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enjoying the spring greens
Jun. 11th, 2015 09:08 pmAbout four weeks ago now it became warm enough that the nettles started growing, and I responded by promptly harvesting (read: rip out by the roots, put the leaves into a bag, and discard the stems and roots) those that come up near the strawberry patch as quickly as they show themselves (I don't want to be stung when picking berries later this summer). Each week for the last four I have dried a batch of nettles, I have been eating them fresh in soup, and this week I also froze a 3 liter bag full of them. I will continue to dry and freeze them regularly till the snow flies. I love nettles added to soups and other one-pot meals, and I have decided that I am not going to run out of them in early winter like I did last year--this time I will dry and freeze far more.
There is nothing like time spent outside harvesting one plant to make one start wondering what else might be growing on one's 2.5 hectare plot of land that might be edible. Early this week I noticed that the fireweed has started growing, and I remembered being taught as a child in Alaska by one of mom's friends that the young leaves can be eaten and are rich in vitamin C, but that the leaves get bitter as the plant gets bigger. He demonstrated by plucking off the very topmost leaves of the plant and ate them. Ever since then I have had a habit of picking off the topmost leaves of a fireweed plant and eating them when hiking past one, but rarely more than one time in a hike. It had never really occurred to me to actually harvest them and pick enough to use in a meal or cook, though there was one soup last summer into which I tossed a handful of chopped fireweed leaves.
This time I decided that since I have been using the dehydrator, why not try drying some fireweed leaves to have them available to add to soups in the winter, too? So I went out and broke off the top bits of a bunch of plants, till I had enough to fill the dehydrator. Then, when I returned to the house I did a search for "fireweed recipes", and found a woman's blog, where she said that she likes to harvest the young shoots of fireweed before the leaves change from their new growth red colour to green, and eat the whole thing--that the stems taste rather like asparagus. I like asparagus, so this caught my attention, so I decided to modify plan A: I stripped the leaves off of the stems and put them into the food dehydrator (and that day's nettles went into the freezer), and set the stems aside to steam and serve over rice. Yum!
I liked them so much that the next day I went back out, and this time picked only the little red shoots, plucking them from quite near the ground, so that the bottom bits came out from the soil. These I washed and steamed (and put that day's nettles into the dehydrator), and was quite happy to eat them mixed with other things. Though I note that when steamed they wind up getting a kind of gelatinous coating on them, so that when serving them strings of not-quite-liquid follow the spoon for quite a way before breaking. I suspect that adding these to a mixed veg dish (or meat + veg) would provide enough thickening to the sauce without needing to add flour, making it a very good alternative to people who are trying to avoid gluten, wheat, or other starchy carbs. However, I haven't actually tried it yet to be certain, since the next day's fireweed harvest was just chopped and put into the freezer for later (since we hadn't yet finished eating the batch I'd cooked the day before, and the nettles collected that day went into the dehydrator).
Today I didn't harvest anything--instead at lunch we went to a shop that is only open to 17:00 and bought a table top sanding machine that has an oval band on top, and a flat round sanding disk on the side. It is the second attachment that we really wanted--so that one can an item on the shelf in front of the disk, set it up against the side support (which is adjustable to any angle) and then be certain that one is sanding the end of the object at precisely the correct angle.
Then he dropped me back at uni to pick my trike up and he went back to work. It was a lovely day, and I was in a good mood, so rather than taking the direct path home (4 km), I went around the lake and home along a pretty country road (9 km) instead. Took about 50 minutes, after which I was more inspired to relax and catch up on email and FB than to harvest anything. However, it is only 21:00 now, and the sun won't set till 23:47 today (sunrise tomorrow is around 01:14) , so I have plenty of time left if I want to head out and harvest something tonight. But perhaps it would be wise to do my yoga first...
There is nothing like time spent outside harvesting one plant to make one start wondering what else might be growing on one's 2.5 hectare plot of land that might be edible. Early this week I noticed that the fireweed has started growing, and I remembered being taught as a child in Alaska by one of mom's friends that the young leaves can be eaten and are rich in vitamin C, but that the leaves get bitter as the plant gets bigger. He demonstrated by plucking off the very topmost leaves of the plant and ate them. Ever since then I have had a habit of picking off the topmost leaves of a fireweed plant and eating them when hiking past one, but rarely more than one time in a hike. It had never really occurred to me to actually harvest them and pick enough to use in a meal or cook, though there was one soup last summer into which I tossed a handful of chopped fireweed leaves.
This time I decided that since I have been using the dehydrator, why not try drying some fireweed leaves to have them available to add to soups in the winter, too? So I went out and broke off the top bits of a bunch of plants, till I had enough to fill the dehydrator. Then, when I returned to the house I did a search for "fireweed recipes", and found a woman's blog, where she said that she likes to harvest the young shoots of fireweed before the leaves change from their new growth red colour to green, and eat the whole thing--that the stems taste rather like asparagus. I like asparagus, so this caught my attention, so I decided to modify plan A: I stripped the leaves off of the stems and put them into the food dehydrator (and that day's nettles went into the freezer), and set the stems aside to steam and serve over rice. Yum!
I liked them so much that the next day I went back out, and this time picked only the little red shoots, plucking them from quite near the ground, so that the bottom bits came out from the soil. These I washed and steamed (and put that day's nettles into the dehydrator), and was quite happy to eat them mixed with other things. Though I note that when steamed they wind up getting a kind of gelatinous coating on them, so that when serving them strings of not-quite-liquid follow the spoon for quite a way before breaking. I suspect that adding these to a mixed veg dish (or meat + veg) would provide enough thickening to the sauce without needing to add flour, making it a very good alternative to people who are trying to avoid gluten, wheat, or other starchy carbs. However, I haven't actually tried it yet to be certain, since the next day's fireweed harvest was just chopped and put into the freezer for later (since we hadn't yet finished eating the batch I'd cooked the day before, and the nettles collected that day went into the dehydrator).
Today I didn't harvest anything--instead at lunch we went to a shop that is only open to 17:00 and bought a table top sanding machine that has an oval band on top, and a flat round sanding disk on the side. It is the second attachment that we really wanted--so that one can an item on the shelf in front of the disk, set it up against the side support (which is adjustable to any angle) and then be certain that one is sanding the end of the object at precisely the correct angle.
Then he dropped me back at uni to pick my trike up and he went back to work. It was a lovely day, and I was in a good mood, so rather than taking the direct path home (4 km), I went around the lake and home along a pretty country road (9 km) instead. Took about 50 minutes, after which I was more inspired to relax and catch up on email and FB than to harvest anything. However, it is only 21:00 now, and the sun won't set till 23:47 today (sunrise tomorrow is around 01:14) , so I have plenty of time left if I want to head out and harvest something tonight. But perhaps it would be wise to do my yoga first...
