Horseweed pesto with foraged backyard weeds

In the winter of 2021, when Texas was completely covered in layers of ice and snow, experiencing completely unprecedented levels of prolonged cold, we lost many of the bushes from the front of our house. 

These bushes, while not exactly my style, were planted originally when the house was built in 1974, making them a touch older than I am. These were large bushes too, over 4 feet tall, and each covering a diameter of about 6 feet or so. They left a considerable amount of bare ground in their absence. 

Since then, my husband and I have been at an impasse on what to do with the space. Ultimately we want to cover it with low-water, low-maintenance (no maintenance, really) native plants or shrubs, but everything we've tried to do ourselves has been . . . unattractive at best or straight up dies within days at worst. We will most likely have to hire a landscaper who specializes in that sort of thing, but for now, we have better things to spend money on. 

Right now, its a very messy patch of wild plants--weeds to be honest, which I try to keep below the legal height (12") for weeds in our town. I would love if native or low-water wildflowers would move in, and I've tried to plant daisies, lavender, sage. . .but mostly just the wild lettuce abounds. 

I don't care for wild lettuce, its quite bitter. 

Horseweed patch last week, 
this week it was over 12 inches tall!

On the plus side, a large patch of horseweed has taken over the area near the house, FINALLY giving me access to enough clean horseweed to cook with. You see, I usually find horseweed in all sorts of unsavory areas, such as the cracks in the sidewalk in downtown Dallas. Sometimes it even grows up through the storm drains from the sewer. Not appetizing. 

So even though I've known about horseweed for years, this has been the first chance I've had to really experiment with it in the kitchen, from a source I know to be clean and contaminate free. 

My husband, who prefers a tidy yard, is being extremely patient with me, so long as I keep it from growing too tall, as horseweed can grow to nearly 5 feet!

I was doing alight for a while nipping bits here and lopping the tops of plants there, but all of the sudden the patch decided it was gonna GROW. In one week the plants ranged from 4" - 6" to 12"-18", and my husband was like, "we need to harvest and use a LOT of horseweed this weekend".

The largest plant in the yard, separate from the main patch. 
It shot up to 2feet from 8inches in one week!

With that in mind, I decided to try a pesto, and I'm glad I did. 

A pesto is one of the best ways to get a comprehensive sense of the flavor profile of a plant. Just nibbling on a leaf really doesn't give your palette enough to draw on. When I taste horseweed raw, all I taste is herbs, mostly oregano and parsley. While horseweed tastes great raw, when cooked a whole new array of flavors open up. 

Honestly the plant tastes like an herbal blend. I get the freshness of parsley upfront, with a citrus-y brightness, like a mix of lime and grapefruit zest, after that the herbal oregano flavor hits, and then the sweetness of anise on the back of the palette. Really quite spectacular. 

People keep telling me I need to try horseweed tea, and while I'm generally not a weedy tea kinda gal, the flavor of the pesto and the smell of the cooked horseweed makes me want to try it. 

Disclaimer: At first I thought the walnuts were too strong for the horseweed, but after tossing it with the pasta, they mellowed out and the flavors really came together. That said, I would use fewer walnuts next time. One thing I would recommend is cutting down the number of walnuts you use, as indicated by my picture above. 

Horseweed pesto

1 colander full of horseweed leaves and very soft tops 

1 1/2 lb dried pasta 
3 tablespoons of walnuts
4 oz of parmesan or other hard cheese, or vegan cheese, roughly sliced
1/3 cup of olive oil + extra 

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

salt 

1. Start around 4-6 cups of lightly salted water boiling in a large pot for the pasta. 
2. Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a small frypan; toast the walnuts, tossing occasionally, until blackened on at least one side. Remove the nuts from the pan.
3. Heat more olive oil in the frypan, add in the garlic and sauté, stirring, until garlic is fragrant, soft and ever so slightly darkened. Remove from heat. 
4. When the water comes to a boil, blanch the horseweed before straining out with a slotted spoon. Then add the pasta to the water. 
5. While the pasta continues to cook, add the blanched horseweed, the blackened walnuts, the cheese, garlic and olive oil to a food processor and puree. If needed, pause to push down the sides before continuing. Taste and season with salt as needed. 
6. Toss with the cooked pasta, I found that this coats about one and a half pounds of pasta to the coverage I like, shown in the pic at the top. 

This pesto is delicious immediately, but it's just as good reheated later, as the flavors will come together more. 

You can make this dish vegan with vegan cheese. 

