Chickweed and Dock
This morning the light is so wonderful outside, I just had to go out and take some pictures of the greens available for our lunch and/or dinner! Keeping it simple is the ideal way to start, so I will only introduce you to two more of our green friends today.
The first one is Chickweed. This little low growing plant is very tender and doesn’t last long here on the Front Range unless it gets regular moisture. So look for it where it is relatively sheltered and damp still during the Spring. If you were back East, it is sometimes considered a pest plant because it is so prolific. Not here, except in tiny moist eco-niches. It is too dry and in many places the soil is too sandy. Chickweed is a delicious little addition to a salad and some think it has a taste similar to beet greens. If there is a ‘bite’ to the plant, it is more on the lemony side, not bitter. All the aerial parts are edible after careful washing. It is also an amazing addition to salves for rashes and scrapes and you can just chew it a bit and put it right on a rash if you are outside and it is available.
My other yummy plant today is curly or yellow Dock. It is a fast growing plant that in some places has already put up a flower stalk. The leaves are quite spinach like and can be used as a quick cooking green. The ribs can be removed on the larger leaves or left on. They are a bit chewy but good. The leaves can also be used for roll-ups or wraps if you steam them for a minute to make them a little more flexible. Just cover one side of the leaf with filling and roll up! Delicious! Many people used to pick Dock on the way home from work to have fresh greens for supper. That’s still a good idea.
An Early Spring
Plant people long for Spring. Looking at all the seed catalogs is cool, but having the little green beings sprouting and hanging out with them is really totally cool! In the dead of winter there is nothing as wonderful as some snippet of green to perk up a meal.
I noticed that the Sunflower Market still has herbs for sale in little pots. That gave me an idea! How about a big pot with three herbs in it to snip for those winter meals? What a great gift for myself and for my foodie friends. All those paper whites and tulips are fabulous flowers and add good color just when we need it, but herbs? They bring us fragrance, flavor, and can be planted in the flower bed or garden come Spring!
If fact, I think I’ll just open a couple of seed packets and start some right now! Or shall I make mine weeds? Sorrel, plantain, clover, and purslane maybe…yum!
Urban Foxes
As people encroach on the wilderness, the amount of wild life that shows up in the cities is increasing. It used to be that there was an occasional sighting of deer or bear or other interesting creatures out of their element in an urban setting. Police would be called, animal catchers would round up the culprits, and soon it was people in the city and animals in the wild once more.
Now those boundaries have become permanently warped. There are packs of coyotes living in the wild grasses around O’Hare Field in Chicago. Skunks and raccoons and opossums are common urban dwellers. Here in Denver, the red fox has become an urban dweller as well.
No where else I’ve lived has had such a steady, large population of Urban Foxes! They are welcome in my yard since I am over run with squirrels without their help. I like foxes. They have a casual elegance and beautiful fur. You can see them trotting down the sidewalks in their neighborhood, making the rounds. If you are in the habit of looking closely, you can tell them apart as well. The most interesting feature to me is the ability of these wild creatures to adapt to their surroundings. Agile as big cats, foxes walk on the tops of high fences, jump up on the roofs, and cross a whole block without hitting the ground. I have seen one sitting in the crotch of a tree in the backyard, 10 feet off the ground, surveying the scene!
Fox teaches camouflage and adaptation. Fox makes the best of new situations and goes with the flow. We could learn a lot from our Urban Foxes.
Wintertime Surprise!
When the snow melted last week, I couldn’t help going to look for what was still green in my yard. If I had to, what could I find out there to pick for food? So I started with the edge of the patio not expecting much. After all we have had many days of 20 degrees or less since Thanksgiving.
Much to my surprise and joy there were some old friends still looking perky and delicious! I found wood sorrel (or sour grass – oxalis acetosa) right at the edge of the cement. Next was evidence of dandelions which means roots for the digging, violet leaves, and mallow. There were also rose hips for tea!
Excited I started examining the garden beds. I still had sage, oregano, parsley, feverfew, and chives. When the ground thaws out I’ll try to dig an onion up and see how they are as well. Since I have very sandy soil, they may be fine!
If I actually left my yard, what wonders could I find? For one thing, there are many roots besides the dandelions in my yard. There are burdock and yellow dock for sure, and their dead leaves would lead me to them. Also cattails have many possibilities for food year around, as do birch trees, willows, balsam fir, pine needles, blackberry bushes, and clover.
I could also gather wild amaranth seeds for flour and tumbleweed for that matter! On this great green earth, we are never out of food!
Seed Catalogues – Mid-Winter’s Treasure!
