Harvesting Nettles - Redux

This post has been a long time coming.  I'm ecstatic to report that I have finally succeeded in my quest for dried nettles.  I am sitting here with my large glass of nettle infusion, and I'm happy to report that I didn't even have to buy a dehydrator. 
After my first failure, my friend and I took a little trip over to Washington's Olympic Peninsula.  We cruised around the back roads in the Hansville area, and the nettles were plentiful.  We harvested a trunk-full of bags and headed home on the evening ferry.  This time instead of letting them dry in their bags, I gave them a light wash and then spread them on my dining table on top of clean towels. 

I put a fan up that kept air circulating and I 'stirred' them around every now and again when I walked by.  They were dry in about 4 days, though, I left them for a couple extra days just to be safe.  I was able to chop them in a food processor, and ended up with about 5lbs.  SUCCESS!
As far as the health aspects, I do feel like my skin has a better glow.  We'll see if my weight loss journey speeds up at all as I continue to drink the magic.  I'll keep you posted. 

Learning what not to do after foraging

As you know,  I was eagerly awaiting the opportunity to drink the nettle infusion from my first nettle foraging experience.  Yesterday, I got my paper bags together and got ready for some serious nettle chopping.  Problem - They had molded.  Despite my efforts to shake the bags and look in on them every couple of days, mold still found a way to ruin most of my harvest.  I was only able to save about half of one bag.

At this point, I was so bummed that chopping didn't even sound fun anymore, so I threw it all in my food processor and ground it down to tea leaf size.  I put about an ounce in a one quart pitcher, filled it up, popped the lid on, and left it sitting out over night. 
This morning I woke up to a medium brown liquid with a mellow, herby taste.  I've been drinking it all day with no ill consequences, so lets hope that means that I didn't get any of the moldy stuff in my salvaged batch.  Either that or that its a super-mold that will give me powers if I keep drinking it. I feel really good, but who knows if that is from the nettles or finally getting a good night's sleep.  I will keep you posted on how I feel after a few days of the infusion. 
In the mean time, I will have to scout out a new location for foraging and replace my lost nettles.  This time, I think I will try to use the oven for drying to prevent the possibility of mold and to make it go faster. I will chock this round up to a good lesson learned. 

I have also been doing some experimenting with my usual menus lately.  I decided to introduce more polenta - it seems like a great fit for spring flavors.  I made this particular batch with veggie broth and then just started dumping in whatever herbs I could find in my fridge as well as a couple of handfuls of arame seaweed.  Here's what it looked like right after I had cooked it and was getting ready to put it in the refrigerator to harden:

As it was hardening, I chopped some onion, asparagus, Serrano pepper, savoy cabbage, and portobello mushroom and made a dipping sauce out of plain yogurt with Italian parsley, red onion, mint, and a dash of salt.  Once the polenta was cold and hard, I cut it into strips and fried them until they were golden on all sides.  I also began sauteing the veggies in a little olive oil. 

I served everything together - polenta fries covered with the sauteed veggies and a dollop of the yogurt dipping sauce.  I also deglazed the pan the veggies had been in with a little balsamic vinegar and poured that over everything.  It was delicious (and once again, I have no picture to prove it).  My husband thought it was one of the best meals we'd ever had.  After the success of this dish, I am going to try and use polenta in more ways in the future. 

Learning to Forage

As the byline of this blog suggests, I'm an environmental science student.  This is a career change for me as I've spent most of my adult life behind desks and on computers.  I'm looking forward (fingers crossed) to being able to do some work outside once I finish this program.  In the mean time, I've been trying to find ways to get outside more. 
A few days ago, I got a newsletter from Passionate Nutrition discussing the benefits of Nettles (see the post here).  I thought, "BINGO! I can get outside AND get free food!  Not just any free food - but a vitamin packed, allergy fighting super-food."   There was one problem, despite having grown up in the inland northwest, I wasn't sure I could even identify a nettle plant.  So, I Googled... and Googled more.... and Google imaged....   Finally, I felt prepared.  
Armed with paper bags, scissors, and gloves, my husband and I set out on a back road near Sequim to find and sustainably harvest some nettles.  They were easy to find once I knew what I was looking for, and we were able to easily harvest 3 full bags in a matter of minutes.

In all of my Google research, I had learned the different ways to process and eat the nettles.  I decided that this time around I was going to dry it all and use it to make infusions like the article from Passionate Nutrition suggested.  We rolled the top of the paper bags shut and placed them in the warmest, driest area of our house, which was in front of the dehumidifier.  They are there drying now.  I will keep you posted as to how it all turns out.

As I was learning about nettles, I had learned about a few more wild plants in the Pacific Northwest that are edible.  One was Miner's lettuce.  While we were harvesting our nettles, I'd seen a patch a few feet away, so we went ahead and grabbed some of those, too.
Then, in my foraging frenzy, I also grabbed a couple of tulips from my boss's yard when I saw that they were about to fall apart anyway.  What can I say?  A wild Miner's lettuce salad with gorgeous red tulip leaves tossed in?  I couldn't resist.  I apologized later.  For those of you who don't know - tulip petals are edible and range in flavor from tasteless to something like a sugar snap pea.  The stem and leaves are not edible and some say they are toxic, so please - only eat the petals. 

 I tossed the salad with a simple vinaigrette made by lightly browning spring onions and garlic in olive oil and salt and then whisking in some champagne vinegar.  I topped it with some local, farmer's market feta, and let me tell you, it was delicious  (side note:  I apologize that there is no picture of the final product here.  I'm a lousy photographer, and well, any photo I could have taken wouldn't have done the salad justice.  I'll try and work on this.).   The Miner's lettuce was crisp and peppery, and the tulip petals were sweet and colorful.  It was a great first outing for a wannabe forager, and I can't wait to see how the nettles turn out.