Saturday, April 27, 2013

Nettles and Dandelions... for Lunch!

Ed and I have been really busy at the allotment today, planting seeds, digging over beds and fertilising them to get it all ready to grow lots of tasty vegetables. We didn't really have a lot in for lunch today so I decided to have a quick look at what the allotment already had on offer!













I snipped off a little punnet full of dandelion flowers and then donned my gardening gloves to gather some nettle tips. You want the lovely young leaves at the top of the nettles, the older leaves can be a bit fibrous. I also picked some random onion-things we have growing on one of the raised beds, at first I thought they were spring onions but they had a garlicky hit so I wonder if it was green garlic. If you are brave enough to try this and don't have green garlic then you can replace it with a clove of garlic or a few spring onions. 

So to make my weedy lunch I washed the nettles and picked the dandelion petals from the stems. I washed them really well then sautéed the nettles and chopped green garlic in a knob of butter (this will take all the sting away), on a medium heat. I added a little salt then waited until the nettles had wilted, you will know they are ready because they will reduce in size by about half, then I put the dandelion petals in. I cooked this for another 5 minutes then added a portion of rice noodles to the pan and mixed it all together. 

This was so delicious! Ed couldn't believe that I made this from weeds, that are free and easy to find. If you want to try this yourself a couple of things to remember are, nettles are best picked in the spring and autumn, when they are far away from flowering. Only pick these two plants if you are sure what they are, don't pick them if they have had pesticides or weed killer on them and don't pick them if they are at dog peeing height (for obvious reasons). 

Enjoy <3

xkx  

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