So in further adventures in sustainable living I have over come my hard earned childhood fear/respect of nettles and bought some at the farmers market. When I asked our local farmer what to do with them, she suggested steaming them lightly as one would do with asparagus, or that there was an old german chicken soup recipe that used them. I felt that they might be kind of stringy so the steaming idea was out. That meant soup, and since we have eaten all our chickens the other meat of choice in our freezer is the last of the ground turkey. Italian wedding soup it is. This soup usually has spinach or kale as a green but I figured nettles might be an interesting twist.
First I let the nettles sit in the fridge for two days “for the stingy stuff to go away” the farmer said 24 hours but one can never be too careful. Then I made the meatballs. then boiled up the broth with some orzo. Once the pasta was almost ready I through in the nettles a couple bunches at a time to blanch them. Then pulled them out and using the kitchen shears coarsely chopped ‘em up. Finally throwing the whole batch and the meatballs back in the pot to cook and about 15 min. I thought it was pretty tasty, Chris thought it was bland (and proceeded to season it like pho) and Lou doesn’t eat green things, but she thought the meat balls were tasty.
Overall I’ll definitely be eating nettles again, I think you can use them in any recipe calling for cooked greens, They have a very light flavor, but great color and are full of nutrition. If you live where you can get them wild even better they are “Very high calcium, magnesium; high iron, potassium, zinc, Vitamin B’s and A; supply niacin, protein, vitamin C, D and K. Excellent for the liver, low back, and anemia.”(from Healing Wise, by Susun Weed)
