Food for Free

After a long hard winter things are finally growing in the garden.  But the weeds always seem to grow fastest.  So while we are waiting for our first asparagus we have been resorting to some wild greens.  This is the best time of year to eat the common stinging nettle (urtica dioica).  The top 4 leaves are quite tender at the moment and can be made into several dishes.  The most traditional is Nettle Potage (soup) which I have tried but not found particularly good.  The recipes I do like are Nettle and Sorrel Risotto (or Speltotto) and Nettle Patina (an ancient Roman recipe from De Re Coquinaria by Apicius).  This evening I think I will try a Nettle and Wild Garlic Pesto.

Wild StrawberriesThe hedgerows round our garden are full of wild strawberries at this time of year. You can never pick very many at one time but they make a nice gardener's perk!

Most of the elderberries around us seem to have dried up, but at the weekend we just managed to find enough to make a small batch of Elderberry Syrup. We used a recipe from Roger Phillips' book Wild Food. Elderberry syrup is supposed to be a good remedy for winter colds and we'll try it out this winter. The recipe we used is already on the Internet on the Irish Secrets website.

Zoe shows us a herbOn June 19th local herbalist Zoe Hawes took us on a guided walk round Vallis Woods near Frome. More pictures here.

This week (14 - 25 May 2008) is Be Nice to Nettles Week.