The Value of the Leftover Things

Turning the less obvious garden produce into treasures.

I pretty much only make “discard things” with my sourdough starter. These crackers primarily. Sometimes scones or biscuits. Pizza, aspirationally. But these crackers are the stuff dreams are made of. My kids and I almost always eat the whole pan in the first 24 hours.

I made them once at Thanksgiving to set out on a tray with baked brie before the meal was ready. They were DEVOURED.

Beyond just seed saving, sometimes the leftover things can be as valuable as the primary things.

Radish pods are at the end of the plant’s life, its last-ditch effort to procreate.

If you leave them until they turn brown you can very easily harvest your own seed for next season.

Or, if you frustrate their efforts, you can pick the pods while bright green and eat them.

Texturally they are crunchy and juicy, all the best of a raw vegetable.

Flavor-wise, they are just like a radish, but a bit milder. Still peppery but without the punch.

Here I’m marrying two discarded things…

Sourdough discard crackers topped with radish pods, united by goat cheese.

Another example is garlic scapes. Picking them helps your garlic bulbs grow larger, but they are also a treat in and of themselves if you know what to do with them.

This year, I made Keene Garlic’s scape pesto and I’m storing it in the freezer to mix with fresh basil when it’s overflowing.

One more for radish pods:

My favorite flavor combination formula for radishes is mint + butter + radish + salt + feta. I first tasted it at Pomegranate on Main in downtown Greenville.

So, I started thinking, “How I could carry that flavor into the summer?”

I came up with making a compound butter of minced radish pods, salt and mint.

My point isn’t necessarily that you should make these things but that we get more out of our gardens when we look at the things we have on hand and get creative about how to save them for future use—even the less obvious things like scape and pods.

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