No Mandrakes; just onions

I made a salad using my lettuce and newly picked onions from the garden to go with a spaghetti dinner one night.

Lettuce, chopped onion, carrot and cucumber slices, feta chunks and a Dijon vinaigrette.

It’s delicious. Earlier that day, I had picked the onions because they were toppling over. I slowly and gently wrestled them out of the ground. I was hoping a Mandrake baby would be at the other end, red-faced and shrieking while Professor Sprout looked over my shoulder. Instead, they looked like this.

These are mild green onions. They are perfect for salads or tacos or baked potatoes or eating raw. I cleaned the four (that’s the downfall of a container garden: not a big yield), chopped one for the salad, and sealed three into a Ziploc bag for later.

I started them from bulbs and waited to harvest them until the stems were falling over in the pot.

For my vinaigrette, I whisk together 2 parts olive oil and 3 parts vinegar (I’ve used red wine or balsamic, but I like red wine because it’s tangier), a dollop of Dijon or some sort of mustard (spicy, grainy, honey mustard), 1 shake of salt and 3 – 4 shakes of black pepper. It’s basic; I learned it from my mom; and I’m sure you all make some version of it yourselves. I could eat it with a spoon it’s so good. I do eat it with a spoon, but don’t spread that around the office. I used it as a pasta sauce in France, and I’ve poured it over grated green cabbage, carrots, onions, apple chunks and Craisins for a vinegar-y, tangy-sweet coleslaw.