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[ID: A saag topped with small purple flowers. An aloo sabzi is to the left; at bottom, a pile of parathas with sprigs of dead nettle on top. End ID]

Punjabi-style dead-nettle ka saag

One of the first wild edibles that you'll spot in spring is Lamium purpureum—commonly called purple dead-nettle, red dead-nettle, or, more romantically, purple archangel. This flowering plant is unrelated to true stinging nettles: it earned its name because its leaves look a bit like those of a true nettle, but it doesn't sting (thus it is "dead").

Purple dead-nettle spreads aggressively, but is very mild-mannered when it comes to flavor. This makes it a great choice for saag, stir-fries, and anything else that you can spice to taste. This saag is flavored with aromatics, black cardamom, cloves, and Kashmiri chili, to give it a well-rounded, smoky, complex aroma and flavor.

[ID: Close-up on a sprig of dead-nettle with parathas and saag in the background. End ID]

Recipe under the cut!

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Ingredients:

For the dish:

350g dead nettle, leaves, stems, and flowers

3 cloves garlic

1-inch chunk (10g) ginger, julienned

1 red onion, roughly chopped

2 green chilis, sliced

Makki ka atta (cornmeal)

Salt, to taste

For the tadka:

Mustard oil, or vegetarian ghee

1 pinch hing (asafoetida)

1 green chili, slit

1 dried Kashmiri chili

2 pods black cardamom

2 cloves

1 tej patta (Indian bay leaf)

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1-inch chunk (10g) ginger, julienned

1 red onion, thinly sliced

2 tomatoes, diced

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp turmeric

Instructions:

For the dish:

1. Fill a large bowl with cool water. Wash the dead-nettle by floating it (hold a bundle by the stems and swish it around in the water, without scraping it along the bottom).

2. Finely chop dead-nettle.

3. Combine dead-nettle, garlic, ginger, onion, and chilis in a large pot and add water to cover. Simmer, partially covered, for about 20 minutes, until softened.

4. Use an immersion blender to bring the saag to your desired texture.

5. Add makki ka atta and cook for another 5 minutes, until thickened.

For the tadka:

6. In a large pan, heat oil or ghee. Fry hing, Kashmiri chili, black cardamom, cloves, and tej patta for 30 seconds to a minute, until fragrant.

7. Add garlic, ginger, red onion, and chilis and fry until onion is browned.

8. Add garam masala and turmeric and fry for a few seconds. Add tomato and salt and cook until almost dry.

To combine:

9. Add the tadka to the rest of the dish and mix to combine. Simmer for another 5 minutes, adding water as necessary. Taste and adjust salt.

Identifying dead-nettle

See this post.

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Calotropis procera, milkweed/latex plant pod. It's squishy!

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y'all ever reach the end of google

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I'm trying to make a good pot roast in my crockpot, but after I take it out it gets dry. It's on "low" (whatever that means) for 8 hours. I've tried searing it before and still dry. It's submerged in plain water with some herbs and spices for that time. Am I over/undercooking it? It's a cut with low fat %, is that why?

I love you. I think you learned how to make pot roast from someone on Opposite Day, or perhaps April 1st. The only thing you got right is 'low heat for 8 hours'.

Choose a fatty cut of tough meat. Look for lots of fat marbling on a Chuck roast or Shoulder roast. Tough meat has a ton of flavor, and the fat keeps the meat from drying out. The long cook time on low heat, plus acids will make 'tough' meat into a pull-apart, melt-in-your-mouth glory.

Make sure the meat is completely thawed, NOT frozen.

Plain water and nothing else except herbs/spices is.... not what I'd do. A lot of flavor can come into the broth when you add whole carrots (minus the carrot top!) and quartered onions in there. I'm a fan of adding some big chunks of pumpkin or butternut squash and chunks of turnip as well.

I think using red wine for part of the liquid base, and adding a hearty helping of worcestershire sauce will also help the flavor and making the meat 'melty.' The acid and alcohol will draw more, and different flavors from the meat and vegetables that water alone cannot do. Makes it richer.

For my very best pot roast recipe, which had my wedding guests fuckin' clamoring to get the recipe; I cheat. I'm not ashamed of that fact. For the richest, most face-punchingly meaty tasting broth, go to an asian market (or online) and find a mushroom hot pot soup base. It'll be a thick liquid inside a bag, which you then dilute with water. Use THAT as the liquid base (remember to dilute it!), and add your wine and wocestershire sauce to it, along with those herbs & spices. Your whole face will be blown off with flavor. It's the best.

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Homesteading survival knowledge

Growing Food:

The basics of Growing Food

Crops to grow for Maximum Production

Seed Starting Plan

Grow transplants for free

How to get Seeds for Free

How to find good soil for Free

Amending the Soil

How to Collect Seeds

Re-potting and care for tomato transplants

Growing dry beans

Growing Garlic

How to grow a lot of Leek

Plants going to Seed Explained

Food you can grow and eat in the Winter

Climate change and Food Security

Plant Lemon Trees from Seed

Why is rain much more effective than watering?

Stashing Food

Storing the Food from your Garden

Living in nature and food conservation

Making a Meal from foraged and Garden Food in Winter

Sun-drying Strawberries

Sun-drying Cherry Tomatoes

Citrus Tips

Canning

Blackberry Jam

Strawberry Jam

Salsa (tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic)

Đuveđ (mixed vegetables preserve)

Ajvar (preserved peppers)

Preserved sugar Cherries

Foraging: 

Edible Mushrooms that grow on trees

Edible Wild Plants to Forage for in Spring

Make Honey out of Dandelions

How to cook with Nettle

Incredible value of Pine Needles

Herbalism

Rose Water

On herbal infusions and poison tea

Herbs to Collect for Tea

How to safely make Elderberry Syrup

Yarrow and Lemon Balm

Basic Medicinal Herbal Tea Uses

Tree Care:

How to grow trees

Where are the Tree Roots?

