nature's medicines in our back gardens

I apologise if you are all heartily sick of hearing about nettles, but I continue to be amazed by their many uses! These are truly an under-rated plant. Not only are the ponies having nettle tea to detox, and protect their laminae, but we are eating large amounts of it as a vegetable. There is a link to my nettle recipes from last year HERE. In addition to that, here is our current favourite soup recipe. All my kids have second helpings of this -- it's a real hit.

Nettle and Pea Soup

1 0nion
2 fat cloves of garlic
1/2 a carrier bag full of nettle tops ( I didn't have enough when we suddenly had an unexpected visitor, and bulked mine out with some hop shoots and goosegrass from the garden)
vegetable stock
1 mugfull of peas ( frozen is fine)
6 mint leaves and a couple of sprigs of marjoram
salt and black pepper
Greek yoghurt

sweat the onion in a small bit of olive oil. When it is done, add the finely chopped garlic and cook for another minute or so.
Add all your greens to the pan, and add enough vegetable stock to cover them all.
Cook gently for 5 to 10 minutes until all tender.
Remove from the heat, add the herbs, and liquidise.
Season with salt and lots of black pepper.
Serve with a large spoon of greek yoghurt on top.

Best with homemade flatbread, or cheese scones!

Another all-time favourite in our household is Nettle and Cauliflower cheese. You can't beat nettles served in a cheese sauce!

My sister and I debating our variations on nettle recipes!

It felt like we had hit rock bottom with Bethan last week. On top of everything else that was an issue for her, the weather warmed up and she started to show all the classic signs of sweetitch :( She rubbed the top of her tail raw almost overnight, and she had the typical pustules all down her crest and in her mane. I could have cried when I saw it - poor little pony. If I had been expecting it, I would have been prepared earlier in the season, but as it was a bolt from the blue, I had no treatments to hand. I had to wait for Monday before I could go out and buy her a fly rug. I don't want to treat her with DEET, as it's such toxic stuff, and I am allergic to Benzyl Benzoate so can't use that, even if I wanted to. So I did my research, and interestingly, two herbs came up in my search. Guess what.... Dandelions and nettles! Dandelions are high in B vitamins and potassium, and there is research shown in humans that Thiamine ( a B vitamin) is a strong deterrent to biting midges. Dandelions she is choosing anyway, and I also added Brewers yeast and garlic to her feed. Nettles, it turns out, have soothing properties for allergic itching when the tea is used as a wash for the affected area. Aren't they marvellous? So I washed her with nettle tea, applied some Cream to the sores, and covered her with a new fly rug. The cream I am using on her is Itch Cream, from Global herbs. I have not used it before, but I regard their products very highly. I have had some near miraculous results in the past from their Laminitis products.
So now I just have to cross my fingers, and wait and see. It's difficult to judge at the moment, as the weather has actually got a bit colder again.
Here she is, sporting her new rug. Despite Piper's brief strop about not being the centre of attention for the photo, the three girls are quite a little gang now.

A spring detox for all

It's nettle time again! After nearly three weeks of April sun, my fields are parched and dry, and the frosty nights mean the grass has still not come through. But the wind changed slightly on Sunday, bringing a rain shower on warmer winds, and in anticipation of the first flush of grass, I have been brewing up nettle and goosegrass tea.


Luckily nettles and goosegrass ( or cleavers, or stickyweed - whatever you choose to call it) grow together, and it takes no time to pick a bucketfull. Onto these I poured a kettle of hot water, and left them to brew all day. By evening, I strained off the juice, and used that to soak a couple of handfuls of dried grass each for the ponies. I will probably do this every day this week. At this time of year, this is a good detox and 'pick me up' for them, particularly any who are prone to laminitis, and they all enjoy it.

Everybody drained their buckets!
And at home, in the kitchen, we had lentil and nettle curry, and we too cleaned our plates. But I have had to point out (again) to my smallest son that you CANNOT eat everything that grows, as he was sent home from school yesterday for eating daffodil flowers in the playground. Thankfully he was none the worse for it :)

The Nettle Recipes!

Hops are a new vegetable for me. I read that you could eat them ,and as I have a rampant hop plant in my garden, I thought I would give them a try. The parts to use are the shoots, the young tender green tops, cut off before they turn brown and tougher. After steaming them , I tasted them and was pleasantly surprised by the flavour. They actually tasted rather nutty. When I was a

child, we used to eat beech nuts in the Autumn, gathering them on the way home from school, and peeling the little shiny cases, to eat the raw nut inside. It was these that hop shoots reminded me of.

