Tag Archives: nettles

Foraging in Holders Wood: a lockdown story

Stories, , , , ,

It’s story time! Yesterday I decided to go out for a walk and some foraging in Holders Wood in Birmingham. I’ve been watching a lot of Atomic Shrimp videos in which Mr. Shrimp goes out for walk to admire nature and find the occasional edible plant of fungus. It made me realize I am really missing being out in nature. I’m quite jealous of folks who have lovely parks or countryside on their doorstep, whereas I have the urban (and often, ugly) streets of central Birmingham. So during the corona-lockdown, I’ve been staying indoors a lot. But, I was being a wee bit silly, because by bicycle it’s only about 15 minutes to get to Canon Hill Park and Holders Wood. I also deem the corona-related risk to be quite low (it’s pretty easy to keep a distance from people).

Going for a walk is nice, but it usually helps me to stay motivated if I have a destination or some other goal as well. So I figured, I could forage stinging nettles and perhaps find some wild garlic as well. It’s a bit late in the season for both, but, it turns out the area is so full of nettles it’s not hard to find enough leaves that are still looking fresh and untouched by bugs. Walking out into a patch of nettles with a bag and gloves on, picking leaves, I felt like some passers-by could have easily been thinking “Oh that must be one of those vegans I keep hearing about”. But anyway, I managed to make a tasty soup today. I recommend doing it yourself as well (however, never eat something you picked unless you’re absolutely certain you’ve got the right plant).

All the nettle leaves I picked yesterday. You can read about the soup I made here

My friend Elinore managed to find me off a location pin, which can’t have been easy because the area is quite a maze. We had a really lovely afternoon of walking, looking at plants and trying to guess what they were (obviously not picking any of those), and luckily not getting rained on but for one random cloud which passed over in about 10 seconds. There were so many blackberry brambles! But no ripe berries yet so we’ll have to come back for those later this year. We also found some raspberry plants which did have a few ripe berries on them; delicious! Elinore spotted a tree that was growing nuts and we wondered what it might be. I took a branch for identification at home and I’m pretty sure it’s a hazel! So perhaps we can return to confirm the ID and find hazelnuts later in the season.

Maybe a branch of a hazel, with an unripe hazelnut

I’m not used to walking lots and I wasn’t wearing particularly good shoes for it, so by the time we headed back my feet were really quite sore. That’s okay though, we were not in a hurry and at least we could walk on grass. When we got back to were I parked my bike, I found the front wheel to be strangely wobbly. Turned out, someone had removed the quick-release mechanism that was keeping the wheel attached to the axle! What the shit?! My guess is that they tried to steal my front wheel (a despicable move anyway), but only realized half-way through it was locked to the frame and a fence with a cable AND a D-lock. That idiotic stunt meant I had to walk home with extremely painful feet. On top of that, I will now have to take it to a shop and pay for it to get fixed (hoping that will not bee too complicated). What a shitty, shitty way to end the trip.

A sad sight of the bicycle that had to be walked home

Anyway, I refuse to consider the day ruined , but it certainly does make me angry at the thief. Stealing bikes is a nasty business because it almost always leaves someone stranded without transportation. And it this case, for no gain! I don’t imagine those quick-release clips are worth much on their own. Anyway, I do think I doubly-deserved these nachos for dinner (with vegan cheese and crème fraîche, of course).

Well-deserved nachos with vegan cheese, bean chili, salsa, guacamole and Oatley crème fraîche.

Forrest soup

Recipes, , , ,

Instantly gain +1 level in “vegan” by making your own nettle soup! This recipe requires foraging stinging nettle leaves; you can read about my foraging adventure here. I feel obliged to warn you that foraging comes with risks: Picking the wrong thing and eating it can get you sick of even kill you. So, never eat something unless you’re absolutely sure of the species of plant (or fungus, even riskier!). That said, nettles are easy to identify, so I absolutely do encourage you to look up some tips on ID’ing and picking, and having a go. Both foraging and the recipe below were inspired by AtomicShrimp’s video (and a second one, or look up the info yourself). By the way, the soup turned out fine but not amazing, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you can find a better recipe. This was just my first time cooking with nettles after all!

Nettle Soup

Ingredients

(Enough for two big bowl or three small)

Nettle leaves (a good colander full, see picture below)
olive oil
1 onion
1-2 garlic cloves
2-3 potatoes
500 mL vegetable stock
splash of oat or other plant-based milk or cream (optional)
salt, pepper, nutmeg (optional)

Topping ideas: Oatley crème fraîche, chopped nuts, peanuts, croutons, extra pepper

Method

Take nettle leaves from the stalks (wear gloves!) and remove any bits nibbled on by bugs etc (actually, just don’t pick those leaves in the first place)[1]. Rinse well.
Dice up the onion and mince the garlic. In a splash of olive oil, saute the onion on low heat such that it cooks and becomes translucent, but not too brown. Add garlic and cook for another minute or so.
Meanwhile, remove any bad parts from the potatoes and wash them (you can also peel them completely if you prefer), cut in chunks. Add potatoes and stock to the pot and bring to the boil. Cook for about 10 minutes until the potatoes are fairly soft.
Add in the nettle leaves and let them reduce in about 2 minutes. Stir through the soup and cook for another 3 minutes or so. Blend it all together, and optionally add a splash of oat milk (or something similar). Add salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste.
Serve with toppings of your choice.

Notes

[1] Actually, removing the stems isn’t necessary. However, I picked my nettles quite late in the season so many of them had flowers as well, and perhaps a bit more fibrous stems. Still edible but (imo) less desirable, so I took the leaves off.

Cutting nettle leaves from the stems is a bit of a tedious job[1]. Wear gloves when you’re handling uncooked nettles! These were picked the day before btw, so some had gone a bit wilted but still good.
Rinse, rinse, rinse! Still wearing gloves.
Finished soup! You may notice that there isn’t that much left in the pan. I totally forgot to take a picture before eating… This is a bout a third of the total batch.