When we’re trying to limit trips to the shops, it’s hard to keep our intake of fresh greens up.
Meat and staples will store for a while in fridges and pantries but, even though we can extend their life substantially with our beeswax wraps, we still regularly run short on leafy veg. The timing hasn’t been great either – our usually productive garden was decimated over summer by the drought, so we’re only just getting it going again.
But the one thing which has always grown in abundance in our garden is nasturtiums! We planted them once, well over a decade ago, and they’ve self-sown into a carpet under the citrus trees ever since. We recently harvested a big bag of leaves…
…and turned them into nasturtium pesto following the recipe we posted in 2010. This batch used pine nuts and omitted the capers, but it was delicious nonetheless, and very, very green…
Combined with oven roasted chick peas and a few more pine nuts, it made the perfect mid-week dinner…
It’s so wonderful to be able to turn self-sown garden freebies into a healthy meal!
I’m always inspired by stories from the UK where folks can go out and forage for wild food from the hedgerows. What’s the best dish you’ve ever put together from found produce? ♥
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
I adore nettle pesto. We live on a farm, so always heaps of nettles where sheep have been. My favourite things so far have been made with foraged sloes and damsons. Sloe and apple jam, sloe gin, damson paste . Eat with a soft raw chevre cheese from our own goat milk. We also forage peppercorns- mix them with black pepper and grind together. I write a weekly Facebook blog about farming, foraging, fossicking and frugavoring and am a big fan of your posts . Cheers Kate Serrurier
Kate, that sounds glorious! My friend Annie from Essex brought me a bottle of her sloe gin and we made it last for ages – we don’t get sloes here, so it was a real treat. And I’ve never heard of someone foraging peppercorns, how cool is that! I don’t have facebook, but please feel free to put the link to your page in these comments.
I’ve just planted some nasturtium seeds. :)
My favourite thing to forage is wimberries. That is the folk name for small blueberries that grow wild on the moors. They are great in a crumble with custard.
Wimberries! I love that name! :)
Nasturtium pesto is my go-to, like you they are usually abundant in the garden. My favourite version is with the zest of a lemon added, any nuts but with macadamias or cashews you can leave out the parmesan. But any pesto… broadbean or broadbean tips, rocket, basil of course, carrot tops are mmmm with cashews, coriander, radish leaf… I mix and match mixes of leaves, types of nuts or no nuts, parmesan, parmigiano reggiano, cheese or no cheese, lemon zest, kaffir lime leaves, chillies. Best of all the G.O. likes it too.
I like the way nasturtium leaves do not oxidise like basil leaves so the colour remains bright. The flavour is subtle when mixed with pasta.
Sweet potato leaves stir-fry. I bought some sweet potatoes to cook a few years ago but could not finish them. They looked crinkled and sad. Instead of throwing it out, I thought why not dig a hole in the garden and plonked it in and see what happens. It has never stopped giving since then and it runs all over my backyard. Whenever I am short of greens, I just picked them for a quick stir-fry. My mum said they survived on it when the Japanese invaded Singapore during World War 2. I guess it will see me through Covid-19 as well!
Love your blog. Keep it up!
I just spoke to my sister in Singapore! Thank you for reading!
Living here, in season I can forage mangoes, bananas and guavas, pandanus fruit, sunchokes, purslane, pigface, sea lettuce and kelp, and sweet potatoes gone wild. There are also spots I can find Ceylon/Malabar spinach. And of course, sugar cane, although that needs a bit too much work to be useful. If you want free protein there are mussels and pipis. There’s really quite a lot to be had if you’re prepared to do the foraging work, and know where to look.
Sorrel Pesto was my surprise pesto and love it. Nasturtiums……..did not know about that but I do now!!
I’ve never thought of using the leaves for pesto just as fresh leaves in a salad or on a sandwich. I have quite a lot of the plant self sewing each year. Thanks for this.
I have also, in the past, pickled the seeds up as a type of caper. Very tasty!
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Yes, greens are the thing you need to shop for more than once a week. I planted some lettuce in a wicking bed for salads, and I’ve got some self sown nasturtium too, but the big volunteer crop in my garden is abundant and tough warrigal greens, which substitutes nicely for spinach in any cooked recipe.
Your pesto looks awesome! I used to have so many nasturtiums in my last garden but never thought to use them for pesto. We added them to salad because I loved their peppery taste. I did make some awesome nettle pesto one year when I had a zillion nettles pop up in the garden and it was great. I froze the excess in ice cube trays. I have been meaning to try roasting my own chickpeas for snacks, I never would have thought to add them to pesto pasta.
I never thought of cooking with the leaves of nasturtium. But I collect the flowers of it and immerse them in Rice Vinegar, let it sit for a while , and gives you the most delicious vinegar, it’s tasting a bit a bit nutty, just a great flavor for salad dressings. And it’s a great gift to give away.
Any suggestions for parsley self sown through the garden? Love your posts Helen
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Helen, our continental parsley grows like a weed and it makes the BEST pesto! I think Jamie Oliver has a recipe. We make it all the time and freeze it.
I’m finding it tough to keep up the leafy green intake too. We get our shopping on a Saturday and by Thursday I’ve usually run short. I didn’t realise how I relied on that quick trip midweek to top up with fruit and veg. It’s a bad time for us too – the spring crops are just poking through but it will be a few weeks before the garden is in full production. Currenly eating Jack-by-the-hedge which is a garlic mustard that makes a good pesto and made some Lilac Syrup for cocktails.
In the fall there are plenty of wild berries and fruits like plums that are available free for the picking here in Germany if you know where to look. In the spring wild greens like ramps are everywhere here. Foraging for free food can be a lot of fun especially if you know the right places to go and the right times to pick! Here is a plum pie that I made from all foraged plums. https://theartfulgardener.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/a-plethora-of-plums/
Omgosh I ‘ve never thought of nasturtium leaves to eat. Looks rather tasty.
A very interesting pesto, certalinly looks delicous Celia :)
I love making elderflower cordial – I’m watching the trees closely at the moment – as it is bottled sunshine through the winter. I also love making damson gin and using the soaked fruit to make magnificent jam afterwards (named boozy breakfast jam by jess!)
I make heaps of nasturtium and rocket pesto and store in the freezer in 150ml tubs ( the tubs are reused over and over again). A punchy dip with my lavosh. Stuffed nasturtium flowers are always a crowd pleaser…make mixture of cream cheese, dash of sweet chilli sauce, finely chopped herbs and roll into small balls which you gently stuff into the flower. They present beautifully on a platter especially with assorted coloured flowers. Also the leaves can be rolled around a small portion of the stuffing and secured with a toothpick.
I have so many warrigal greens, endive, escarole, dandelion, chicory, rocket, various Asian greens and parsley that have come up as volunteer seedlings as I allow them all to go to seed to attract bees, seeds are dropped and they magically emerge with watering in autumn. Very very grateful for such abundance. I am wilting 20 litre buckets full every few days – this yields 3 packs of greens for the freezer for later use, especially over summer when it is too difficult and hot to grow greens. As well as gifting bags of greens to family members. Neighbours are not interested.
Yum! Mine’s been based on Matt Preston’s recipe but with the macadamias one cannot pretend its peasant food! https://www.delicious.com.au/recipes/trofie-nasturtium-macadamia-pesto/6b718cd2-b4d5-49dd-9ef0-bf42842802c8 I’ve also made it with lots of wild allium (three cornered garlic) leaves as the garlic flavour, even greener and I think I like it better than with garlic cloves.