Friday, September 11, 2009

Anybody ever use lambs' quarters?

© 2009 Joshua Stark

I just found out that a plant growing in my garden is not only edible, but, according to some, better than its cultivated cousin, spinach.
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I found it in a book titled, "Edible and Useful Plants of California", by Charlotte Bringle Clarke. It's a great book, though lacking the color photos for most of the plants, an absolute necessity for this coward. In fact, I'd prefer a book that came with a tiny person who knew all of it and I could carry in my shirt pocket, somebody who would point and say, "that's good right there." Lacking that (come on, Bill Gates), I have to make due with Google, which I love, anyway.

Another interesting thing I found in this book is that manzanita is edible and good. This book also includes recipes, so I'll be trying out the manzanita in a couple of weeks. Truthfully, I felt kinda stupid not considering manzanita (Spanish for "little apple") as edible.

To quote Tommy Lee Jones in a famous movie, "Just imagine what we will know tomorrow."

4 comments:

Funder said...

Hi Josh, just found your blog from Holly's. When I was in Ohio, I scored some lamb's quarters at the farmer's market. I cooked it just like spinach, and it was quite tasty. A little different tasting but not at all unpleasant. I think I sauteed part of it in olive oil and garlic, then the next night I creamed the rest. I'm sure there's many better things to do with it though.

Anonymous said...

I tried looking up whether it was the same thing I know as "epazote" in Spanish, but it's not. If it's similar to spinach, you could put it in spag sauce or cook it down and put it even in something like ground beef (meatballs, meatloaf, taco meat).

I'm excited to be making some apple butter this wknd, since I picked a huge basket at the Hutsons' house!

Are you putting in any Fall veggies?

Anonymous said...

Oops...anonymous should be Rebecca. It's just me.

Josh said...

Funder, I'm glad to hear it! Welcome to my little blog. I'm going to try it similar to what you just described, first, to see what happens to me.

Anonymous/Rebecca, Lamb's quarters and epazote, I've learned, are close cousins, like a coyote and a dog. Same genus, