Dinner tonight? Whole-grain crepes stuffed with greens and brie (with a simple batter you can whip up in the blender, lickety-split).

Today we're taking a nose dive into the salad bowl with a half-dozen varieties of dark leafy greens. These plants come from a few different plant families -- arugula, kale, and collards are Brassicas, spinach and chard are in the Amaranth family, and dandelion is from the family Asteraceae -- but they share certain essential characteristics in the kitchen: all can be enjoyed raw or cooked, and they're all hardier than the fragile salad greens of spring.

An outcast vegetable scrap gets a makeover.