Nettles. Stinging Nettles!

On the walk from the house to the garden, there is a patch of unkept shrubbery, weeds, and insects. In this mild forrest live the legendary stinging nettles, a wild edible that you must wear gloves to touch. Well, we've been experimenting with the little devils, and low and behold...... have found a way to EAT them and all their stinging glory. Allow me to explain.

Michelle and I gear up in pants and boots to protect our legs, and bravely trample through the nettles, cutting them about six inches from the top (to ensure that they are cut enough so that they don't flower, but not too much so that they grow back and Turquoise Barn may delight in the stinging nettles in the future)

Back in the kitchen, and still sporting gloves, we detach the leaves from the stem, separating the larger ones from the smaller ones at the top. The larger ones are more bitter, and are best used as tea. So we use the smaller leaves to concoct a delicious green smoothie for a mid-morning snack. What happened to the stinging part of the stinging nettles, you say? Well, I don't know. I could kind of feel a strange tingling on my tongue and in the back of my throat while drinking the smoothie, so I guess that's what happened to them. But nothing to deter anyone from trying this delicious, nutritious, wild edible!
Michelle then puts the larger leaves in her fancy, raw foodist's necessity, the dehydrator, for a few hours. And the results: no-longer-stinging stinging nettles!

Ah, a pot of nettles tea. Mixed with a little mint from the herb garden. Hot. or iced. Sweet. or Unsweet. And made with love!