Nettles

No one
but me in a quiet

Nowhere
that empty square
between fence and curb and

Nothing
grows just weeds and dirt but

Know-how
whispers, Dinner.

Stinging Nettle and Borage Tart

 

One of our most memorable meals came about spontaneously. We were at the Vic Markets with a friend when we saw big bunches of borage. ‘I once saw a recipe for borage and stinging nettle ravioli,’ I said. 'Oh?' said my friend, 'There are lots of stinging nettles at the property...' - his country block about an hour's drive out of Melbourne. There was a moment’s pause, then we looked at each other and grinned.

It was time for a day trip. We bought the borage and some ricotta; we bought provisions for a picnic; and then we headed up to North Blackwood, sat ourselves atop our favourite ridge, and ate lunch. After a necessary snooze, we wandered down the hill with rubber gloves and shopping bags and picked stinging nettles.

 

Much, much later, we drove back to Melbourne. There, we whipped up our ravioli in a matter of hours, and sat down to a spectacular and quite possibly very drunken dinner some time close to midnight.

The things you do when you have no kids.

And yet last week, as I was walking between kinder and school, I found a patch of stinging nettles growing on a verge in a quiet street. The shoots were vibrantly green, bursting with health, and I remembered our long-ago dinner with a smile.

Despite having no gloves I grasped the nettle, so to speak. I always carry a bag for spontaneous gleaning, and so I carefully wrapped the young tips of the nettles in the fabric of the bag and pinched them off, clump by clump. One or two stings were enough to remind me I was alive; bag full, I headed off to school with the makings of dinner, a happy memory and a whistle.

Stinging Nettle and Borage Tart For the pastry - 120g plain flour (I used spelt; I’ve also used White Wings GF flour which has turned out good enough for ordinary mortals, if not for a French pastry chef.) - 60g unsalted butter - 3 tbs cold water - pinch salt For the filling - 200g stinging nettle tops (before they have gone to seed) - 200g borage leaves - a handful of sweet marjoram, if it grows in your garden - 150g cheddar cheese - 6 eggs - 1 ½ cups milk (low fat is fine) - a sprinkling of pine nuts (optional, but good) - 100g sea salt, pepper Make the pastry: (This is exactly the same base as Onion Tart.) Place the flour, a pinch of salt and the butter in a food processor. Process for 30 seconds, or until the butter and flour are incorporated; there will be no loose flour flying around. Add the water a tablespoon at a time, and process for another 30 seconds to a minute or until the mixture resembles tiny soft pebbles. Flour the bench and a rolling pin. Tip the pastry onto the bench, and gently form into a flat disc with your hands. Roll it out, rolling from the centre to the edge and turning 90 degrees between each roll, until it fits your dish. (Mine is 25cm in diameter.) Drape the pastry over the rolling pin and lift it carefully into the dish. Pat into place. Trim the edges. Place the dish into the freezer, and leave it there until you need it. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Use kitchen scissors to snip the nettle leaves from their stems. Cut the thick stems from the borage. Boil a pot of water. Wash your greens well, and chop coarsely. Blanch the greens in several batches, cooking each batch for a minute then scooping it out to drain in a colander. Leave to cool. Grate the cheese. Beat the eggs lightly, then whisk in the milk and marjoram. Season. Remove the tart shell from the freezer. Spread the grated cheese over the base. Spoon the greens over the cheese, then gently pour in the egg mixture. Strew pine nuts over the top, if you wish, then slip the tart into the oven for 45 minutes or until the top is puffy and there is just a very slight wobble in the centre. Leave to cool for at least ten minutes, during which time it will set further. Serve with a crunchy sort of salad on the side. I am indebted to Jamie Oliver for the particular combination of stinging nettles, borage leaves and marjoram, which features in a ravioli recipe in The Naked Chef. (Backyard: borage, eggs, marjoram. Gleaned locally: stinging nettles. Locally sourced: milk. Not particularly local: flour, butter, cheese, pine nuts, salt, pepper.)

The Salad of Underutilised Greens (Borage Flower, Salad Burnet and Mallow)

 

Winter is drawing to a close and things are fairly quiet in the garden – and yet we have stars in our eyes. Small, blue, velvety stars: they are, of course, borage flowers.

Borage self-seeds around my garden; there is always some on the go. At the end of winter, the plants go to seed, erupting in grey hairy fireworks. At the end of each stem is a spray of blue stars; and the stars are alive with honeybees.

