Adventures with nettles

You all know that I really don't like to spend a lot of money on food, so it's probably not terribly surprising that I find the idea of foraged food intriguing. I actually have a pretty good sense of what wild food we have growing on our property, but what to do with that wild food isn't quite so clear, such as stinging nettle.

This seemed like a perfect excuse to get some books. (Though isn't everything the perfect excuse to get books?) I was spurred on to acquiring these books because the tons of stinging nettle we have growing by the creek was coming up and I wanted to do something with it other than make tea or in a pasta sauce. Here's the first of several books I've found. 

It's a beautiful book with interesting looking recipes, though probably a bit heavy on the mushrooms for some of my children's (and my) taste. It was Y.'s night to cook and she was game to try the nettle recipe. 

It tasted pretty darn good and we will make it again. But I don't know if we did something wrong or if there wasn't enough nettles because it didn't make quite as much as the recipe promised nor did they hold their shape. More experimenting is needed. Here, in a very bad photo, they were supposed to look like.

People would have definitely eaten more had there been any. I might also pick more nettle and dehydrate it for tea. Because it's free and growing in my yard. It seems a shame not to do something with it. 

(And in fun, random fiber facts, nettles have long fibers down the center of the stalks which can be spun once you have removed them. It's a process similar to processing flax to spin into linen, though the two plants aren't related.)

Today was also the day to pickup the bulk order, leading more than one child to comment that their mother is acting as though she is preparing for total economic collapse. It's my own quirky way of dealing with existential stress. 

This is 25# of popcorn, 25# of navy beans, 8# of dehydrated buttermilk powder,and 5# of wheat bran. The 5# of sea salt and the three jars of tomato paste has already been put away.