eat the weeds

i picked some lambs' quarters & dandelion greens on the way home from the book store, steamed them up with some white beans, rice, onion, garlic & fresh basil and ate them with a little olive oil & pepper - mmmm!

 

cool! though ive tried eating it, i cant get used to dandelions. i love chickweed though, im always encouraging it to grow in my garden lol. sorrels awesome too.

 

I love dandelion greens! Especially with balsamic vinigar. Have you ever tried steamed stinging nettles? They don't sting when you eat them.

 

i have to admit, these were probably the tastiest dandelion greens i've eaten, usually i find them kind of bitter. they went really well with the lamb's quarters, which is always yummy no matter what you do with it.


have you ever had dandelion blossoms? you can bread them and fry them like mushrooms. they're also good in soups and salads. red clover blossoms are great in salads as well. i like to munch on clover while i hike.

i haven't tried nettles yet, but i've been meaning to. i've always wanted to try making spanakopita with lamb's quarters & garlic mustard. i love garlic mustard, and like lamb's quarters, it's a terrible invasive weed, so please, pick and eat as much as you want!

 

I haven't tried the blossoms. When are they best? Just before they bloom? Mid bloom? The spanikopita sounds great.

 

you mean the dandelions? wait until they've fully opened. you'll want to pull off the green sepals, and just bread the flowers.

 

when i was little, my mom would make dandelion syrup to have on our pancakes and cornbread. it was sooo yummy and ill always remember going to untended fields that were all yellow and filling paper bags with dandelion heads.
i love snacking on red clover too, but i never thought to put it in salads, good idea

 

i like dandelion tea!

 

We pick nettles in the spring for tea and for soup. They are so good. We also put hawthorn leaves in salad. Dandelion is great cooked and raw. Most weeds are wonderful for de-toxing the system.

 

mullien is good for smoking with stuff, haven't tried making tea or anything with it, its very mild

 

Dandelion flowers are the tastiest part of the plant...and also very rich in beta-carotene...and super healing for the liver.

Funny Americans spend millions of dollars to spray chemicals on them when most of them have liver trouble...you know the Europeans brought dandelion to America as a medicinal plant.

Wild food is SOO good for you. Even better than organic food or produce you get in stores..it's more oxygenating and contains more bitter alkaloids and minerals, it's almost like medicine. If you eat enough right off the plant, you almost get like a buzz from it, from the oxygenating effect it has.

 

If you have sword ferns in your area try the fiddle heads at the top of the plant. Cheers!

 

dandelion wine is devine... had a few salads myself this year, clover too...

the leaves don't taste bitter if you pick them when they first sprout in the spring, kinda like fiddle heads, they don't taste so much like chlorophyl when they are young if they start getting bigger than a quarter or dollar coin you can taste it...

fiddle heads steamed and buttered...mmhhh

and in parting lots of weeds have beneficial properties and are good to eat, but some are not good and can even be harmful. make sure you know what you eat before doing so. and weeds are only weeds because we didn't necessairly want them to grow doesn't mean they're all bad...

 

cool man, I think that will be dinner tonight!

 

Oh, don't forget the purslane! i have this coming up all over the garden!It is cool, crisp and yummy! Also have lots of sorrel and chickweed. Yum! Never tried lambs quarter. Do you pick the new young leaves, or can you eat it at any time?

i like making syrup out of sweet violet, it's purple and has the sweet delicate scent of violets. The flowers are also good sugared. yummm...

Daylilies are also entirely edible. You can batter and fry the new flowers when they first begin to open or eat the flower buds raw. The tubers can be eaten raw or boiled/ served like potatoes.

Asiatic lilies are poisonous though...so make sure you know the difference.

Here is a great website about wild food and identifying it. http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/

Happy weed eating and foraging!

 

How do you make that violet syrup? That sounds good!

 

wow thats very interesting!

 

Hey Sublime!
It's super easy.

Violet Syrup
2 c freshly picked sweet violets
-unsprayed
1 c -Boiling water
3 c Sugar
1/2 juice of half a lemon
1 c -Water

Select only the freshest and most unblemished violets
in your garden. Place violet petal in a deep bowl and
pour the boiling water over them. Weigh down with a
heavy dish to keep them submerged. Place the bowl in a
draft-free place at room temperature for 24 hours.
Line a colander with layers of rinsed cheesecloth and
place over a bowl. Pour violets and liquid into
colander, squeezing out juice from the violets;
discard the violets. Place sugar, lemon juice and
water in a saucepan and boil into a very thick syrup,
near the candy stage. Add violet water and bring to a
rolling boil. Boil 10 minutes or until thickened.
Allow to cool, then seal and refrigerate. makes about a quart.

enjoy!

 

Wow good to see so many weed-eaters,fortunetly my whole yard is edible,pusalane, plaintin,violets,lambs quarters,yellow wood sorrel,gill over the ground,spiderwort,clovers,and of course dandelions.Never cook any of it though,just a big handfull in the morning and one at night.The last physical I had the phlobotomist said I have the darkest blood she'd ever seen, and she'd been taking blood for twenty years! I just laughed and said "That be the weeds!"
Cattails are also very good, taste like cucumbers.
Oh try frying up some maple seeds in butter some time, taste like peanuts!

 

This sounds interesting but the trouble is,there are so many chemicals and shit in the air that land on these things,YOU MIGHT NOT LIKE HOW YOU FELT AFTER CONSUMING THEM!!