#dead nettle

souvenirs from my walk 🪨

dandelion symbolizes transformation, happiness, resilience, and health

dead nettle symbolizes happiness, tenacity, confidence, clear thinking, persistence, and emotional balance

[ID: A piece of toast topped with pesto and chopped walnuts; a sprig of dead-nettle is placed to the side. End ID]

Dead-nettle pesto

Purple dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum)—also known as red dead-nettle, or purple archangel—is a flowering plant in the mint family. It is unrelated to true stinging nettles: it earned its name because its leaves look a bit like those of a true nettle, but it doesn't sting (thus it is "dead").

Dead-nettles are some of the first wild edibles to appear in spring, and they are usually abundant. That makes them a great pick for pesto, saag, and other applications that require a large quantity of greens. Their mild flavor means that the flavor profile of the final dish can be taken in a lot of different directions.

A lot of pesto recipes use the same formula (pine nuts, parmesan, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice) regardless of what green they're using as the base, without considering what will best make that green shine. In my opinion, the sweet, zesty, peppery flavor of basil is better without most of these add-ins. But the herbaciousness—frankly, the grassiness—of dead-nettle is better when rounded off with the tanginess of a cultured vegan cheese, the slight bitterness of walnuts, and a little bit of sweetness from a good balsamic vinegar. This is a tasty, balanced pesto that can be eaten with bread, on pasta, in soups, and more!

Recipe under the cut.

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some dead nettle along the freeway~