Sure we can keep rooting the stuff from cuttings, but even if it were legal to transport plants across state lines, they would never survive our four-day trip across the desert in August.
So when, for a short time we were unable to get Tender Green Amaranth from Evergreen Seed Company, I had to bite the bullet and figure out how to grow and gather my own seeds.
Like purslane, which is another of my favorites, amaranth can act rather weedy if it gets loose outdoors. So I had been happy to just keep buying the inexpensive seed packets from Evergreen.
In a pinch, though, I might have to harvest my own seeds. Well, it turned out to be a whole lot easier than anticipated. As it turned out, these fuzzy little clusters each contain enough fully developed seeds already to plant a whole new crop. If you look really hard you can see them peeking out from the clusters in this photo:
Apparently they don't need any special treatment, either. I popped a few into a grow sponge and "planted" them in the AeroGarden Deluxe two days ago, and they are starting to germinate already.
The stalk shown here yielded a harvest of about 50 shiny black seeds:
Also coming...The tender young leaves are delicious in salad, and the older ones can be cooked in a vaiety of ways, but are the amaranth stalks as tasty as asparagus? I will try them and let you know.
Meantime, here is a nice recipe for amaranth soup:
Before seeing The Soup Queen's recipe, I decided to try inventing my own. Like Mayakirana, I cut the amaranth leaves into strips, using tender green instead of the red variety, and floated the strips in chicken broth, along with thinly sliced scallion rings. Adding a handful of precooked diced potatoes, I heated the broth until the greens softened a bit, but they retained their lovely bright color. It was beyond delicious.
Today I made a different version:
This one is pretty much "kitchen sink" soup, that is I put a little bit of everything we had on hand in it. Starting with a can of Progresso chicken vegetable rotini, I added a cup of left over pork stock, a handful of corn, a whole bunch of scallions (saving the roots to plant for my next experiment!), some dried- beef gelatin crystals, a couple of potatoes, and, yes, a plateful of our AeroGrown Tender Green Amaranth sliced into ribbons. We served it with turkey and cheese sandwiches made from the small round whole wheat rolls, and a salad of baby romaine, beets, and blue cheese dressing.
The Asian Red Amaranth is not as tender as the green, but cooks up nicely, and is good in skillet dishes such as potatoes, eggs, and sausage. The very young leaves are tasty in salads where they also add an appealing bit of color.
Asia Red Amaranth in the AeroGarden Red and Green on the Porch, ready to Bolt
(with other young salad greens)