Nettle and Hop Top Pesto

Basil is the obvious herb choice for this, but my seedlings are only just germinating. I used golden marjoram and thyme. My smallest son, who is suspicious of anything green, ate two helpings of this!

1 colanderful of nettle tops

½ colanderful hop tops

olive oil

1 handful fresh seasonal herbs

1 colve of garlic, crushed

salt

pepper

1 tsp lemon juice

Cook the nettles and hop tops in a drop of boiling water for a minute or two. They should be just tender, but still bright green. Drain, but don’t squeeze, and leave to cool a little.

In a separate pan, lightly cook the garlic in olive oil. Again leave to cool.

When both cooked ingredients are warm, rather than hot, put them in a blender, with the fresh herbs and lemon. Whizz round until pureed. If your machine needs more liquid to make it work, you can add some olive oil. Taste, and season with salt and pepper.

Mix with pasta, top with grated cheese, and sprinkle with toasted pumpkin seeds!

Nettle, Squash and Blue Cheese Lasagne

½ a carrier bag full of nettle tops

1 Butternut squash

3 red onions

lasagne sheets

olive oil

tablespoon of butter

white sauce:

25gms butter

2 heaped tablespoons plain flour

¾ - 1 pint of milk ( depending on how thick you like your sauce!)

3 cloves of garlic

100g blue cheese ( I used gorgonzola,)

pepper and salt

First, peel, and dice the butternut squash, peel and quarter the red onions, and put them in a roasting pan. Season well with salt and pepper and a good slug of olive oil. And put it in a hot oven to roast for half an hour.

Meanwhile prepare your lasagne sheets if they need it . I lay mine flat in a dish and pour boiling water over them, and leave them to soak for 10 minutes before using. This dish only has two layers of lasagne, so calculate how many you need.

Thoroughly wash your nettles in cold water. Strip larger leaves from stems, and discard stems. Large leaves should be sliced. ( you WILL need gloves on for this!) Put all the nettles in a large pan, with about a centimetre of boiling water at the bottom. Stir around until well wilted – usually takes 1 to 2 minutes, no more. Drain ( squeeze excess water out) , return to pan ( heat turned off) and add tablespoon of butter and generous twist of black pepper..

Make your white / béchamel sauce as normal, then turn heat off and crumble blue cheese in. Stir until it has melted, and then taste and adjust seasoning. THEN crush the garlic into the sauce and stir well.

Now you can assemble it!

On the bottom, put the roasted vegetables, then a layer of lasagne. Then your nettle layer, and another layer of lasagne on top, and finally pour your sauce over the top. Sprinkle a pinch of nutmeg over the top.

Put in an oven ( 180 degrees) for about 30 / 40 minutes ( until lasagne is cooked, and it’s brown and bubbly on top)

If you don’t like blue cheese, I reckon this would also be delicious with a block of Feta cheese crumbled in with the nettles when you layer then, and a generous seasoning of oregano, and no cheese in the white sauce!

Chana Masala with nettles

Serves about 6

This is a dish which needs planning in advance. It REALLY, REALLY, does taste better if made 24 hours in advance and left to sit and soak up flavours!

250g dried chickpeas, soaked and pre-cooked, or 2 tins of chickpeas

1/2 carrier bag of nettle tops or shredded leaves, washed

1 onion thinly sliced

1 red and 1green pepper sliced

4 tomatoes chopped

2 cloves of garlic crushed

Juice of 1 lime

Bunch of fresh coriander

2 tablespoons of Chana masala spice ( available from Ethnic grocers)

OR

1 tsp ground coriander

1tsp ground cumin

½ tsp ground chilli

2 cloves

½ tsp cinnamon

4 cardamons, split open

1 Bay leaf

Black pepper

Salt to taste

Vegetable oil

Fry the onions in a large heavy bottomed pan, until they are soft, but not brown. Add all the spices, and fry for another minute. Add tomatoes, and peppers, and garlic and sauté for another couple of minutes. Add chickpeas and two cups of water, and leave to simmer with lid on for 20 minutes. Add the nettles, stirring constantly to make sure they are all cooked. After 5 minutes, add the lime juice, and then taste to check the seasoning. Add salt if necessary. Add coriander, stir in, and LEAVE until next day! You can of course eat it straight away, but it tastes much harsher, whereas if you leave it a day it tastes rich and the chickpeas are succulent and full of flavour.

Can be eaten hot or cold, best with naan breads ( or homemade puris if you are feeling really indulgent!)