Kale & Fiddlehead Fern

At least, I think it was kale.

It might have been the spigarello. I've never had either, so it's hard to tell.

But I shied away from it for a while, kind of afraid of how it'd turn out. I learned two things:

1) It keeps fresh a long time. It was in my fridge for almost 10 days without wilting or discoloring (both of the greens were hearty like this). I had trimmed and wrapped the stalks of the fern in a wet paper towel, so I wasn't as surprised with their longevity.

2) It's really not bad. A little like spinach, without that turnip green bite I was afraid of.

I sauteed both in about a tablespoon of olive oil with a clove of minced garlic each. I folowed the advice of the booth guy and brought the oil to a heat with the garlic already in it.

The fern was a little nutty tasting, in a good way, but the garlic really overpowered it. And might have been responsible for that taste, as well. But they were kind of fun and interesting. There's a page from the University of Maine that has recipes and info about them.

Served up with a sliced chicken breast sandwich on onion roll with lemon-thyme mustard, this was a pretty nice, slightly different meal.

When I cook the other green, I'll either figure out which one this was (I'm still leaning kale, though) or I'll have to buy another batch of at least one and keep track. Lesson learned? Mark your bags from the farmer's market, folks.