First (or any) day of spring salad

a recipe from Bea and Harriet

Yesterday was the first day of spring. It was also a day off from school. Harriet and Mommy and I decided to make a completely foraged salad… and it was really good!

First, we watched this video from NC State:

Next, we hunted around to find ingredients.

Here is what we found and how we prepared it:

• Purple dead nettle (we used this for something else, not the salad—keep reading to find out)

• Redbud blossoms

• Chickweed (look around streams or wet areas for this plant)

• Wood sorrel (don’t use more than a handful of this—it may taste good, but too much is not good for you).

• Violets

• Onion grass

• Dandelions (the blossoms and the small leaves)

• Spinach and mint from my indoor plants

First, while Harriet and I were washing and I was trimming the salad, Mommy made purple dead nettle toasts. We saw a post from Alexis Nicole (Black Forager) that it’s better cooked than raw. Purple dead nettle grows everywhere this time of year and looks like this:

To make the dead nettle toasts, Mommy microwaved a teaspoon of butter with some snipped onion grass in a small dish. She added chopped dead nettle and stirred it up, then added salt and lemon zest. She let this rest and made some toast in the toaster oven. She spread some goat cheese on the toast, then spooned the purple dead nettle mixture on top. Then she added a few redbud blossoms. Delicious!

Here’s how I made the salad:

First I separated the different washed ingredients. Then I layered it, one ingredient at a time, using a lot of chickweed which has a mild taste, like lettuce. I used kitchen scissors to cut the ingredients into smaller pieces. I added salt between each layer. I saved the redbud blossoms, violets, and wood sorrel for last. I use wood sorrel, which tastes sour like a really good pickle, for garnish.

Last we made a lemon viniagrette dressing. Harriet whisked lemon juice, olive oil, and a tiny amount of honey in a teacup until it was smooth. Then we drizzled it on top of the salad and tossed it together.

We served the salad with dinner (rice bowls with avocado, sweet potatoes, beans, little tomatoes, and cabbage), and it was really good.

Will you eat any foraged foods this spring? Definitely try some redbuds before they’re gone! They’re related to sweet peas. Harriet says they taste like a dream she once had but can’t remember.