Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Nettle Smoothie, Nettle Eggs, Nettle Juice, Nettle Soup....Nettle Everything!

We've been...OK, I've been feeling pretty desperate for some fresh new greens in our diet.  We've done sprouts again (for some reason we typically only do these in the first few months of each year).
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.

10 comments:

Erin said...

Brilliant! Gorgeous color! I'm inspired to nettle-ize us over here! ;-)

The 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?

Marqueta (Mar-kee-ta) G. said...

Dear Heather,

I'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

Katherine said...

It's all about nettle with you, isn't it? LOL
I'm happy to hear that you've been able to gather some fresh and admire your enthusiasm and versatility in using it. How healthy!

renee ~ heirloom seasons said...

It all sounds so good. We can't wait to do some wild greens harvesting!

nettlejuice said...

Ed is adding some fresh nettle greens to the breakfast grits as I type.
Love those early spring wild greens!

Heather said...

Hi Erin
I 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. :-)

Merryweather said...

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?

Heather said...

Hi 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.

Debbie said...

Wow, I had no idea you could use nettle in so many things. Great post.

Heather said...

Hi 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. :-)