I don’t see borage much, except in my garden; and I don’t know why it is so underused. It is attractive, whether in its young green structural phase or its grey and shabby flowering, and all parts are good eating. Perhaps it does not transport well; thus it is a special delight for the home gardener. Perhaps, too, the name ‘borage’ is too earthy, and lands with too much of a thump? It certainly has none of the grace of ‘angelica’ or ‘fritillary’, whose names roll off the tongue. The leaves are strong, thick and hairy; they can hold the name – but the flowers need another, a name which evokes shooting stars, the morning sky the other side of dawn, the colour of my husband’s eyes.

 

At winter’s end, after too many long grey days, I recommend borage. It is a mediaeval cure for melancholy and will give a girl courage. Eat the leaves lightly steamed or Indian style. Float the flowers in a cup of white wine and let yourself be enchanted.

To pick the flowers, grasp a petal and gently tug; the whole flower will pop right off the plant. Gather a small bowlful and serve within an hour, before the blossoms wilt. Like the leaves, the flowers impart the mildest whiff of cucumber; and their whimsy charms all diners, whether apian, romantic, or childlike.

I like to sprinkle borage flowers over salad. I serve them with another underutilised green, salad burnet, a perennial which grows in winter shade; we have it as a groundcover under a large pear tree where it spreads quickly. I also use microgreens allowed to grow two inches tall: Siberian kale, beet leaves, mizuna and little lettuces; baby rocket leaves; and baby mallow. Tossed gently in a bowl with local lemon juice, a little Victorian flake salt, and some olive oil from the Grampians this is food which needs no recipe and gladdens the heart: it is simple, sustainable, perfect.

 

Pictures show, top to bottom, The Salad of Underutilised Greens, borage in its shabby stage, and salad burnet.

Gluten Free Quick and Easy Concentrated Veggie Stock

 

What, you might well ask, is that jar of disgusting khaki paste in the photograph?

Is it some sort of slop fed to babies, or the results that come out several hours later? Is it a particularly ugly parsley pesto? Is it a raw vegan punishment for those who ate too much meat in a previous life?

No, my friends, it is none of these things. Instead, it is pure genius: concentrated veggie stock.

I often make my own liquid veggie stock, a golden brew simmered for hours and stored in the freezer in cup-sized portions for later use. But there are times when I need flavour without liquid; and that’s when I turn to this concentrated stock.

It has none of the metallic overtones of commercial veggie stocks, none of the gluten, and no MSG. It’s just veggies and herbs cooked to a paste and preserved with a bucket of salt. Start with a tablespoon or so, added to curries, soups or stews, then add more if needed.

Thanks to Mandi who told me about it, and her brother Simon who had the flash of pure genius. I should add that they both put a tomato in their stock, but at this time of the year, when tomatoes come from Whoop-Whoop, I leave it out.

Gluten Free Quick and Easy Concentrated Veggie Stock - 2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped - 4 or 5 sticks of celery, leaves and all, roughly chopped - 1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped - 1 clove garlic, peeled - 5 mushrooms, roughly chopped - a big bunch of parsley, including the smaller stems, roughly chopped - an inch or so of rosemary, needles stripped from the stem - a sprig of thyme - 2 bay leaves - olive oil - 100g sea salt Place all the veggies and herbs into a food processor or blender. Pulse-chop until it looks like pesto. Warm 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a saucepan. Scrape the whizzed veggies into the pan, and bring to a slow boil. Let it simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, or longer if you like (the longer you cook it, the deeper the flavour). Stir regularly to ensure it doesn’t stick. When it no longer smells like raw carrot juice and most of the liquid has evaporated, add the salt. Cook for a few more minutes, stirring constantly, until the salt has dissolved. Scrape it into a jar, and store it in your fridge. It keeps for weeks. Use a tablespoon or so where you would otherwise use a stock cube. (Miss Cleverpants (ie me) thought she’d turn it into stock cubes via an ice cube tray, but the salt prevents it from freezing. So keep it in a jar in the fridge as instructed. The salt will preserve it.) (Backyard: parsley, rosemary, thyme, bay. Melbourne outskirts: celery, garlic, mushrooms. Victoria: olive oil, salt. Somewhere in Australia: onion, carrots.)

Grapefruit and Green Leaf Smoothie

 

The simplest things in life are often the best. A raindrop glistening in a spider's web. The snap of clean washing hung out to dry. An comfortable old story, heard for the hundredth time. The sharp tang of grapefruit on a sunny winter's morning. The thrill of gleaning food in the city. Watching your kids eat green leaves for breakfast.

