Feels like Spring

When the lilacs bloom it feels like spring time! These are my mother's favourite flowers and I'm always so envious of people who have them in their yards because I rarely get up close to these gorgeous buds however today I spotted some wild ones growing REALLY close to my home so I ventured out with gloves and a scissors and collected this bouquet.

Just loving them!

Here are the spring time plantains from - of all places - the driveway!!  After the rain fall these little guys just popped up so I collected them before they became tough or contaminated.  Plantain is another weed, you've probably seen it and it is an acquired taste (bitter and fibrous) but with a little garlic and butter they were quite tasty (and of course healthy!!)

- 2 cups tender plantain leaves (plucked from a nice clean path in your yard or foraged in nature)
- Knob of butter (drop of olive oil)
- 1 garlic clove
- Salt & pepper to taste

Water or stock

Heat the pan, add butter and olive oil, saute garlic until fragrant and then sautee your greens. Season and add water (or stock) and simmer until tender.

Enjoy!

Foraging for edibles: Part 2 - Dead nettles

I know the subject of wild edibles, foraging and eating weeds can be tricky, you want to make sure you are properly identifying the plant and not poisoning yourself in the process which is why I'm keeping these posts as simple as I can, and doing one green per post so that you're not getting mixed up or confused.

Today I'm cooking with the Dead nettle, and this variety is not like your stinging nettle, which means you can touch it and pick it and it won't hurt you.  Stinging nettle is used as well in cooking/medicinal and tea preparations but we'll talk about that another day.

This variety of dead nettle, known as "golden anniversary". It grows in my backyard close to the ground and seems to cover the flower beds.  I'm not sure who planted it or where it came from but it is edible and here I'm using it in a German gnocchi like dumpling recipe.

Bubespitzle:

Ingredients:

1 and a half large russet potato, boiled and set aside to cool and "dry up"

150 g  flour + more if needed

2 large eggs (set out on the counter, at room temp) 

Pinch of salt

Grating of fresh nutmeg

Peel russet potatoes and add the yellow flesh to a large mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients and knead into a dough. This is best done by hand, even though things can get a big sticky. If it’s too sticky, add a bit more flour.

To form tear off small bits of dough, a small balls, and then place in between your palms and begin rolling your top palm outwards away from you, the ball should turn into a long shape and then set aside until all of them are ready to go into the pot.

Boil a large pot of salted water on the stove top.  Add the dumplings and they're done as soon as they begin to float.  Drain and set aside. After letting them dry off a bit, brown in a pan with butter or vegetable oil.

For the nettles, wash them and chop finely like an herb on the cutting board.

- 1 bunch nettles

- 1 small knob butter

- 1 small clove garlic, minced

- Salt and Black pepper

Heat a saucepan and add the butter, sautee the garlic until fragrant on a medium low heat and add the nettles at this point. Cook until they're tender and wilted like a spinach.

When ready to serve add the dumplings into the sauce and sautee, you can add a little bit of the starchy boiling water to form a "sauce" and then check for seasoning and serve immediately.

Oh and feel free to check out my previous foraged edible post on dandelions

Foraging for edibles: Part 1 - Dandelion

Here's something new to me, foraging... and in my backyard!!

I always knew dandelion was healthy, it was one of the greens perscribed for me as a teeanger on a long list of  plants and herbs that were to detox my liver since I suffer from psoriasis, and have from a very young age. Now you're probably thinking what does detoxing have to do with a skin disease, well many people believe that it's not a skin disease but a result of toxins building up inside the body and as a last resort they're sent to the body's largerst organ to deal with - you got it! The skin!

Anyway, I try to include some store bought "dandelion" in my diet from time to time, whenever it looks like a nice bunch at the supermarket.  In fact we just had some last week on our picnic to stoney creek where I introduced it to some of my family members who were pleasantly surprised.   The thing is that after I started foraging and researching for edibles in my yard, and dandelion being one of the first since it's so common and "lush" over here I discovered through my research that the dandelion sold in stores is actually CHICORY!

Now that's fine and dandy but I guess if I really want dandelion then I better be foraging for it!

Here you see I collected the nice young leaves from my backyard (which is more like a wilderness) and cooked them up just like I do with the store bought "dandelion/chicory" simply blanched in water first until the stems are tender to the touch.

- 1 bunch of  young dandelion greens (from the yard) or store bought chicory (sold as dandelion greens)
- Lots of boiling salted water

Blanch the leaves in the salted water until the middle stems are "Squishy" when pressed between your fingers. By squishy I mean very tender. It takes about 12 minutes of so.

Drain, if you didn't salt the water you could totally make a tea out of this liquid.

Now lay the leaves on some ice to cool down. Once cooled squeeze all the liquid out of them and add the small green bunches to a saucepan of heated olive oil and garlic (ingredients below)

- 1-2 tbsp olive oil

- 1 large clove garlic, minced

Sautee briefly until the flavours mix together, check for salt (I did not re-season because it was cooked in the salted water earlier) and enjoy!

Another alternative to garlic is sauteeing 1 shallot (cut in strips) until crispy golden and then adding the dandelion greens and cooking for a few more minutes.

This green is a tad bitter, but this is the best way to prepare it so that most of the bitterness is removed and the flavour is balanced.  Dandelion is a super healthy green so I definitely am going to try to include it in my diet on a regular basis.

Hope you enjoy!