As the weather warms up after a month or so of cold I feel my shoulders finally start to creep down my back away from my ears. The sun is warm on my face as it pours through the kitchen window, and my thoughts turn to spring and the arrival of the first newly sprouted greens in my yard. Just as I’m beginning to wonder about what I might be planting and growing this year, the seed catalogues start to arrive!
Along with the brilliantly colored covers of the fruit, vegetable, and flower catalogues, there are some rather drab half sized catalogues of herbs, medicinal plants, and (Holy Cow) weeds! In these booklets dandelions are not to be scourged and poisoned, they have seeds for sale! Plantain, burdock, chickweed and mullein are all valuable here. I can turn my whole yard into a ‘weed heaven’ if I want to!
Our fore Fathers and Mothers knew what they were doing when they insisted on bringing some of these plants with them when they crossed ‘the Pond’ several centuries ago. Since they are both survival foods and medicines, the early settlers knew they would make it on these plants alone – no matter what was (or wasn’t) found here! How lovely this information has survived with these plants. Now they just may save us again…should we need them to…
Chicken Sorrel Soup
Chicken Sorrel Soup
- from The Gourmet Cookbook, 1950, Gourmet, Inc.
(use another light broth for a vegetarian version)
In a saucepan bring 1 1/2 quarts of strong chicken broth (or bouillon) to a rapid boil. Add 1/2 cup washed and finely shredded sorrel and let it boil for five minutes. Remove the soup from the fire and keep it hot. In another saucepan beat 4 or 5 egg yolks until light. Gradually pour over the yolks 1 cup of the chicken sorrel soup, beating briskly to prevent curdling, and still beating, add slowly the rest of the soup. At the last moment add 2 tablespoons sherry or Madeira.
Dandelion
There are one or two weeds that can be confused with dandelions. On the left is prickly lettuce. The differences are quite evident when you see them together. Dandelions have very deep serrations on the leaf and prickly lettuce leaves are relatively smooth. Dandelion leaves grow in a rosette without a stem, and prickly lettuce has a stem with opposing leaves. Most evident of all, prickly lettuce has a single row of ‘hooks’ or prickles along the central rib on the back of the leaf, and dandelion’s leaf back is smooth.
The whole dandelion plant is edible and nutritious – root, leaves, and flowers. It grows in most climates and terrains, although the growing season is dependent on seasonal rains in the desert. This is a valuable survival plant as it will keep you alive even if you have nothing else to eat. It contains all the nutritive salts the body needs to purify the blood and is a liver tonic as well as a safe diuretic since it replenishes the potassium as it does its job. Dandelion is also an excellent source of protein, calcium, potassium, and contains vitamins A, B, C, and E. It also supplies phosphorus and iron as well as some nickel, cobalt, tin, copper, and zinc.*
Dandelion root has been roasted for a coffee substitute, and the leaves are wonderful in salad when young and a good pot herb when older. The flowers can be dipped in batter and fried for a treat! There is a wonderful recipe for Dandelion and Bacon Salad at http://www.boulderlocavore.com/2011/05/warm-dandelion-and-bacon-salad.html and this is one of my favorite blogs as well!
* Today’s Herbal Health, 3rd Edition, by Louise Tenney, M.H., 1992, pg. 57.
Purslane
This is a fast growing, delicious and abundant succulent found in most gardens and wherever there is well drained soil and sun. It is more a ground cover than an upright plant and can extend to a foot and a half or more from the main root, with the branches rooting in places where it is in firm contact with the ground. Purslane has been used as a food and a medicinal in the Mediterranean Basin, India, and Asia for thousands of years. The leaves and stems have a slightly crunchy texture and a salty, slightly lemony flavor.
Purslane is of particular note as a readily available supply of Omega 3 fatty acids and is delicious in green salads, sautéed in butter, and can be used 50/50 with sorrel in soups. It can be found in the Middle Eastern salad Fattoush, or pickled with wine or vinegar, garlic, chilli, and whole peppercorns. This succulent is also good in Asian stir-fries, or cooked like spinach.
In the past, purslane was used as a cure for “blastings by lightening or planets”. These days it is finally coming back into culinary use and is one of the very best of the “weeds”! My 3 year old Granddaughter eats it right out of the garden and enjoys it very much. To quote her: “This is delicious, Nini!”
NOTE: The cultivated plant, Portulaca, is related and these colorful flowers are wonderful in salads and as a garnish.
Some of this information on Purslane came from: Reader’s Digest – The Complete Illustrated Book of Herbs; 2011; pg. 96.
