Listening to: Thornsmoat by HVØSCH (the soundtrack to my untimely death)

What’s more BRVTAL than going out to the forest and picking stinging plants with your favorite bandmates? Okay, I can think of a few things, but this is pretty badass. Stinging nettles grow pretty much anywhere, I collect these from the bog 2 blocks from my house. 

Nettle Pesto- Yields 1.5 cups 

This recipe is *not* for canning, due to the dairy and oil. You could freeze it in an ice cube tray or something else to portion it nicely.

• 1/4 lb of stinging nettles, leaves only, which for me was one small produce bagful. It might look like a lot, but it will shrink down considerably when blanched. 
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan or grana padano 
• 1/4 cup walnuts, or pine nuts if you’ve got the dough
• 1 large lemon, zested and juiced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup olive oil, probably more as needed
• 3 Tbs salt
  Special equipment: Blender or mortar and pestle or food processor

0. Collect the nettles. I recommend using gloves, maybe you’re more TRVE than I am. Pick only the new growth top 3 or 4 leaves on each plant. Rule Number One of foraging is “Don’t Be a Dick” and leave some for others, even when it’s a pest plant like nettles are. You never know who wants this garbage other than your crunchy ass. 
1. Blanch the nettles: Boil water in a large pot. Prepare an ice water bath, keep in the fridge until it’s needed. After washing the nature out of the nettles, plop them all in the boiling water, or in batches if you have a small pot. Boil the nettles for about 2 minutes and use tongs to dunk them into the ice water to stop them from cooking any longer. This deactivates the stinging part of the plant. Taste the blanched nettles, don’t be a pussy. Know your raw ingredients. Remove the nettles from the ice bath and wring out the water. All of the nettles you collected should be the size of a baseball. Roughly chop these, no need to get fancy with it.
2. Add the cheese, nuts, lemon juice and zest, salt, garlic, and about a third of the olive oil into the blender until it moves by itself and is in smaller chunks. Take a break to enjoy the devastation HVØSCH is unleashing on your earholes.
3. Add the nettles and slowly add in the rest of the oil as it’s processing until it moves by itself. If you’re doing this by hand, godspeed. It should be a little bit chunky, not a purée. Adjust lemon and salt to taste.

This goes really well with homemade pasta, or regular ass pasta too. I’ve even made pasta with a tablespoon of this pesto in the dough for flavor. You know I like to go all extra when I do stuff like this. It would be nice in a layered pasta bake, pizza base, or even just as a dip. 

Nettles are one of those strange items I never thought I’d eat, but working in the kitchens taught me otherwise. We would receive these in the summer and have an all-prep-crew picking party, where each of us would triple up on nitrile gloves and pick the leaves from the huge bundles we’d receive. Three pillow sized bags would yield about 8 qts of leaves, which would yield about 3 qts of blanched nettles for service. They were served on a pizza with a cheese base, probably with chicken and sun-dried tomatoes. I loved snacking on the blanched nettles, they taste “green” like chlorophyll and earthy on their own. 

I’ve always been extremely cautious about foraging since I’ve moved to WA. When I lived in Southern California, a barren wasteland, there wasn’t much to pick that wasn’t on private property that wasn’t citrus. Since moving to WA, I’ve found myself identifying and picking mainly fruit trees, berry bushes, and a few varieties of mushrooms. I’m still learning a lot about our environment up here and what can be used. Always ask permission on private property before picking, and follow the rules if it’s a national park. I’ve found that everyone and their mother has some kind of a fruit bearing tree in their yard, so ask your local Buy Nothing or neighborhood page. I do what I can to divert produce from rotting on the floor of someone’s yard while simultaneously saving myself a lot of money for my hobbies.