SPRING SOUP

ASPARAGUS+FENNEL+NETTLE

If you have seen my Instagram feed, you know that I've chosen to be a cook for a whole weekend. My husband had a birthday on Friday so one part of his present is to let him just enjoy of eating - not making it. He likes to cook a lot but you know who wouldn't like to just sit at the readymade table?

I found great inspiration from Green Kitchen Stories blog. You can find the original recipe there.  Actually I saw their delicious pic in IG. Surprise! It really looked very tempting. 

So I made it. But I made some changes to the recipe. I changed spinach to nettle, because you can find it almost right next to our door this time of the year (yay!...and it's free ;) and it is also very healthy. Second change was replacing lemon with buckthorn juice. I can't eat citrus fruits so I used very scandinavian choise that is quite similar or at least a bit close ;) and garnishing with goutweed. That you can also find from garden (too) easily.

What can I say. It tasted heavenly. Very good and the toppings! I haven't thought it well before that you really can do amazing things with toppings. You don't have to eat so much bread (expecially if it have to be gluten free) you can eat some really nice things with your soup like here: lentils, asparagus, parsley, green chili, pumkin seeds and cashew cream. So this recipe is also totally vegan too.

One big nod to David and Luise for this beautiful and tasteful recipe. I had to write it down to my vintage (straight from the seventies - it has only plastic artifical food things in it's cover) recipe book and that is a book where we only write the best ones.

Have a tasty Sunday!

xo

Kreetta

ps. I took this photo with my husband's camera because I was too lazy to take my camera home and yesterday when I made the soup I just had to photograph it. He has smaller and older Canon and the lens was Voightländer 90mm and with cropped sensor it's really tele...and only manual focusing...it's always a bit uncomfortable when you don't have your own gear and well, you have to work a bit more with making one pic, I say.

Kevään ekat villiyrtit - The first wild edibles

goutweed

Villiyrtti cooking book

Our first wild edible guest to kitchen came straight from our garden or actually next to our garden and it is goutweed. It's fine green addition to fish and egg. I know it's also gardener's nightmare but you can eat it...in Finnish you can find a book called Villiyrttikeittokirja by Sami Tallberg. It's full of great recipes and information about wild edibles. The most important thing with wild edibles is to recognize them correctly! There's great Finnish help tool in internet luontoportti.com and you can use it in 8 languages - so go for it! I also found few wild edibles iPhone apps...so there's a lot information out there and wild edibles are closer than you think.


Addition to post 16/05/12:  goutweed - I forgot totally tell you how to do it. It's simple - just take the leaves off and wash them and cut in shape you want to and then fry them in pan with butter or oil for few minutes. And they are ready to serve as a side dish...

Tänään ruokapöytäämme saapui kevään ensimmäisenä villiyrttinä vuohenputki. Se on monen puutarhurin painajainen mutta onneksi syötävä sellainen. Villiyrteistä on tietoa sekä painettuna että verkossa. Sami Tallbergin Villiyrttikeittokirjan uudempi versio vuodelta 2011 tarjoaa monenmoista mahdollisuutta hyödyntää luonnonkasveja. Ja verkosta löytyy hyvä paikka opiskella villiyrttejä osoitteesta luontoportti.com. 


Ah.. ja aika hyvä setti tuli lautaselle. Poimittua vuohenputkea, pyydettyä siikaa, luomukananmunaa, soijajogurttikastiketta ja suomalaista kurkkua.  Eikä tarvitse edes lähteä kauas. Syötäviä villiyrttejä voit löytää jopa pihamaaltasi. Eikun kipin kapin luontoportin tai kirjakaupan kautta pihamaalle tai läheiseen metsään. Ja sattuipa tuossa silmiin myös pari ihka oikeaa englanninkielistä iPhone appsiakin aiheesta, kun puhelin tulee kuitenkin metsään mukaan. Helpottaa löytöretkeilijää nämä kaikki kunhan muistat tärkeimmän: poimi vain sellaisia villiyrttejä, jotka tunnistat varmasti.

Lisäys 16/05/12: Unohdin kertoa: vuohenputki valmistetaan seuraavanlaisesti: leikkaa lehdet pois ja pese varret. Leikkaa ne haluamallasi tavalla ja paista niitä muutama minuutti voin tai öljyn kera pannulla. Voila, valmista tarjoiltavaksi.

evening light

goutweed in front

monday dinner