stinging nettles

I have chosen nettles as my wild ally this year…have you chosen your ally yet? There are lots of plants popping up out there: dandelion, chickweed, violent, nettles, burdock, garlic mustard.

We relocated some nettles to our backyard last year, and this year an abundant crop has sprung up. Yesterday Ella and I harvested some young nettles, steamed them, blended them with egg and kneaded them into buckwheat flour to make our own gluten-free buckwheat nettle noodles!

Here is what we did:

1. Harvest young stinging nettles. You’ll need three cups of chopped fresh nettles (which will steam way down) for the pasta. *When harvesting and chopping fresh nettles, you may want to use gloves to avoid being stung.*
2. We are gluten free so we like to make our own flour, which we do easily in our Vitamix. Today we ground buckwheat groats into flour and used 2 cups, plus extra for kneading on.


buckwheat groats ground into flour using our vitamix

3. Place steamed nettles and two eggs into a blender and mix.
4. On a table or in a bowl, make a pile of flour with a well in the middle.
5. Put the nettle/egg mixture in the well and mix/knead into the flour
6. If too sticky, add more flour.
7. Place dough ball under wet cloth and let it “rest” for 15 minutes.
8. Cut about a fourth of the dough off and roll it out on a floured surfaced as thinly as possible. (If you have a pasta maker by all means use it!) Cover the dough you are not rolling with the wet cloth.


rolling out the pasta

9. Cut into strips and set aside as you continue to roll and cut all the pasta.
10. Place the pasta in boiling water and cook about 3 minutes (fresh pasta does not need much time to cook.)
11. Drain pasta. I returned it to the pot and added some butter, fresh chopped tomatoes and salt while I sauteed the rest of the veggies, which I then mixed in.
12. In a separate pan in butter, saute 1/2 large onion, 1 clove garlic, 1/2 cup chopped mushrooms and 1 cup chopped fresh nettles. (You may want to use gloves while chopping the nettles.)
13. Mix into noodles, add salt to taste and enjoy!

I hope you enjoy this recipe! This vegetarian recipe can easily be made vegan by substituting olive oil or earth’s best margarine for the butter. I’ll be sharing lots more things I do this year with my wild ally, nettles. If you haven’t gotten a chance to check out The Wild Ally Workbook, please do!

You’ll also find a video review of vitamix blenders here, along with a coupon code for free shipping!

Have a great day!

Melissa Sokulski
Food Under Foot

Many people ask me what is the best way to learn about wild edible plants: and how I specifically learned about wild edible plants.

I have spent many years studying herbal medicine. First I learned local plants: how to identify them and how they can be used medicinally. Then in acupuncture school I took an intensive three year program on Chinese medical herbalism as well as acupuncture. What surprised me most was that ancient Chinese herbs like Pu Gong Ying to clear fire toxin and Pu Huang to stop bleeding were none other than common dandelion and cattail pollen!

As I searched through the nearly 400 herbs in our Chinese Materia Medica I recognized many from my own backyard! Many were not only medicinal, but edible as well.

But how did I first learn?

Growing up, a lawn was simply a field of grass to me. I recognized dandelion because I liked to blow the seeds off them, burdock because I always seemed to be picking it off my clothing, and clover because I knew to watch out for bees around it. But I had no idea they were edible or medicinal until I began studying herbal medicine. Then suddenly there were seemingly millions of little plants, flowers and leaves around; how would I be able to get a handle on all of them?

Here is the trick: don’t try to learn them all. Just pick one and learn it really well.

Choose your favorite wild edible plant: maybe it’s nettles, they’re up now. Or choose one you can definitely recognize and that grows in abundance: possibly dandelion (that was mine!) Study it carefully from the moment it emerges in the spring until the last leaf dies off in fall. Visit it everyday. Photograph it. Draw pictures of it. Pick it. Dry it. Tincture it. Read everything you can about it.

dandelion flowers

Try everything you read about it: dandelion flower essence is supposed to soothe sore muscles. You can make flower essences by floating the dandelion flower in water in the sun for a day, then halve the water in a bottle with brandy that has been aged in oak. (I read this in a book about making flower essences.) Then put four drops of this into another bottle of water: this is your stock bottle. Then put two drops of that into another bottle: finally you have your flower essence. Does it work? Try it…maybe dandelion will be your ally and you will make some. Try some drops in water under your tongue, try some in your bath, try some in massage oil.

Chicory is a Bach flower remedy to take when you feel like no one appreciates you and you are filled with self pity. Maybe Chicory is your ally and you’ll want to make this flower essence.

Chicory flower

Record everything you do and every result. That is where the workbook comes in.

I have created a workbook full of suggested ways to choose your ally, and to study it once you choose. There is space in there for your pictures, photographs, thoughts, experiments, recipes. There are directions for making tinctures, vinegars and oils, among other things.

This guided workbook will help you get to know your plant in depth. And once you really know one plant and how to use it, you will be surprised at how the world of wild edible plants (and herbal medicine) just opens up for you. The better you learn about your one plant, the more easily you will learn every other plant, because suddenly everything will make sense. You will enter the plant world and it will not seem so daunting or overwhelming to you anymore.

I hope you enjoy the workbook and the journey you take to study wild edible plants. Now is the best time to start: more and more plants are emerging from the ground every day.

You’ll find the workbook here.

Enjoy the spring!

Melissa Sokulski, L.Ac.
Food Under Foot