Spring starts in just a couple of weeks (what!!!) and with it will come the first weeds on your green roof. Some people view it as just a huge nuisance. Often I collect a ton of dandelions, but don't know what I can do with them. This year, I am prepared.
There are lots of pretty books on the market. If you view the table of contents for The Wild Food Gourmet you'd think recipes like Lamb's Quarters Flan (page 60) would be time consuming to prepare. But most of the recipes only require 6 or 7 ingredients. I should mention there are a ton of mushroom recipes. Somehow I feel like that's cheating...mushrooms are rarely the focal point of a meal and taste good with little effort.
Two other beautiful books are The Wild Food Gourmets and Wild Table. Both are written by executive chefs and are all about living the good life and learning to appreciate and incorporate wild edibles into your meals. You will definitely need time to prepare some of these meals (Game Soup on page 57 of The Wild Food Gourmets has 20 ingredients!)
If you want a book for the green stuff, there are a couple of fantastic ones to try. Edible Garden Weeds of Canada teaches you how to recognize the plant, where to find it, how to use it and other names it might go by. The spring salad deluxe and weed stew seem fantastic with at least 10 different common weeds in one dish! Have a look at Wild in the Kitchen as well. Divided equally between fruits and veggies, the recipes are simple and I wouldn't mind trying Wild Apple Chutney (page 76) or Lamb Quarters Sun Dried Tomato Pasta (page 97) among others.
Lastly A Feast of Weeds is worth checking out. No pictures, all text. Just a few ingredients, it seems, can turn many of these undesirables into finger-licking goodness. One other thing I learned. When in doubt, put your weed in risotto. This book has 13 risotto recipes, including blackberry, borage, daisy, nettle, wild asparagus!!!
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