 | There are few things more wholesome than cooking a genuinely delicious meal from vegetables you've grown, from seed perhaps, in your own garden. But I have to say that cooking a delicious meal from food you've weeded out of your garden to make way for said veggies is possibly even better. My 'to do' list yesterday morning included 'weed herb bed' and 'make packed lunch'... That I managed to do both of those things in (sort of) one go was incredibly satisfying! Ground Elder is an absolute scourge here, despite Nik's attempts to smother it into submission with acres of cardboard. It would be a losing battle before I even started to think I could make a dent in it across the whole garden but at the moment I've got a particular interest in keeping the herb bed free of the things that would threaten the optimum development of my poor little newly rooted cuttings. They're already at such a disadvantage thanks to the unseasonably dull, wet weather we seem to have been receiving across the country of late, so it's a good place to start! |
We can thank (or maybe blame!) the Romans for introducing this cousin of the carrot to our shores apparently, as they were fond of using it for culinary as well as medicinal purposes. One of it's therapeutic uses is as a poultice for arthritic conditions, in fact it's also earned itself the name 'gout weed'. To eat, I think it tastes a bit like a cross between parsley and celery. You definitely need to select the new leaves not the mature ones though, they're a bit too tough and develop a more pungent flavour that would, shall we say, be an acquired taste!
| By far the easiest way to prepare ground elder for the table is to chuck it in a salad, possibly with a few young dandelion leaves for an extra foraged boost. You can also wilt it into pasta like spinach or simply fry it in olive oil as a side dish. I had a little more time though, so here's another foraged, seasonal visual recipe! It's still pretty easy and there's lots of room for tweaking it to meet your preferences and current larder without a trip to the shops. To be honest, I think that would rather undermine the food for free ethos anyway! So, this is my take on a kind of foraged pesto. I seem to recall that 'pesto' just means 'paste', so whilst there may be no basil, pine nut or parmesan anywhere near it, it's entirely accurate to label it such! As ever, check out the gallery photos for ideas on quantity. First, pick your ground elder shoots, early in the morning if possible, choosing the youngest ones you can. My technique involves ripping a big, careless handful off the top layer then being a little more discriminating with the new shoots. It's not like we really want to encourage strong healthy plants, so that's how I get to justify this as 'weeding' too! |  (Mostly) Foraged Salad! |
| | Give the leaves a good wash, pick out any bits of grass (or just decide it probably won't do you any harm) and set aside to drain. If you're organised (I wasn't) you'll have soaked some almonds overnight but you can speed things up by using boiling water to blanch them. They pop out of their skins in a surprisingly pleasing way, once they've cooled down a little. Chuck a really good glug of olive oil in the container you're using to blend, then add two or three large handfuls of ground elder along with your nuts (I used the aforementioned blanched almonds as well as some hemp seeds), some salt and a bit of pepper. Blend away! With my quantities and blender, I found it needed just a tiny more liquid but I didn't want to add more oil so I used the juice of half a lime, which I thought also added some serendipitous flavour! Finally, I chucked in a little nutritional yeast as a nod to the traditional parmesan; and that was that! Use as you would any pesto, in pasta or maybe with bruschetta. I stirred mine into some wholemeal penne (with some chickpeas for extra protein, which made an excellent pasta salad for my packed lunch yesterday and left enough for us to have today as well, though I added some green peas to that for a flavoursome boost and stirred in a little unsweetened soya milk to stop it sticking. |
Fresh ground elder pesto pasta two days in a row and 'weeding' very temporarily crossed off my list of chores! Perfect! Wishing you an equally satisfying foraging-come-gardening adventure this weekend! May your tummy be full and your herb beds clear! With love until next time. Xx
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