Pasta fagioli with foraged horseweed, edible wild weedy plant

Pasta fagioli, pronounced pasta fazool by my Italian American in-laws, is a traditional Italian peasant meal whose name means "pasta and beans."

Like most peasant fare, pasta fagioli was derived of simple, affordable ingredients and cooked as a soup or a stew to make those ingredients go farther. It's warm, filling and nutrient-dense, with lots of protein, packing a ton of flavor in every bite. It's one of my all-time favorite soups!

The version I make is vegetarian, though you can add bacon, pancetta or prosciutto if you aren't tied to a vegetarian diet. Honestly though, I've never found that meat adds anything of value. Using chicken stock instead of veggie can be quite nice though. 

You certainly have this plant near
you somewhere

Horseweed is an incredibly common and abundant plant in the aster family. It can be found in all 50 states (introduced into Alaska and Hawaii), every Canadian Provence except Nunavut and the Yukon, throughout Mexico and in most of the non-island nations of Central America. It has been introduced into Eurasia and North Africa.

Horseweed is somewhat related to the herb tarragon, though not especially closely; I only mention it because they have a similar flavor profile, though horseweed tastes more like oregano and less like anise. I also think horseweed is less versatile, though certainly a flavorful, enjoyable herb in its own right. It has a mild version of the famous/infamous "aster" flavor. And it smells amazing. 

Because horseweed reminds me of oregano, I tend to put it in Italian dishes, egg dishes, and soups and stews of all kinds. I've made it in pasta fagioli before, but this is the first time I really feel like I got everything right--the base soup recipe and the horseweed balance--so now I'm sharing it with you. 

A nice patch of horseweed in my yard

Pasta fagioli with foraged horseweed wild plants

Serves 4-5 as a main course

8 oz (1/2 lb) small pasta, like ditalini
12 cups of broth or stock*
Two cans of white beans, cannellini or great northern, drained and rinsed
One can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
One can of diced tomatoes
Two large handfuls of young horseweed leaves, roughly chopped
4 oz parmesan cheese or cheese rind, cubed (omit for vegan)
1 large, sweet yellow onion, diced
1 entire head of garlic, peeled and minced
1/2 stick of butter, or equivalent olive oil
Optional (omit for vegan/vegetarian): 2 oz diced pancetta, bacon or prosciutto 

1. Heat butter or oil in a large stockpot, add in onion and sauté until translucent.
2. When onion starts to brown, add in garlic, horseweed, and meat if you are using, continue to sauté until onion is caramelized, garlic is fragrant and horseweed is soft. Remove all from pan. 
3. Add beans, cheese, tomatoes and broth or stock to the pot and bring to a simmer. 
4. In a separate pot, bring water to a boil and cook pasta according to package directions. 
5. Continue to simmer the beans, stirring only occasionally, for around 30-40 minutes, until the beans are super soft, almost mushy. 
6. Using a slotted spoon, strain about 1/2 of the beans from the pot and add to the onion/garlic/herb mix you set aside. Try not to remove any of the tomatoes or the cheese, leave them in with the broth. 
7. Using a hand-mixer or food processor, puree the stock, tomatoes, 1/2 beans and cheese. This will make the soup thick and hearty. 
8. Add the pasta, the onion/herb/garlic mix and the removed beans back to the main pot and heat till warmed through. Season as desired with salt and/or pepper. Serve immediately with crusty bread and/or a salad. 

*I used "Better than Bouillon" Italian Herb base

I really cannot emphasize enough how delicious this soup is. It's my favorite pasta fagioli version of all time!

20 minute 5 ingredient Austrian garlic soup with foraged wild garlic

Super easy and quick meal to share today: A simple garlic soup, based on a traditional Austrian recipe, but made with wild garlic. The soup is called knoblauchcremesuppe, and the name is about 10x more complicated than making it, as the soup has a mere 5 ingredients and comes together in 20 minutes. 

Early spring wild garlic,
this is crow garlic

Wild garlic is one of the earliest and most important greens of spring. The vibrant stems and leaves start to poke up early, when everything else is dead and brown. 

That pungent garlic or onion flavor is actually intended as a defense mechanism, especially against herbivores. 

Early humans developed at taste for Alliums (the family that has garlic and onions) specifically because we were searching for nutrition after a long winter. 

Now, almost every culture on earth adds garlic and onion to a variety of meals. We plant and cultivate Alliums, so really the plants lost the battle but won the war. 

Anyway, while this soup in Austria is currently made with garlic bulbs, so comes out a creamy white color, it most likely started out as a green soup, like this one. Way back at its origins, this soup and recipes like it, were developed to take advantage of the nutrients in these early spring greens. 

