In spite of unseasonably cold, wet weather - in some cases because of it - tasty seasonal foods abound as the days lengthen.

As with the landscape, green is the dominant color.

From your lawn to your salad bowl

Dandelions, which are showing up in lawns all over Benton County right now, are edible - root, leaf and flower.

However, it's mainly the cultivated leaves in restaurant salads and markets right now.

If you want to eat the ones in your yard - sweet revenge! - pick them when they are very young or they'll be tough and bitter. (If you've sprayed them with pesticides, leave 'em alone.)

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a serving of uncooked dandelion leaves contains 280 percent of an adult's daily requirement of beta carotene, and more than half the requirement of vitamin C. They're also rich in vitamin A and many minerals.

Chef Intaba Liff-Anderson of FireWorks Restaurant makes a warm salad of cultivated dandelion greens from Denison Farms with a bacon vinaigrette, Rogue Creamery Crater Lake blue cheese and another springtime delight: asparagus.

Dandelion leaves can be substituted for arugula or other spicy greens, such as mustard and kale, in many recipes or salad mixes.

Dandelion leaves from your yard are best steamed or braised.

For more ideas, including how to use the flowers in sorbet or cookies, see www.splendidtable.org and search "dandelions."

Don't dawdle, though. Warmer weather will make those in your yard inedible, and they'll disappear from markets and restaurants.

Time to enjoy some spinach

Spinach thrives in cool, wet weather.

If it weren't tethered to the ground, it would be hopping with joy like baby lambs are nowadays.

As the weather warms, local spinach will bolt, not to be enjoyed again until fall.

It's abundant at farmers' markets, in grocery stores and on restaurant menus now.

Best of all, it packs nutrition like a traveler limited to one small suitcase, offering almost three times the vitamins and minerals of most lettuce varieties.

This versatile plant is delicious raw in salads, steamed, or incorporated in casseroles or egg dishes (see below).

Got too much? Steam and freeze it.

Local eggs in abundance now

When we think local food, we tend to forget about our noncrop food wealth.

After a dearth of local free-range eggs during winter, they're in abundance now.

As grass grows taller, its tasty bug buffet keeps chickens nibbling happily from sun-up to sunset. By fall, those irresistible fuzzy chicks will be productive teens and the slight summer slump in egg production will pick up - until winter.

Combine eggs with spinach or dandelion greens and you've got a delicious meal packed with protein, vitamins (A, E, C) and minerals (calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, etc.).

Boiled eggs on raw spinach salad or eggs Florentine (a fancy word for white sauce and spinach), an omelette or frittata are all simple and quick.

Chop in some tender green garlic and enjoy "compliments to the chef!"

Find fresh eggs at farm stands, farmers markets, some grocers, or in the local foods directory at www.tenriversfoodweb.org.

Fresh Sheet alerts readers to the seasonal foods that make the mid-Willamette Valley such a rich culinary area. Through tips from farmers, ranchers, fishers, cheese-makers and other food producers, as well as chefs and restaurateurs, Chris Peterson tracks what's flowing from soil and sea to local plates. Contact her at http://localfood.org.