Now Ive made the leap to feeding Rick on nettles and he's accepted the idea... Im branching out with other ideas on what to do with them, we have a good large patch that Im trimming the tops off reguarly to keep them nice and young and fresh.
Today Im making ravioli... I have a little Parmesan left that a friend brought for us last week... I love it... and its so expensive and hard to find here..
So I'll make the ravioli, and fill it with nettles, garlic and grated parmesan the nettles wilt rather like spinach... a nice gentle tomato sauce and it will be yummy... served with a nice beanpod puree...
Also at the mo, Ive discovered that I can use some of my broad bean pods... I have an old vegtable cookery book that gave me the recipe, make sure you use pods that are fresh, not too big or stringy and tough, chop them finely, cook in gently salted water till soft, then drain really well, add a good dash of salt n pepper, a nice knob of butter and then blitz with the hand blender...
I must admit its not the most fantastic veg Ive ever eaten, but its reasonably tasty, and utilises all those pods that get thrown away... I really hate throwing away food I could use in some way... Im chopping up the bigger tougher ones and putting them in the dog food cooking pot too... Im also using some of the puree as a base for soups...
I heard another good idea the other day and one I shall be using myself , freezing eggs.... something Ive never dreamt of doing but according to Sam over at http://www.boschrealestate.co.uk/ it works like a dream. She has chickens now and is busy being industrious and she beats two eggs together , pours it into little bags and freezes it , then whenever she wants to bake, she has the right quanitity of eggs all bagged up ready to defrost... what an excellent idea for saving up eggs for the winter when they go off laying...
Im busy picking, eating and freezing broad beans, for the first time ever we have tons... its wonderful , we love them and never have managed to grow enough before, now Ive cracked it... I just sling them in, and leave them alone, I always babied them , fussing and weeding and pampering them along , and they never did reward me... this lot... I stuck down the orchard, and forgot abouyt them for weeks at a time, then when we noticed pod coming, a quick weeding to see the light and thats it... we've tons...
Next year... oooh next year I'll plant the whole damn orchard with them...
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