Some of you left comments here on Sunday, asking how we like to prepare our nettles. We’ve prepared them many different ways, but my favorite way to prepare them lately is to cook them in homemade bone broths and Jeff’s favorite way has been to juice them. Both ways are being well loved around here. In the past we’ve steamed them, sauteed them, and dried them. Today I brought the camera along to share our nettles-to-kitchen journey. Nearly every morning we go out to the garden and harvest food for breakfast.

 This morning Bracken helped me harvest kale. We usually harvest some chives too. Occasionally we’ll pick some collard greens to cook with the kale or fresh watercress to put in a salad. Bracken always goes over and nibbles on fresh mint leaves out of the mint bed (which I believe is what is in his teeth in this picture.)

 There’s Jeff down in the nettles patch. We’ve been harvesting a colander of nettles every morning. We don’t bring Bracken along for that, so Jeff and I take turns. This week Jeff’s been doing most of the nettles harvesting while Bracken and I do the harvesting in the garden. We cut off the tops of the nettles and as they grow back, will continue harvesting for a long time.

 Jeff with this morning’s nettles harvest (and his warm camouflage suit that makes it so he can work outside in the cold mornings and be toasty warm.)

 Wearing tall boots and gloves, always nice for nettles harvesting.

 We used half in our breakfast and half to juice.

I captured this on our second morning trip outside. Daydream sweetness. Too sweet not to post.

Bracken putting on my gloves because he wanted to help Jeff build.

 Jeff showing how he cuts them (easier and faster than cutting off each individual leaf) to put in broth, keeping the leaves. We save the stems for juicing and all the nettles that he juices, he leaves the stems on those.

This was the breakfast I made this morning. First I heated up some homemade chicken broth on the stove and added the nettles. I cut up the kale with scissors and added it to the broth. (It’s much easier to eat in those smaller pieces.) I cut up some carrots and also put in some dried wakame (seaweed) flakes. In the cast iron pan, I cooked some grass-fed ground beef and liver in home-rendered lard from pastured pigs. I sprinkled onion and garlic granules on top as it cooked. Then added some of our homemade sauerkraut on the side and some fresh cilantro. It was a nourishing, delicious breakfast.

 The nettles have been very welcome green goodness in our meals lately.

 I forgot to get a picture of the juice Jeff made. Next time.

 P.S. I made scrambled eggs for dinner with some turkey eggs we got from a local farm. One was so huge, I told Jeff it looked like a dinosaur egg. I took a picture of it as a little sunlight came in the kitchen this evening, poking through the cloudy day. It turned out to be a double yolker.