Purslane Salad

Purslane is a funny plant. It is a succulent...and some would say a weed. It is considered invasive by many and gardeners every day pull it out of their vegetable gardens.

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/WEEDS/purslane.html

This picture is not even 1/4th of the purslane that was growing in my garden today. I let it grow...why, you may ask? Because it is also delicious.

I wish any of my vegetables could take this much abuse and keep on going. Because it stores so much water in its stems, if you rip it up and throw it somewhere, it can keep itself alive while it tries to reconnect with the soil. I look cross-eyed at my tomato plants and something goes wrong with them. When I made this salad for the first time, I did not expect a lot...I knew it was healthy. It has more Omega-3s than almost any other plant. But I did not expect it to taste so good...I figured it would taste like grass, bitter, or chewy. Here is my recipe for Purslane Salad.


Purslane Salad

2 large handfuls purslane, washed and ripped into bite-size pieces

1/2 cup chickpeas

1 bell pepper, chopped into 1 inch chunks (use bright colors if you have them, I used purple)

1 large stalk celery or swiss chard. (I use the two interchangeably...if you use the chard, throw in
a cool color and rip up the leaf part to put in also)

1/3 cup red onion

1 tomato, chopped into 1 inch pieces (I also used bright colors here, yellow)

1 can tuna in water (this can be omitted depending on your meat-eating tendencies)

mayo to taste

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl and add mayo until the salad is as wet as you would like.
ENJOY.