Thankfully our generous friend lets us pick nettle at her house. Ours is nowhere to be seen and, I'm guessing, still shivering under the ground waiting until the earth warms and it is safe to come up. We've been having lots of smoothies with nettle.
And yesterday I came home with a big box full, enough to have a fresh supply for a week and a little left over to dry.
We've had nettle/chickpea/ricotta canneloni filling.
Green eggs(nettle) and pan-fried thyme/garlic potatoes.
This morning W reminded me that I didn't need to put nettle in EVERYTHING. I am all astonishment. ;-) Why wouldn't one want to put nettle in everything? And so, he ate plain old pea soup for lunch...whilst I had a delightful springtime broth with nettle, potato, onion,garlic and just a touch of red pepper flakes and Bragg's.
Just he better wait until our next pizza night! Nettle goes so well in pizza.
Brilliant! Gorgeous color! I'm inspired to nettle-ize us over here! ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe patches here are in their glory, and I'm thrilled.
Your broth really looks gorgeous, I love seeing the leaf shapes still intact.
Do you have a minimum cooking time, like for the eggs for example to quash the zap?
Dear Heather,
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad I'm not the only one that does that! Only I've been doing it with dried nettles lately, since ours aren't up yet. I don't think we'll have enough to gather up boxfuls of it, though, when it is fresh; consider yourself VERY blessed! :)
Love,
Marqueta
It's all about nettle with you, isn't it? LOL
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to hear that you've been able to gather some fresh and admire your enthusiasm and versatility in using it. How healthy!
It all sounds so good. We can't wait to do some wild greens harvesting!
ReplyDeleteEd is adding some fresh nettle greens to the breakfast grits as I type.
ReplyDeleteLove those early spring wild greens!
Hi Erin
ReplyDeleteI simmered the nettle in water for a bit first and then chopped it and added it to the eggs (then gave the cooking water to a plant). I was quite tempted to just run the nettle through the blender raw and then pour it into the eggs to make really "green" eggs but I think I'll try that another time for just myself first. ;-) I noticed in Healing Wise yesterday that Susun Weed writes that she likes it well-cooked - melt in your mouth texture.
Marqueta, I do consider it such a blessing to have these wild, healthful, delicious greens around...just there, growing and free for the picking! It really is so amazing to me. :-)
Oh wow, I didn't realize you could just eat it like this...ok so...why doesn't it sting when you eat it raw?? Are you removing part of it? Does the cooking get rid of the stingy bits?
ReplyDeleteHi MamaBird, We don't actually eat Nettle raw and whole. I usually cook it into things or cook it and eat it as a green (the heat destroys the sting) but we do eat it raw in smoothies because then it has been blended into submission. ;-) We have a Vita-mix which blends it into such a fine mush that there just is no sting left. Maybe you could try a little in your blender and test it out? We also just tried it raw and blended as pesto and it turned out well. It can also be juiced raw if you have a juicer.
ReplyDeleteWow, I had no idea you could use nettle in so many things. Great post.
ReplyDeleteHi Debbie - yes, you can use nettle in all sorts of things, I'm quite keen to try it out in even more ways. It's wonderful. E and I tried out some nettle pesto recently too. :-)
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