Nourishment for the soul.
Ahhhh! It is finally cool outside. Cool enough to pop the furnace on for a few minutes in the morning. Cool enough to welcome my children into my bed so I can siphon off some of their body heat. Cool enough that I get to wear cardigans and boots! Cool enough that a small flush of young stinging nettles emerges in my garden. Cool enough for soup.
All of my favorite foods are winter foods. Rich stews, steamy soups. Savory pies and casseroles. I decided to make a pot of steamy nettle & potato soup. Most recipes call to blend it all up, but I just cannot handle the texture of blended soups. I’d rather them remain chunky and biteable.
Stinging Nettles {Urtica dioica}
- Nutritive powerhouse. Notably
- magnesium, B complex, calcium
- Blood Builder-more iron than
- spinach!
- Diuretic
- Anti-histamine
- Anti-inflammatory
- Tonic
- Vulnerary (tissue repair)
- Cooling & Dring energetics
- You can make tinctures and use in
- medicinal tea blends as well as the
- cornerstone-nourishing herbal
- infusion.
- Saute fresh nettles instead of
- spinach
- Add to spreadable cheeses (chevre)
- Add to soups-or make a nettle
- soup
- Pesto
- Broth
- Add to baked goods
Gather your ingredients. When harvesting nettles, choose young plants and just snip off the first or second set of leaves (if you aren’t versed in handling them, wear gloves).
Now, I am not one to be precise with ingredients-especially in soup making, but in general here is what I had:
- 1/2 gallon broth (I used chicken broth. You can get the recipe here)
- 1/2 yellow onion diced
- 6ish cloves of garlic
- 2 cups fresh young nettles roughly chopped
- 1 bag of small yellow potatoes quartered
- few tablespoons of olive oil
- salt, pepper, cayenne to taste
- I also topped off my bowl with caramelized onions that I keep in the fridge
- optional: sour cream, bacon, shredded cheese (Gouda or Gruyere would be AMAZING)
Heat pot over medium heat. Add olive oil. Sauté onions and garlic until soft. Add broth, potatoes, nettles, and spices. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer. Allow to simmer for 20 minutes or potatoes are soft. At this point, you are welcomed to use an immersion blender and blend it up, but I cannot stand the texture so I leave it alone.
I top off with a spoonful of caramelized onions and eat with a nice chunk of buttery sourdough-because what is soup but an excuse to eat a ton of buttered bread?
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Three Common Weeds
Embracing the Changing of Seasons.
Recipes
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