Nettle Filo pastry
Nettles aren’t the first thing to come to mind when I think of “food” – I encountered them in England when I was nine and my classmates told me they felt really soft if I just brushed my hand over them gently. I was surprised when they showed up in the box last year - I didn’t even know they grew in Canada! But I managed to get over my painful memories and re-create a dish I had eaten in Ireland under the impression that it was spinach.
Make sure you clean the nettles well by dumping them out of a bag into a strainer or collander, rinsing them thoroughly and dumping the strainer into the pot without ever touching the raw nettles!
(serves 4-6)
4 cups or so of nettles
2 eggs
¾ cup of feta cheese
2 T Parmesan
Melted butter
¼ tsp pepper
10 sheets of filo pastry
Boil the nettles in a large pot of water for 10 minutes; drain. (You can save the nettle water for an apparently-really-healthy soup stock.) Beat the eggs; mix with the feta and parmesan. Chop the nettles and mix into the feta; add pepper. Coat the inside of a small oven-proof dish with butter, and line with ½ of the filo sheets. Brush with butter. Spoon in the cheese mixture and cover with the rest of the filo. Seal the edges and brush the top with butter. Make a few slits in the top of the package for the steam to escape. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes or until filo is golden and crispy.
This would also work with ricotta.
For anyone still mulling over what to do with those nettles, a simple and tasty solution is to pop them in your teapot. We've been treating ourselves to a nice cup of nettle tea in the morning. This suggestion was listed in last year's newsletter, but I thought I would just put out a little reminder in case you had not found your way there. I do recommend that soup recipe Patricia provided. I just put it in the blender as opposed to straining the leaves and it turned out great.