A mile or so from our house is a grapefruit tree. Its laden branches dangle into an old bluestone laneway. The first time I spotted it, I filled up my bag with fallen fruit. The pith was so thick that nothing was bruised and the flesh inside was perfect: explosively juicy, sweet and tart in equal measure. A week or so later, I sent my tall husband; he picked another bag. And this week, we dropped by on our way somewhere else, stood on the towbar of our car, and filled a third. The tree is now picked as clean as we can reach without a ladder; but there are still hundreds of fruits fallen on the garage roof and all over the garden. Were I a braver soul, I would knock on the door and ask if I could come in and take them, but so far I have proven myself a coward.

Ripe grapefruit need nothing to make them delicious; I eat them plain at any time of the day. But I also like to fiddle, and while I have not jumped wholeheartedly on the green smoothie bandwagon, I do like my greens. I like them in salad, in soup, in horta; I like them for lunch and tea; and lately I've been eating greens blended with fruit for breakfast. Grapefruit and kale and grapefruit and celery leaves are my favourite combinations. When blended with kale, the strong flavour of grapefruit hits the middle of your tongue, but the edges tingle with the kale's iron-y taste. It's delicious in a bracing way. Celery leaves, on the other hand, unify with the grapefruit so that, instead of being aware of two flavours, one instead savours a single refreshing taste – and it's just the thing to chase away the winter sniffles.

You do need a good blender to whizz the leaves into a smooth drink. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that we have shoved so much money through a particular credit card that I was able to order a whizz-bang blender (K********d) on the basis of our credit card points alone. It is an evil system: the rich get richer and are rewarded for having spent so much money, while the poor just fall into credit card debt. The fact that I am using the blender to make breakfast out of gleaned foods – and that my children will consume whizzed greens for breakfast – is my pathetic justification for participating in such a system.

Ahem. Now that we've tiptoed to the edge of a moral quagmire and peeked in, let us carefully edge our way back to the recipe. I don't tolerate dairy or banana very well, so I use ice to make the smoothie good and thick. However, if you want something a bit sweeter, you can always chuck in a banana – out of your greengrocer's seconds box, of course; the squishier the better.

Wednesday: Addendum: I spent this morning at a friend's house and noticed her blender on the kitchen sink with a greenish tinge. She too is drinking green smoothies. But in our conversation I realised there is something she didn't know, and that I ought to add here: if you are regularly consuming a heap of greens, make sure you vary them. As well as being packed with nutrients, each leafy green has developed a unique defence mechanism against being eaten - low levels of slightly toxic chemicals eg oxalates - that your body needs time to break down. So have spinach one day, then perhaps celery leaves the next, then maybe kale, or mint, or whatever takes your fancy. By circulating your greens, you vary both nutrients and toxins, maximising the health benefits and minimising any toxic build ups.

Grapefruit and Green Leaf Smoothie - 1 - 2 ripe yellow grapefruit - 3 leaves of kale or the leaves of 2 stems of celery - 6 ice cubes - ½ cup water - 1 banana (optional) Put everything into a whizz bang blender and combine. Pour into the cups which make you most happy, and drink immediately. Enough for 2 to 3 people, or one person doing the green smoothie thing. If the leaves are too strong for your taste, use less or throw in another grapefruit. To sweeten, add a banana. This is not an endurance test. I like things strong and sharp, but your tastes may be quite different. If the smoothie sits in the fridge, the flavour becomes dull and metallic and the texture slightly floury. So drink it right away. (Backyard: black kale. Brunswick: grapefruit. Melbourne outskirts: celery. Even better, celery leaves are usually thrown away, so it's nice to find a delicious use for them.)

Kale Soup, 2012

 

Every year about this time, when the winter sky is grey and my hands are too cold to type, I feel like things should be quiet in the garden. I’ve read too many English gardening books which talk about winter as a time of planning and rest. Yet I live in a temperate climate, and outside my kitchen window kale and chard are tall and strong. Large self-sown borage plants are dotted here and there; their hairy leaves have the slight taste of cucumber. Parsley, rocket, sorrel, cress, salad burnet, lettuces, even microgreens – everything is growing, growing, growing, and I am hungry, and my thoughts turn, as always, to soup.

I eat soup every day, for lunch and often dinner too. It was not always thus. Good soup requires maturity, patience, kindness, generosity and self-control, virtues I lacked in my twenties. Then, I cooked little stir fries, quick and fast, and gobbled them up in minutes; or grabbed a sandwich on the run. But I am older now, and don’t need the immediate fix. I am able to cook extra, plan for tomorrow, let things simmer for an hour or two, and make enough for friends.

