Tasty Herbalist

Cherry blossom

My beautiful cherry tree. I like to sit under it and look up at the blossoms. Tranquility.

 Add to this a pot of tea and a few slices of lemon cake drizzled in icing and I'm in heaven.

Or at least I would be.

If I hadn't positioned my two compost bins right under the tree.

Which means that the smell of decomposing vegetable matter becomes overwhelming after a minute.

Which results in me retching and gagging.

There is no tea. There is no cake. 

But I do still sit under it...for less than a minute.

Wild garlic pesto

Does a pesto have to contain basil and pine nuts to make it a "pesto"? Is it like Champagne and Feta cheese, governed by EU regulations which stipulate contents and area of production? I'm not sure if I care. Give me something vaguely green and something vaguely nutty and I'll blend it together with olive oil and call it a pesto.

You'll see plenty of evidence of this, trust me.

This 'recipe' is for  a chunky pesto like this:

Not the most visibly appealing granted.

Nor the most sociable of smells.

It's not low fat either (you can tell by the oily sheen).

It is good for you though. 

So the vague recipes continue.

1. Large handfuls of washed wild garlic (good for your digestive system, immune system and also your cardiovascular system)
2. Large handful of nuts. (I used walnuts which are a good source of Omega 3 fatty acids and studies show that they reduce LDL cholesterol. This is a good thing.) I also toasted them.
3. Juice of one juicy lemon, not one of those hard stone-like ones. (Full of vitamin C)
4. Olive oil (I use Extra-virgin olive oil which also reduces LDL cholesterol)
5. Salt. If you like

Throw it all in a food processor and blitz it up. Cook your pasta and then mix it all up together and it will look like this:

 

If you fancier a smoother pesto check out this one on Frugal Living. I'm not sure what Lucy has done differently but I'm suspecting a combination of a much better food processor and much more olive oil! It's such a beautiful green. Plus, it's a great site to visit if you are looking to save money.

wild garlic bread

The picture is a bit out of focus due to the impending excitement involved in the eating of the garlic bread. I took about a dozen photos, all even more out of focus, before the overwhelmingly delicious smell of olive oil and garlic caused me to completely disregard the need for a suitable photo.

You will need:

One baguette/ciabatta/crusty bread product

Wild garlic

Extra virgin olive oil

pinch salt

juice of half to a whole lemon

Preheat the oven to 180C. 

Blend the wild garlic, olive oil, salt and lemon juice together until pureed. 

Slice your bread so that it is sliced almost, but not all the way, through. 

Lay your bread on enough tin foil that will wrap around it and spoon the vivid green puree in between the slices. Wrap the foil around the bread and bake until heated through and crispy.

Consume.

leek, potato and wild garlic soup

Now the weather has taken a surprising turn for the better nothing says warm spring days than a bowl of winter soup..or something like that. 

This is what I made first with my wild garlic last week so this is what you get. By no stretch of the imagination is this a recipe with exact measurements but just go with the flow.

Get a large pan and in it throw:

Sliced onions

Chopped/sliced leeks

Chopped potatoes (I like different sizes so that some almost dissolve and others are firmer)

Chopped Wild garlic

Stock, granules

Water

So I just bring it all to the boil and let it simmer until I feel it is done and the potatoes are all silkily soft. I also try not to overdo the stock granules at the beginning and add more towards the end if I feel it necessary. I also add even more very finely chopped wild garlic just before serving as I like the combination of cooked and raw...they have different tastes and qualities and that way I get both.

 

Wild garlic and how to identify it

Wild garlic.

Ramsons.

Allium ursinum

It's all the same thing.

For me it's one of the easiest spring plants to identify...

...after nettle...

...and maybe dandelion...

...actually cleavers and chickweed are fairly easy too...

...but after all of these wild garlic is the easiest.

Here's what it looks like:

Ok. So on first glance it looks like lots of other leafy growing things. Fair enough. However, the key to identifying it is to use your nose. Wild garlic smells...like garlic. If there is enough of it in one area it gives off the aroma of garlic bread. It's fairly pungent.

It grows mainly near water such as rivers and lochs but it also likes to grow under trees so you could easily find it in woodland. If the woodland is beside a river all the better! It doesn't like to be waterlogged though so you won't find it in boggy, marshy areas. If you have a city park with a river running through it you will probably find it there. Although best to wash it as it grows at dog-pee-height.

To make doubly sure you are picking the correct plant there are a few things to remember. 

1)The young plant is not a glossy shiny green but more of a matt green.

2)When you pull the leaves they have a bit of stretch to them...they don't just snap off. 

3)Once you have a leaf in your hand it will smell very strongly of garlic. 

Have I mentioned that it smells of garlic?

It is an abundantly growing plant and I haven't found anything which particularly relies on it as a food stuff so I don't worry myself too much about how much of it I harvest. I do try and just pull up the leaves and try and leave the flowers for the insects, although the flowers are edible as well.

Now that you can identify it you can eat it.

Please notify all friends, family and work colleagues in advance of any wild garlic eating as you will smell for days.

(Usual disclaimers apply...Don't eat anything you can't positively identify and If you are in any doubt then don't pick it and certainly don't eat it)

The benefits of ginger, the last of the ginger posts

Before spring explodes all over the place and I explode with the excitement of it all and the crazy abundance of plants I had better finish what I started. So no matter how much I may want to write about wild garlic and share what I have been making and eating with it we need to focus one last post on ginger.

Want chocolate gingerbread and chewy ginger cookies made using your crystallised ginger? Then follow the link.

Want to know a little bit more about ginger? Then keep reading

It's why you're here. Maybe. The recipes are a pleasant add on but really lets get to the point...what are the benefits of eating ginger? Or, more precisely, why would you want to pick ginger over all the other herbs available?

When I think of ginger I primarily think of poor circulation. When you are chilled to the bone, when you want to warm up from the inside out, when your hands and feet are constantly cold and when you get chilblains. Think ginger.

The other time I really think of ginger is when I'm feeling run down and feel a cold, the flu or a sore throat coming on. The circulatory effect of ginger raises your body temperature and helps your body to fight off the invading virus. Sure, there are lots of other great herbs for sore throats and the flu but I always have fresh ginger in the house and I like my medicines to be fresh, or at the very least prepared from fresh.

Don't discount it for digestive problems either. Many women know ginger from its reputation of easing morning sickness and it is also associated with relieving travel sickness.

Take it as a tea by either slicing or grating the ginger into a mug and covering it with hot water. It's best to keep it covered as it brews so that the all the aromatic compounds don't escape with the steam. If you're not sure how strong to make it start with a couple of slices and work your way up, or down. It doesn't have to burn the roof of your mouth off to be of benefit. I like to add in either the juice of half a lemon, for the vitamin C, or a teaspoon of elderberries, for further immune boosting. (I keep elderberries in the freezer so that I have access to 'fresh' ones throughout the year.)

When I wouldn't use ginger:

Very simply put I don't use it where there are signs of heat and inflammation in the digestive system. It can be a pungent and fiery herb and has the potential to aggravate conditions such as ulcers and inflammatory bowel disease. Cooking ginger mellows it a little and also consider quantity. As I said above you don't have to have so much it burns! 

This is all a very basic guide to what ginger does. It is useful for many more systems and conditions than mentioned but above is what I immediately think when I think ginger.

(General disclaimers apply...such as this information is not intended to replace advice from your doctor or your own herbalist etc etc. But then, you all know this...you're an intelligent bunch)

Next up is spring madness as all the plants start their race for space and sunlight and I scramble desperately to keep up with the non-stop supply of wild growing goodness.