Prepare a dish - PEP BB foraging.sand.dish

Acorn pancakes, makin acorn pancakes! Take some acorns and you put em in the pancakes!
Used this recipe with a little modification (ran out of honey, substituted syrup) and I think they turned out well! My youngest brother is very picky and he liked them.
I didn't take a picture of leaching the tannins out, but I collected 50 lbs of acorns so I can do this again and take more pictures if needed.

Mike Haasl wrote:A little birdie just told me that if they show up on their own in a garden without being introduced, it counts as foraged.  

That's good to know! And in this case, I have made a dish from some lambsquarters that came up in my garden (the pot pictured has sprouting avocado seeds in it) that I can post. I left the bottoms of the plants so that they can self-seed. I fried kale in a 1:2 mixture of olive oil:tallow with garlic. I waited until the tough, old kale was thuroughly wilted before adding the much more tender (and delightfully peppery) lambsquarters to the mix. We served it with homemade gnocci, kale pesto, and preserved flame-roasted capsicums.

I decided to make a quiche from some foraged nettles. My resolution this year, rather strangely, was to make a quiche. This is my second and I'm quite enjoying the process!

A quiche is a savoury open-topped pastry filled with an egg custard, cheese and vegetables or meat. They are delicious hot or cold and make really good picnic food. It's quite a heavy, fat-filled foodstuff (this one is around 400 calories per slice, 2400 for the whole quiche) but I believe that good quality ingredients are rarely unhealthy unless consumed with gluttony.

Here's the recipe, in case anyone is interested in following along at home.



Ingredients:

- One cup of nettle tops (first pair of leaves and leaf bud)
- 175g plain flour
- 75g butter
- 200ml double cream (I think this is "heavy" cream in the US)
- 5 eggs (ours came from a friend's chickens, we don't have our own - yet!)
- 180g cheddar cheese
- salt
- pepper

Method:

1. Sift the flour into a large bowl, add the butter and a pinch or two of salt then rub together until it forms fine breadcrumbs.

2. Pour just enough cold water into the breadcrumbs to allow it to bind together and form a dough. If you add too much, dust the dough with flour until it is no longer sticky.

3. Allow the pastry to rest for 30 minutes or so somewhere cool. This can be a refrigerator, on a stone floor (in a bowl with a towel over it!) or even outside if it's cold.

4. Pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 5 / 200 degrees C / 400 degrees F.

5. Roll out the pastry until it's large enough to line your dish. I aimed to cover a 22cm dish. Let the dough rest for a little longer.

6. Line your dish with the pastry and then line that with baking parchment. Add some baking beans (such as dried chickpeas) or ceramic balls to keep the shape and put it in the oven for 10 minutes to blind bake.*

7. In the meantime, blanch the nettles in a small pan of boiling water for a minute or so. You want them to wilt - and to remove the sting - but not for them to lose all their shape and flavour. Drain the nettles and gently press out any excess water.

8. Remove the baking beans and the parchment and bake for 3 minutes longer to cook the bottom. If the bottom begins to rise up, take it out and let it deflate. You can always put it back if necessary. Once finished, turn down the oven to Gas Mark 3 / 140 degrees C / 280 degrees F.

9. Prepare the custard by cracking and beating the eggs together and then mixing in the cream. Season this well with some salt and pepper.

10. Grate the cheese and add this to the bottom of the pastry. Then add the blanched nettles and pour over the egg and cream mixture.

11. Return the quiche to the oven and bake for a further 30 to 40 minutes, until the egg mixture has set. Your quiche may rise up a bit but it should deflate again as it cools.

12. Cool for 20 minutes or more before serving! You can trim the pastry at this step for a super-clean finished look. I trimmed mine early and it looks... rustic.


* We re-use our baking parchment about 5 times until it becomes too brittle to use any longer. The silicone versions are great for cookies but don't really work for blind baking!

I made some tofu scramble tacos featuring some nettles I foraged.  It's my first time eating nettles and they have a good strong flavor.  Goes well with the tofu.

This is my second submission for this BB. I'm intending on submitting a third at some point as my elective for the sand badge.

Another nettle recipe. They are still in season here in Wales and I'm making the most of it. I generally don't eat them after June or July as they become quite tough and harder to digest. As spring greens, however, are delightful.

This dish is a nettle and mascarpone stuffed pasta, tortoloni if you like.

Ingredients:

2 cups nettle tops, stems removed and roughly chopped
100g mascarpone soft cheese (or ricotta or yoghurt or vegan substitute)
black pepper
160g white 00 pasta flour (I used Doves Organic)
2 eggs

Method:

1. Wilt the nettles in a pan with a little water. Strain just as they come to the boil. I like to keep this water as a plant fertiliser.
2. Add the cheese to the nettles and place back on the hob. Stir and combine with the pepper. Leave to cool.
3. Mix the flour and the eggs to create a pasta dough. This should come together to form a ball but not feel sticky. You can use more flour if needed, or a splash of water.
4. Halve the dough and roll out both halves into flat rectangles.
5. Place small balls of the nettle mixture on one side of the pasta dough, leaving an inch or so between each. This is space to crimp the tops on.
6. Brush a little water around the filling mounds and place the second half of the dough on top of this. The water will help it join. Push down firmly with your fingers or a fork.
7. Cut out each pasta parcel and flour well.
8. Boil some water with a good pinch or two or salt. "Pasta water should be be as salty as the Mediterranean sea." The pasta will take 8 minutes or so to cook, depending on preference.
9. Serve with any remaining liquid from the nettle pan!