I look for a steaming green stew, thick with kale and other good things, and reminiscent of the goodness of compost; and pile it in a matte bowl which I nestle in my hands in momentary pause as I give thanks for warmth and nourishment.

Every year my kale soup takes a slightly different turn. Here is this year’s incarnation. Black kale forms the backbone, with its strong dark flavours. It’s leavened by chard and borage, and the bite of celery leaves, just the thing to chase away the winter blues. The trick is to cook everything slowly so that the soup develops great depth of flavour, brightened at the end with a few greens more lightly cooked and a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. A bowlful is a complete meal for lunch or dinner. I know the quantities seem enormous, but this soup went quickly at our house. Six of us ate it for dinner one night; and three finished it off at lunch the next day – just the thing for sharing.

Kale Soup, 2012 - 4 tbs olive oil - 3 red onions - 5 carrots - 1 entire head of celery, including the leaves - 2 heads garlic, cloves peeled - 1 can crushed tomatoes - 2 kg silver beet (aka Swiss chard. You can substitute up to 1 kg with rainbow chard and/or beet leaves, but no more because the silver beet stalks form part of the soup. Rainbow chard stalks and beet stalks are too thin and stringy.) - 1½ kg cavolo nero (black kale) - 3 cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained (or 250g dried cannellini beans, soaked and cooked) - 1 litre chicken stock or water - ½ kg borage (or use 2 kg cavolo nero) - a bunch of parsley - a small bunch of thyme - salt, pepper - parmesan, to serve - extra virgin olive oil, to serve Peel and chop the onions. Warm the olive oil in a large pot, and add the onions. While they are cooking, peel and chop the carrots roughly; and chop the celery – every bit, including the leaves. Add them to the soup pot, and cook over low heat, stirring from time to time, until they are beginning to brown. This will take up to half an hour. Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes; then add the tomatoes, and cook until the liquid has reduced down. Remove the stalks of the silver beet and chop them. Add them to the soup. Shred the leaves of the silver beet and cavolo nero. Throw all the cavolo nero and two thirds of the silver beet into the pot. You may have to do this in batches, mixing and stirring as the leaves collapse. Add the cannellini beans and the stock or water. Bring to the boil, then turn down to a gentle simmer and leave to cook for half an hour, stirring from time to time to ensure it doesn’t stick. Shred the borage leaves. Chop the parsley and thyme. Throw them in along with the reserved silver beet, and cook for a few minutes or until the borage has lost its hairiness. You want some of the leaves to retain their colour and crunch. Check for seasoning. Serve drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with freshly grated parmesan. Pass the pepper mill. A note on the greens: kale, especially black kale, should form the backbone of the soup because it holds its shape well; you don’t want the soup to be an unidentifiable sludge of miscellaneous greens. However, there is some flexibility in the other greens. I use chard and borage because I grow great quantities in my garden, and chard also holds its shape well; but if you don’t mind a more collapsed soup you might substitute in perhaps half a kilo of wilder greens for some of the chard or borage: nettles, perhaps, or amaranth, fat hen or mallow. Adapted from a recipe in The River Cafe Cookbook, which I cannot praise highly enough. (Backyard: cavolo nero, silver beet, rainbow chard, borage, parsley, thyme. Localish: onions, celery, garlic, olive oil, salt. Can’t remember: carrots. Way away: cannellini beans, canned tomatoes unless you canned your own, parmesan.)

Almond Coconut Bars

 

For a short time, my sister shared a house with a model. Skinny as a rake, the woman subsisted on boiled eggs, coconut oil and vitamin pills. It's not the sort of diet I would recommend; for one, I can't imagine the state of her bowels.

Which reminds me of a conversation I had a few months ago. My marriage was going through an arid patch, as relationships well into their second decade sometimes do, and I said to a friend rather airily, 'I could imagine having an affair, except of course for my vows.'

My friend looked at me wide-eyed, then collapsed laughing. She had heard, you see, not 'vows' but 'bowels' and had been overwhelmed momentarily by appalling thoughts regarding the state of mine.

Ghastly. But let us return to the model housemate, so to speak, and the coconut oil. According to many foodie types, when eaten in conjunction with more than boiled eggs it is actually good for you; and, in moderation, can help you lose weight. That is, I suppose, why she ate it. The arguments go on for pages, so I won't bore you with them here; suffice it to say that I was mulling over the purported health properties of coconut oil when I saw this jar of the stuff at my local shop:

 

Years ago, I wrote a column in which I suggested that the reason many people make consumer choices which keep others in slave-like conditions is that they do not connect the dots between a woman in a special economic zone in China, who works and lives in appalling conditions, and the t-shirt hanging on a rack at the local mall. Yet here was a jar of coconut oil showing, I presume, the sort of person who benefits when I buy fair trade. It connects the dots.