What is Root Flare

Tree Pruning Mistakes

Types of Pruning cuts

How to Prune Correctly

Other:

Building a Cob House

How to make Earthen Floors

Cooking with minimal use of heat

Processing Forest Clay

How to hand-work clay

How to make laundry detergent out of conkers

Creating baskets out of Newspapers

How to keep your space cool during heat waves

How trees create a living atmosphere

How to get rid of ants

Survival Recipes

What garden plants can be used as poison

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My sister’s terrarium garden is one of the loveliest things I’ve ever seen.

Photos by Heidi.

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I started with succulents like everyone else but tbh orchids are rapidly becoming my plant blorbos. Everyone takes care of them wrong and it's not your FAULT because the care instructions that come with them are!! Incorrect!!! If you do what they say then your orchid will die!!!! If you give them the right environment they're SO easy. They're such easy plants to grow. They have been UNFAIRLY SLANDERED by a MISINFORMATION campaign. They don't deserve this.

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is there anyone out there with a nyt cooking subscription

will they send me the chamomile tea cake with strawberry icing recipe

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I just want to remind everyone how affordable buying food from indigenous tribes is. I live in a major city and I was able to purchase and ship (15) pounds of fish from back home to myself for cheaper than I could buy it from a grocery store here in the city. Yeah, shipping has its own environmental factors but I was able to support an indigenous owned business while also getting my groceries at a lesser cost. (Buying in bulk is always a good idea if you’re planning on having something shipped to you)

Some tribal owned grocers that ship:

Bow and Arrow (Ute Mountain)

Native Harvest (White Earth)

Red Lake Fishery (Red Lake)

Wozupi (Mdewakanton Dakota)

Ramona Farms (Gila River)

Tanka Bars (Oglala)

Indian Pueblo Store (Pueblos)

Twisted Cedar Wine (Cedar Paiutes)

Ute Bison (Ute)

Seka Hills Olive Oil and Vinegars (Yocha Dehe Wintun)

She Nah Nam Seafood (Nisqually)

Sakari Botanicals (Inupiaq)

Honor the Earth (? Anishinaabe)

Nett Lake Wild Rice (Boise Forte Anishinaabe)

Passamaquoddy maple (Passamaquoddy)

BONUS: coffee :)

Yeego Coffee (Navajo)

Spirit Mountain Roasting (Yuma Quechan)

Birchbark Coffee (Anishinaabe)

Thunder Island Coffee (Shinnecock)

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The preschool is buying heirloom sunflower seed in bulk. We’re going to make a ‘Sunflower House’.

How to grow a sunflower house

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HEY YOU

YES YOU

Do you wanna know about

MUSHROOMS?

Well do I have the post for you

These are

Jelly Tooth Fungi

(Jelly Tooth Fingi)

The scientific name for this fungi is Pseudohydnum gelatinosum

AND HES EDIBLE

That's right folks

You can NOM this shroom

Although it's bland when cooked, they can be candied and produce a

CHEWY LITTLE GUMMY

Look at this guy

Look how cute he is

They also feel REALLY COOL

You can smack him and he jiggles

They're tiny little guys

They decompose decaying wood!

Found all across North America

Be them bland as they may, they add a lovely texture in soup!!

You can marinate them and put them in salads!

It can be kind of hard to find them since they're sparse and usually, there aren't very many in any given area.

They're also called

Cat Tongue Fungi

(Cat tongue fungi)

Which I think is significantly less fun and less appealing

But like

LOOK AT THEM

The babies

I just wanna gobble him up

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it's definitely my predisposition to extreme frugality+redneck engineering, but i'm now obsessed with creating things literally without buying Anything. no supplies no tools no nothing, only the stuff you can just find outside, like Plants, Sticks, and Rocks.

I'm making textiles with nothing but foraged plant materials using no tools except sticks. Nature allows you to do this! There's no rules! I mean okay well maybe there might be some rules sometimes but they're just weak human rules! The plants themselves? They're like "Why sure! You can make yarn with nothing but fibers from the dead stem I don't need anymore, a couple sticks from that tree over there, and your own body and mind! Why not?"

Plants like to give us gifts! And nobody has the power to stop them!

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“A daffodil bulb will divide and redivide endlessly. That’s why, like the peony, it is one of the few flowers you can find around abandoned farmhouses, still blooming and increasing in numbers fifty years after the farmer and his wife have moved to heaven, or the other place, Boca Raton. If you dig up a clump when no one is nearby and there is no danger of being shot, you’ll find that there are scores of little bulbs in each clump, the progeny of a dozen or so planted by the farmer’s wife in 1942. If you take these home, separate them, and plant them in your own yard, within a couple of years, you’ll have a hundred daffodils for the mere price of a trespassing fine or imprisonment or both. I had this adventure once, and I consider it one of the great cheap thrills of my gardening career. I am not advocating trespassing, especially on my property, but there is no law against having a shovel in the trunk of your car.” 

― Cassandra Danz, Mrs. Greenthumbs: How I Turned a Boring Yard into a Glorious Garden and How You Can, Too

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Turnips grown in moulds.

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you just know a bog leech lives deliciously

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won't beef with people younger than me because that's embarrassing for me. won't beef with people older than me because that's embarrassing for them. won't beef with people my age because i know we both have better shit to be doing. peace and lovr on planet earth