Nettles Spanakopita Hand Pies

Another marathon weekend under our belts and nary a drop of rain!! The Homestead Herbalism Saturday and Sunday classes came around this weekend to explore the fine wild cuisine of northern Chester County. In two days, we devoured 3 gallons of Spring Tonic Soup, 2 qts of chickweed and garlic mustard pesto and well over 30 nettles spanakopita hand pies. Holy Smokes~ that was was some darn good eatin'!

((simply divine))

Here is the wild commando version of this recipe (which means, use what you have, don't worry about the quanities so much. It is a very forgiving recipe)

Steam roughly 3-4 quarts of early spring nettles tops, which will reduce to a few cups (you could substitute spinach if the nutritious nettles don't live nearby) Drain well.
two blocks of feta cheese, crumbled
cracked black pepper
a teaspoon or so of lemon zest
and a sprinkling of lightly toasted pine nuts
1 pkg thawed phyllo dough
Mix the first five ingredients together while the greens are still warm to get a nice creamy mixture.Unwrap the phyllo dough and use only three sheets at a time, cover the rest with a tea towel or damp paper towels. Don't let it dry out!!
Cut the sheets in three equal size  pieces (the long way), put about two heaping TB of the mixture at the end of the sheet, and do the flag fold all the way to the end of the sheet! Brush with olive oil or butter and pop into a 350 degree oven until lightly browned and crispy, about 15-20 min. Just try to let them cool off before devouring.

oh my...

Winning the Herbal Marathon !

Homestead Herbalism Saturday Class!!

Homestead Herbalism Sunday class!!

What a cool, jam-packed weekend we had here on the farm. This was the first of the Homestead Herbalism classes for 2009 and unofficially dubbed the "Marathon" by the MAN and I. I can't imagine a better way to run a marathon than by talking to passionate people about herbs! Of course, running a marathon of this variety while juggling a box of Kleenex, cup of steaming, hot tea and losing one's voice could have been disastrous, but my new herb friends didn't seem to mind. Outside, the mild weather was perfect for exploring the new green sprouts in the gardens and pasture. Inside, we explored the tastes of sour, sweet, bitter, pungent and mineral salt herbal teas and our brand new issues of the Essential Herbal Magazine. I'm already looking forward to Marathon weekend in April and sharing Violet jam, Spring Tonic Soup and dandelion delights! Ooooh, it's gonna be a GREAT year!

Tea Cup Charms

This weekend I will open my home to 24 new Homestead Herbalism students! The tables are set, name tags ready, the handouts are being printed and the notebooks covers finished. Ahhh, the first day of school. I love the excited feeling that comes with the first day of a new project of any kind. Always a fresh start! This year I decided to make personalized tea cup charms for everyone so that when the cups get put down, they can be easily identified for refills. Always an issue since all the cups are the same. I snooped around Michael's and found pretty Martha Stewart labels and a few packs of basic sterling earring hoops. I rubber stamped the labels on both sides: teacup and leaf on the front along with the student's name and a teapot on the back. Then I laminated them so they wouldn't be damaged too much by the inevitable spill. Simple but pretty and personal,too. No more mixups on the teacups! ((I'll also immediately know who forgot to wash their cup at the end of class,too!! hehheh....Sneaky, aren't I?))

Herbal Gladiator

I am known to have a strange fascination with historical healthcare. I don't know what I could or would ever do with all of this information that my brain seems to collect with ridiculous detail. Most of these healing remedies are arcane, gross or even painful. Still, my thinking brain lights up like a an MRI on an episode of 'House' when I hear things like maggots and comfrey sharing a common healing chemistry. ((Big question is: why doesn't it fire up like that when I'm looking for my keys or my shoes?)) If you have seen the movie "Gladiator" you may remember the scene where a severely wounded Maximus (Russell Crowe) is being carried across the desert in a stretcher by the mysterious but kind Juba. Juba is skilled at healing and tends to Maximus' wound by allowing maggots to eat away at the purulent flesh and later by chewing up some sort of plant material and packing the wound. I have known about maggot debridement therapy being used to clean a wound of necrotic flesh (picked that scrap of info somewhere years ago) but what I learned recently that excites me so much is that... as the larvae eats, so it eliminates!! Common sense, right? Believe it or not, that maggot excrement has been studied by scientists and found to be extremely high in a substance called allantoin. I have always known allantoin to be the cell regenerating component found in the common comfrey plant that is now blooming in profusion my garden. So you can imagine my renewed respect for the lowly maggot whose gift is the gruesome task of eating decaying flesh. While he is busy cleaning out a wound, he is happily depositing an abundance of wound repairing poop as he goes!! Perhaps there is hope that our pesty Brown Marmorated Stinkbug may offer some other sort of beneficial use to the healing community....no, probably not. If you are as morbidly interested as I am in reading further on the subject of medical maggots, click here. Just an FYI, this link is not for the squeamish, there are very graphic pictures. Anyway, back to the allantoin-rich comfrey in the gardens. We did our first cutting of comfrey leaves yesterday that were whirled in the food processor and frozen into convenient sized ziploc bags. They will be used as ready-to-go poultice pack for bone bruises (comfrey also known as 'knit-bone) strains and sprains. The poultice packs can also be used on clean wounds that contain no infection or dirt. It works so well at new cell proliferation, there is a very real possibility of new skin healing over an active infection. So for this reason, comfrey shouldn't be used topically on very deep puncture wounds or deep gashes until it is determined that the wound is scrupulously clean and healing well.

Here's lookin' at you, Kid

This is Lenore. She was our tiny nubian mascot for the first day of class. When Lenore came into the world earlier than expected, she endured a bit of a rough start. Her human mama, Lisa suddenly had a helpless newborn to nurse around the clock. A few days of nursing care combined with more kidding in the herd produced some serious 'goat mamma' exhaustion. Lisa didn't want to miss the first day of class but Lenore couldn't be left alone. So a new chapter in the Homestead Herbalism annals was written today: "Lenore Goes to Herb School". Lenore was very well behaved and slept quietly on a sheepskin most of the time. During the breaks she drank her goat mamma's milk from a bottle and kissed those who held her. There is probably no better medicine for a teeny preemie than lovin' from fourteen cooing women...and no sweeter ice breaker for the first day of class.

Countdown...

Tomorrow morning I will have thirteen new
*'Blanze Schweschders'

*'Plant Sisters' Happen Here