Milestones (Amy's diary)

I love this conversation. it's one of my favorite topics. Especially nettles. I can't find the nettles growing around here though I've heard rumors of them, and do buy some fresh at the farmers market here. The rest of the year i buy dried and make nettle tea. I think I've eaten them as sort of like a spinach before, but when I think of it now, I just feel like I would be afraid they would sting my throat!! Though I think the cooking is supposed to take the sting away?? Is that true? They are such a beneficial plant though! Really good to make teas for the garden too as a natural fertilizer.

We've also got lots of dandelions here that I haven't been good at putting to use. I find the bitterness hard to take.

Also lots of chickweed which I haven't been using. Abundant and comes in early...

Blackberries are awesome, and my favourite 'invasive plant" to have. It only seems to invade where land has been ripped up by humans here. I don't find them invading the forests...

You all have got me excited for spring!
 
liza said:
Though I think the cooking is supposed to take the sting away?? Is that true?
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Yup, never been stung by soup.
liza said:
We've also got lots of dandelions here that I haven't been good at putting to use. I find the bitterness hard to take.
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That´s a feature, not a bug: if you eat too much of them you´re in for gastrointestinal distress. Same for many other wild plants. We´ve bred our domesticated plants to be a lot easier to digest.
liza said:
Blackberries are awesome, and my favourite 'invasive plant" to have. It only seems to invade where land has been ripped up by humans here. I don't find them invading the forests...
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Blackberry tends to go wild only when there´s a lot of nitrogen around. Soft, young blackberry leaves taste quite nice as well.
 
liza said:
You all have got me excited for spring!
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Oh, brilliant! Cheers for a world that does seasons! :)
About chickweed - I'd never thought of using it for anything other than for added greenery for the chooks! Thank you for that tip.

Nettle soup:
I quite like this guy's rambly food videos.

LaMaria said:
Yup, never been stung by soup.
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:rotflmao:
And thank you, LaMa, for the blackberry leaf tip! :) I love how much I learn on this site!
 
We have a few different raspberry/blackberry look a likes where I'm at. Fortunately they are all edible and most of them are native. Wild blackberry pie is my favorite dessert.

I also forgot about pawpaws. I used to find them sometimes, but we didn't eat those as much because the season is short, they go bad in a day or two, and my mom never cared much for them.

Never had nettle soup, but we have plenty of nettles.
 
aiminglow said:
About chickweed - I'd never thought of using it for anything other than for added greenery for the chooks! Thank you for that tip.
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Well I've never tried it myself, but have met others who have. Again hesitant to trust my identification skills as I think there are poisonous look alikes for that one!:confused:

That nettle soup looks so yummy! Maybe when it comes out at farmers market I'll give the soup a go!
 
The joke's on me, about chickweed - I went into the nettle soup youtube video that I posted, to double-check that I had the right link, and lo! the same person has a video about chickweed - fritters, I think it was.

I love the thought of wild black/rasp/otherberry pie! :)

Pawpaws - some kinds I like, some I'll eat because it's a shame to waste good food. (and that's the voice that has got me into trouble, weightwise, in the past! Not so much with pawpaws, as when I say the same thing about the last slice of toast, etc etc.)

In other news: I had an alarming encounter with the scales yesterday - for a minute thought I had gained two and a half kilos! :eek:
I was just girding myself up, thinking "Okay, you can do this, starting again..." when I saw that I was suddenly weighing nothing at all - and realised a battery change was in order.
And two minutes later... yes! thankfully, I was still on the line. Phew! Moral: keep extra batteries handy. :D
 
aiminglow said:
And two minutes later... yes! thankfully, I was still on the line. Phew! Moral: keep extra batteries handy.
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What a relief I'm sure!

aiminglow said:
I went into the nettle soup youtube video that I posted, to double-check that I had the right link, and lo! the same person has a video about chickweed - fritters, I think it was.
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I'll definitely have to check that guys videos out!
 
His videos are very varied indeed - including things like reflections on a 1960s cookbook and how to recycle plastic milk bottles, inter alia. The first one I saw was about how he managed three meals (breakfast, lunch and tea) for a single pound.
 
LaMaria said:
Your girdle must be made of helium!
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:rotflmao: Not a bad idea at that!

But... a battery problem, or a sign of trouble to come? (dum-da-dum-dum-daaaaaa!) Yesterday involved, inter alia, a gift of peanut brittle, which... well, ended badly is all I'll say. :(
So today .. back on the sugar wagon - that is to say, the non-sugar wagon, including added, sneaky sugars. For how long? I don't know... I'll start with three days, and go from there.

I pickled the peppers - the green peppercorns, and am conscientiously turning the jars every day for ten days. I do hope they come out as good as the recipe promised. I think I'm about to get into a bout of curry-making - yum! :)
 
aiminglow said:
o today .. back on the sugar wagon - that is to say, the non-sugar wagon, including added, sneaky sugars. For how long? I don't know... I'll start with three days, and go from there.
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Good for you Amy! I'm realizing lately how addicted I am to having sugar in my life, so I really admire your ability to take these breaks from it!
 
Do you have a peppercorn tree, Amy? I love them. We have a couple of little Mountain Pepperberry trees & love using the berries. I love, love, love curries.
 
Thanks, liza! One day down! :D

And no, not my own home-grown peppercorns, LaMa - these were from a friend's mother's garden. Pickling them was very easy - as it seemed. The proof of the pickling will be in about a week's time.

The peanut brittle has gone to the office, Petal - what would we all do without workmates? Oh, and I'm about to make a curry myself but not with coconut milk. (I do like the taste, but...) It'll be a what's-in-the-fridge curry - possibly potato-carrot-chickpeas. (I wouldn't want to "waste" the broccoli by currying it.)

I like curries very much indeed, Em - I make one I call "All the C's Curry", with coriander and cumin and cardamom and chilli and cauliflower, and I can sneak potatoes in, under the guise of chats? (Do you all have chat potatoes over there?)

@Cate - Yes! We have a peppercorn tree, though the ones I was pickling are the kind that grow on a vine, so not my own. What percentage of Australian rural houses have a peppercorn tree, do you think? Aren't they meant to discourage flies? Or maybe midges.

And today is... the three-month mark! Tomorrow, tomorrow, I must set a new target and begin to work towards it. (Colour chosen to reflect how sober and serious I am!) Just as well that I began the cutting out sweets and added sugars yesterday. :)
 
We don't have a peppercorn tree, other than the mountain pepper berries, but I have such fond memories of them from my childhood. I may just have to plant a few I think.
 
aiminglow said:
Yes! We have a peppercorn tree, though the ones I was pickling are the kind that grow on a vine, so not my own. What percentage of Australian rural houses have a peppercorn tree, do you think? Aren't they meant to discourage flies? Or maybe midges.
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When I was a kid we had a massive old peppercorn tree, it was so old it was marked on the original town plan, it had no shortage of mozzies under it and it was filled with funnel-web spiders.
 
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