on top of each. Squeezed lemon juice, the juices from the roasted vegetables and tuna provide the dressing for the greens.

This recipe serves 6. Each serving contains 232 calories and 8 grams of fat. Salmon fillets could be substituted for tuna.