Wild garlic, rinsed and chopped

Austrian wild garlic soup, knoblauchcremesuppe

8 cups wild garlic greens, or greens and bulbs, rinsed and roughly chopped 
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock*
2 cups whole milk (or vegan milk)
1 cup flour
1 stick of butter (or vegan alternative), divided
salt

1. 
   Melt a 1/2 a stick of butter, sliced, in a large stockpot. Add the chopped garlic greens with a sprinkle of salt, and sauté until softened, they won't be fully soft. 
2. Remove garlic and set aside. Add remaining sliced butter and melt. Add in flour and whisk until smooth.
3. Add in stock and simmer while stirring, till thick. 
4. Add in the sauteed wild garlic and simmer while blending with an emersion blender until as smooth as you like it. 
5. Turn off heat, but keep pot on the heat, add the milk while whisking constantly.
6. Remove from heat, season with salt and serve with croutons and/or sour cream. 

*I used "Better than Bouillon" roasted garlic stock

Pin this picture please!

Vegetarian Mock Fried Clams with Oyster Mushrooms

Snowmageddon 2021 has passed through Texas, leaving many without power, water or heat, or others with frozen and broken pipes. 

I thank everyone who has reached out to inquire as to our safety, it means so very much. 

We are quite well, and very lucky. We never lost power, though we only just got our internet back. We did have the pool and some pipes freeze, as our temperatures inside the house dropped below 50. Apparently our gas meter's regulator was not set for that kind of prolonged cold, but the gas company did come out and get it tweaked for us to the point were it could keep up. 

Our street was never plowed, nor were neighboring streets, throughout the entirety of the situation. We hadn't really hit up the grocery stores (which were packed and sold out) before the snow started, as honestly, we didn't think it would be that bad. So we have been making do with what's in the pantry for the past week. 

Before I get into the post, I wanted to again thank all my readers who continually reach out even through my long disappearances. I'm back because of you. 

Vegetarian, foraged oyster mushroom chowder

It's important to know the right mushroom for every task.

When you go to buy oyster mushrooms in the store, you will find that the caps are very small (less than 2" across) and still feature "in-rolled" edges. Basically the edges of the caps roll down and under, towards the gills. This is considered the best time to eat oysters, as they have not yet released their spores, and the flesh is at it's most firm and meaty.

They basically look like this:

When the caps are still rolled down towards the gills,
oyster mushrooms have their best firmness. 

It's easy to harvest "optimal" mushrooms when you are farm-raising them. But in the wild, you generally don't have the luxury, unless you know a spot you can visit every day. Most often the oysters you find in the wild will have flat caps, occasionally with rippled and/or cracked edges. They will mostly look like this:

Older oyster mushrooms are less firm, and work best in soups,
gravies, and after being dried and reconstituted.

Older oyster mushrooms, like the ones above, loose some of that firmness, and are less meaty. Some foragers will even bypass these "spongy" specimens, but they still have a lot of flavor, and are perfect in the right application. By pureeing these mushrooms, like in soups or gravies, you avoid the texture issues.

You can also dehydrate older oyster mushrooms. Once reconstituted, they will have a unique texture--not firm and "mushroomy" like the young ones, but more meaty, almost rubbery a bit. Rather like cooked clams, which is what made me want to try this dish.

Being a native New Englander living in Texas, I sometimes find myself overwhelmed with the desire for foods I simply can't get around here. Sometimes it's lobster rolls, but most often it's clam chowder.  I'd heard that oyster mushrooms can make a passible substitute for clam chowder, and I was highly skeptical, but I decided to give it a shot.

Vegetarian garlicky cleavers walnut pesto. Keto foraging recipe, paleo and vegan optional.

This pesto is not only the best pesto I've ever made, it's the best pesto I've ever tasted, period. If you have cleavers, please try this pesto now. If you trust no other recipe on this site, trust this one. This garlicky cleavers pesto is something you need in your life.

This pesto is fast, simple and can go on absolutely ANYTHING, but of course, I enjoy it best simply tossed with some pasta. This wild herb pesto is a great condiment, it's super healthy because of the nutritious cleavers, and low-carb keto, as well as being vegetarian. If you omit the cheese, it's also Paleo and Vegan!

This recipe has some weird steps, that I came upon entirely by accident, but they worked out so well!

