Wild Potherbs: What Potential

I've read a lot recently about different potherbs, both wild and domesticated. Potherbs are basically any leafy vegetables that can be cooked and eaten as "greens." I am a fan of Swiss chard (hence me growing it), turnip greens, and spinach prepared this way, but until lately I had never considered using plants such as dandelion greens.

However, my recent move has given me easier access to weeds like dandelions, so I decided to cook some wild potherbs. Here was my method:

I cut some leaves off of a dandelion plant and a buckhorn plantain plant.

I didn't take pictures of my cooking method, sadly, but I just sautéed the leaves with a little butter on medium-high heat. It only took a couple of minutes before they were deep green and tender.

All the leaves I cut off cooked down to one big bite of greens. They were very bitter. The taste was not totally unpleasant, but it was much too strong. The reason I don't consider this experiment much of a failure was that I think these bitter wild greens would be great when combined with milder greens, like chard or spinach. That way they would lend some different flavors without overpowering one's senses.

Have you ever incorporated wild ingredients into your cooking? What were the results?

Next post: a further advance into summer's sunrise.

The Dawn of Summer, Part II



Today we continue our journey through the beginning of the bountiful season. Let's start with the reason I initiated this journey: irises. Irises fascinate me. Their many colors and elegant shapes, propped upon tall, slender stalks have resonated with me all my life.

 

Here are a couple of iris bushes, though shot from afar. Also, note the peony on the right.

 



This beautiful, buttery iris was in a cemetery near my house. I must be hungry (even if not, I've always got food on the brain)--this flower reminds me of popcorn.

Even if a patch of land is unkempt, irises always spruce it up, as shown here.

Another elegant plant nearby was this yucca.

But what's this? That, my friends, is the start of a beautiful bounty in the form of blooms. Yucca flowers, as I've said in other posts, are completely edible. You'd better believe that I'm going to scavenge some when they arrive. I don't exactly know what these flowers taste like, but I can see myself sautéing them with onions, garlic, corn, beans, and jalapenos, then serving that over rice with some pork brisket for a Southwestern dinner. That sounds excellent. Maybe I am hungry.

This passageway is an example of the great aesthetic feats plants can accomplish. No other material, organic or otherwise, could make this area look so inviting and mysterious. It reminds me of The Secret Garden.

Here's another yucca inflorescence stalk (read: stalk where flowers will grow) forming, this one farther along. If I knew what yucca tasted like, I'd almost be able to taste the flowers already.

I noticed a lot of weeds on my walkabout. These two plants are buckhorn plantains (Plantago lanceolata). Why are they significant? They're edible! Young leaves can be included in salads, and older leaves can be cooked like any other leafy green. Yes, I want to try this, and yes, I will post about it when I do.

A few years ago, this cemetery (which was originally a "colored cemetery" dating back to the Civil War) got a nice entrance gate and some landscaping around it. While it was a nice gesture, and it does look much better, there are silk flowers adorning the gate. However, there are also these pretty rose bushes. The peachy-pink blooms are unique, at least in town.

What evidence of summer have you found?

Next post: probably more moments in summer's morning.