You Ate WHAT? Nettles?

Every year I look forward to spring ... not just because I can find Morel mushrooms, but I can also find other goodies in the forest and in other places, such as those 'waste' areas where weeds grow.

As luck may have it, the Lambs Quarters are coming up early this year.  I've already had them more than once as a side dish veggie.

 

Today I tried something a bit different.  I picked stinging nettles, just the top few leaves of those pesky weeds that I truly DO not like.

I don't like the sting at all.  But I'd read and heard from good sources that this was a tasty green and that it also made a wonderful green tea.

Nettles:

Nettles cooked...

There is no sting once the nettles are cooked.  And I can say with delight that the tea was actually pretty good.

Even better.  The Nettle greens themselves proved to be almost as tasty as the Lamb's Quarters!

Right.  

I also harvested some wild meadow onions and chopped them up, freezing them for spices for my winter stews.  I've already frozen a few packages of morels for winter eating.

I have to admit that I even tried a young milkweed shoot.  I tasted it raw.  And was I ever delighted.

I have to say that I had no idea that some day I'd be trying out eatible weeds from around my own yard and woods.

But after all, my Grandmother did start me young on 'weeds' from out behind the woodshed.

My husband did turn his nose up at what I was eating of course and would have nothing to do with it.  Little does he know that I've frozen much of these goodies to stick in stews this winter.

If you know what you are doing, wild food is good food.