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Nettle Again

Well it's March and time to pick nettles.  If you're having trouble with this social distancing thing try standing in a patch of nettles.  Don't forget long pants, long sleeves, and gloves.


Our family has competing schools of thought on nettle harvesting, just pull leaves vs snip the whole top of the plant.  If one just pulls leaves it takes longer to fill your sack but when you get home your done, snip the tops and you still need to pull leaves from stems at home, but you fill your sack much faster.  This patch of nettles is in Discovery Park, just above the north parking lot and yes almost everything green on the forest floor will sting.  You want the nettles before they start to flower but that give you the next six weeks.  So now what, let's make nettle soup.  Fortunately nettles loose their sting when cooked.  It had to have been a brave or hungry person that first tried eating these. So blanch the nettles for two minutes in a big pot of boiling water,  you still are wearing gloves, aren't you?

a young nettle
nettle harvest gear
Jerry Traunfeld has a good recipe in The Herbfarm Cookbook.  Pretty simple, chicken or vegetable stock, onion, dried mushroom, and a bit of rice to thicken things.  Also chives which you could leave out but they've become a ground cover in our garden and need constant thinning.
Ingredients for Nettle Soup


Blend the result and you have this. 



But wait cook it a bit more and it becomes a sauce for Salmon with Lentils.



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