Spring is here and we continue to gain a little more daylight everyday! These cool, crisp sunny days feel really good coming out of the long winter and what better way to celebrate spring than to gather some nettle! There may be many other spring herbs popping up too! Look out for dandelion greens, cleavers, chickweed and wild onion. However nettle will be the base for this wild pesto I am sharing with you today. Nettle is a herb worth getting to know and a staple for the home apothecary. Both a versatile food and medicine. Fresh nettle can be used in tea (my favorite), tincture, juiced, cooked and steamed. You just want to make sure the nettle is either blanched or covered in oil to inactivate the hairs that sting. Once dried, the hairs are mostly inactive, but some can remain. Visit the herbarium section of the website to read our herbal monograph on Nettle.
Wild Pesto 🌿
2 cups assorted wild edible greens and flowers. Nettle is the preferred base and then adding in a variety of fresh herbs like cleavers, fiddlehead, redwood sorrel, wild onion, forget me knots, violets, dandelion leaves, red flowering currant etc.
3+ cloves garlic
1 cup walnuts or pine nuts (I like to use a combo; use more nuts if you like a thicker pesto)
1/2 lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
1/2 cup parmesan
1/2 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Blanch the nettles for 1-2 min. Remove with tongs and add to an ice bath. Once cool, strain and squeeze excess water out. Add to a food processor along with other fresh wild herbs, garlic, nuts, lemon juice/zest, parmesan cheese. Pulse into a course paste, stream in olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Add more nuts to thicken, if desired. Serve immediately or store the fridge for a few days. Spread on crackers, serve on salads, sandwiches, roasted veggies, chicken and fish. Pretty much everything
I hope this inspires you to get out in nature and expand your palate 🌿
Love and Magick, Colleen
