Nettle soup

The stinging nettle is a much maligned plant, but is actually very useful and highly nutritious. They contain high quantities of iron and also vitamin C, which is needed for our bodies to make proper use of the iron, so they're great for correcting anaemia. They're also good for arthritis, rheumatism, gout and eczema. Free food and medicine! They make great soup, which is what we did yesterday:

You need to harvest them in the spring or early summer - any later and they taste slightly bitter. Just pick the sweet tops and discard any woody stems. And if you don't like being stung, wear gloves and long sleeves of course.

First we found a good healthy crop:



And we picked a couple of baskets full:



Next we warmed some olive oil in a big pan:



... chopped onions and cooked those in the oil on a medium heat until soft:



Next we chopped about 4 cloves of garlic and about 8 medium sized potatoes, cut into cubes about an inch wide, added these to the pan and stirred:



Next we put a couple of stock cubes in. We used vegetarian ones to cater for our non-meateaters, but meat stock is just as good:



Sprinkled them on...



And washed the nettles and put those in too.



Finally we added boiling water from the kettle - about 2 pints, but this would depend on the size of your pan obviously. We stirred it, then put the lid on and cooked for about 15 mins until the potatoes were soft.



Next it all got blended:



Until it looked like this:



And here's our chief taster, who went from "Ewww, I'm not eating nettles!" to "Mmmmm! Can I have some more please?" in about 3 minutes flat ;-)