Cleavers are a very common backyard "weed" that's super easy to identify. If it's early to mid-spring, I guarantee that you can find some near you, perhaps in a local park. They have a great herbal flavor, vaguely like oregano, but mostly uniquely their own. Cleavers should be boiled before eating, and I prefer them pureed as well, to avoid textural issues.

Spicy Sichuan black bean pork and tofu with dandelion greens and stem "lo mein". Keto-friendly, low-carb.

So last week I won an Instagram contest for a hand-carved dandelion stamp from EnchangingStamps on Etsy by sharing my favorite dandelion recipe.  I shared how, not being a huge fan of bitter flavors, I liked mixing dandelion greens (which are superfoods), into spicy dishes, where the heat mitigates some of the bitterness. My all-time favorite is a pork and tofu dish, inspired by Sichuan Mapo. It's rich with chili oil, Sichuan peppercorns, black bean paste, and, of course, pork fat!

But I've never shared the recipe on my blog :( . . . In fact, I never shared ANY dandelion recipes on my blog! I think it's because there are so many great dandelion recipes out there, I haven't created any original ones myself.

But mixing spicy Asian flavors with bitter dandelions is something that I haven't seen anywhere else, so I'm making today the day I share it with you.

Vegetarian henbit, macadamia, and asiago pesto recipe. Keto, gluten-free, foraging recipe made with edible "weeds" of early spring

Pesto is one of the easiest and most common ways to prepare wild greens. But just because it's been done with some plants, doesn't mean it's the right way to prepare them.

I've seen, and tried, pesto for greens like chickweed, and I've been a bit disappointed. To me, chickweed tastes like a refreshing Boston or bibb lettuce. It's delicious, but would you make a lettuce pesto? Probably not. The taste of chickweed gets totally lost with spices and cheese and nuts.

Henbit, however, is perfect for pesto. It's like it wants to be pesto. It's rich, intense, herbal. . . the strong flavors really hold their own when blended with others. I feel like this pesto really hits the balance right. I opted for macadamia nuts, with their buttery creaminess to balance the punch of the henbit, and a small amount of sweet white onion -- instead of garlic -- to offset the slight bitterness of the greens.

I hope you try it and agree!

Two chicks quesadillas: vegetarian with chickweed, chickpeas, feta and wild mushrooms

Finished chickweed, chickpea, feta and wild mushroom quesadilla

Like pretty much everyone, I'm sure, one of my goals in the new year is to eat better and hopefully loose weight. The second is hard, but the first is relatively easy, if you devote the time and effort into it, and treat it as an investment in yourself.

Of course, that's easier said than done. 

One problem I've always had was being so busy in the work week that I just get some fast lunch, usually something fried. Then I work late, so I don't feel like cooking when I get home. . . Eating out can quickly get out of control.

Enter the meal prep. I've decided to take time when I can, on the weekends, and make healthy, easy to re-heat meals that I can eat at my desk if I absolutely have to. Last week's mushroom pizza was a good one, and so is this week's chickweed, wild mushroom, chickpea and feta quesadilla, high protein, healthy fat and quality carbs, clocking in at under 400 calories. 

This vegetarian meal can easily be made vegan, if you use vegan cheese, or omit the cheese entirely. 

Chickweed, at the perfect stage for harvest

Chickweed, Stellaria media, is a super nutritious wild plant, which is finding it's way back into cultivation. Eat chickweed for a lot of vitamin C, as well as B vitamins and beta carotene. It's also got more minerals than your average plant, boasting high amounts of calcium, magnesium and potassium.

Because of the CHICKweed and CHICKpeas, I'm calling this the Two Chick Quesadilla!

Tofu stuffed with pork and foraged wild mushrooms. Gluten-free optional.

These adorable little cubes of steamed tofu are my riff on a traditional Hakka Chinese dish, where they are traditionally stuffed with pork and salt-cured fish. I can never really get into salt-cured fish, so I've substituted foraged mushrooms.

Hakka cuisine isn't well represented in the US, but the Hakka people are one of the important ethnic groups in China. They also have an international presence, primarily in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and some of their food has melded into those cultures. So when you have Taiwanese cuisine in the US, it may have Hakka origins or influences.

This dish can be made with nearly any wild, foraged mushroom, but for preference, I'd use hen of the woods, any of the Agaricus, wine-caps, or dryad's saddle.

Using store-bought mushrooms? I recommend mushrooms traditionally used in Asian cuisine: shiitake, enoki, or hen of the woods. 

White button mushrooms or cremini would also be good.

Also note, this dish can easily be made vegan, remove the pork, and triple the amount of mushrooms.