So I bought the coconut oil and sat it on a shelf in my pantry so that it catches my eye every time I open the door – and every time I see it, ten times a day, I find myself grinning. The woman's face makes me happy, and if that isn't an advertisement for fair trade socially sustainable products, even if they are from regions afar, then I don't know what is!

I left it there for a while, just to keep smiling, but I hadn't quite worked out what to do with it when my investigations took a surprising turn. Rather unexpectedly, I fell in love. Nothing to do with the long relationship; instead, I fell in love with, rather disastrously, a six dollar chocolate bar. It is one of those things free of everything: sugar, gluten, dairy – EXCEPT TASTE. It contains mostly almonds and various forms of coconut (coconut oil, shredded coconut), and is coated with cacao sweetened with coconut sugar. Even writing about it makes me drool.

Eco it is not. It is made in the US, and I shudder to think of the air miles of the coconut from somewhere tropical being shunted somewhere north, formulated into bars, then sent over the Pacific to Australia. It is clearly over-packaged. And it is, rather obviously, insanely expensive. A late-night google revealed that I can buy a box of 72 bars for a heavily discounted rate, but I prefer not to look like the side of a house before I turn 40 and thus I have restrained myself. But oh! that bar. It is not oversweet; instead, it is very, very satisfying and keeps me going for hours. From time to time I lash out and buy a single bar, hoovering it up in seconds – but then it occurred to me to try and make something similar.

So I looked around a bit more, and found these almond power bars (or words to that effect). They are nothing like the commercial bar, nor are they trying to be, but they have the same effect. Being choc-full of nuts and, if one believes the rhetoric about coconut oil, healthy fats, one of these keeps me on an even keel for hours. I eat one just before school pick up, and the slow steady release of energy helps me stay calm with the kids right up until dinner time.

I may not look like my sister's former housemate, and nor would I ever want to; yet this is the sort of food that helps me feel like a model mum: on an even keel, energetic, and happy.

 

Almond Coconut Bars - 1 cup almonds - 1 cup brazil nuts - ½ cup LSA - ½ cup shredded coconut - ½ cup almond butter - a good pinch of salt - ½ cup coconut oil - 1 tbs honey - 2 tsp proper vanilla essence (none of that nasty chemical stuff) - about 75g dark chocolate, optional Put the nuts, LSA, shredded coconut, almond butter and salt into a food processor. Pulse it to combine. Melt the coconut oil over low heat. Add the honey and vanilla to the oil, and stir together, then drizzle it all into the nut mixture. Pulse again until you have a coarse paste. The easiest thing here is to tip it all into a baking dish about 10cm x 10cm, pressing down with the back of a metal spoon to pack it in. Refrigerate for an hour or so. Slice with a warm knife into bars / squares / whatever takes your fancy. Store in the fridge. If, however, you like fiddling around, drop the mixture into silicon cups. I use a dozen silicon cupcake cups, filled less than a half (a full cupcake of this mix is enough to go crusading) plus a silicon ice cube tray in the shape of hearts. Keep the cups in a muffin tray so they retain their shape while being formed. Drop some mixture into each shape, then press down with the back of a metal spoon to pack it in. Place in the fridge for an hour to harden. You can pop the little shapes out of the ice cube tray and into a container for storage; and just place the cupcake shapes, silicon wrappers and all, into the container too. Store in the fridge. Optional: When the mix has set, melt the chocolate over very low heat. Stir constantly to ensure it doesn't catch and burn. Drizzle the chocolate over the bars / patties / whatever, then return them to the fridge to harden the chocolate. These make a great lunchbox snack, and they chase away the mid afternoon doldrums a treat. Of course, you can play with the nuts and the nut butter – macadamias, hazelnuts and pure almonds are all delicious. Tweaked from a recipe found here, which is based on a recipe found here which is in turn based on a recipe found here. (Backyard: almonds. Brunswick: honey. Way away, but apparently organic, shade grown and preserving both the Amazonian rainforest and a traditional way of life: brazil nuts. Wimmera: salt. Sumatra: coconut oil in an eco peco fair trade post-tsunami project. Organic but afar: shredded coconut, almond butter (must make my own one of these days). Organic fair trade: chocolate. Australian sourced but no more specific: LSA.)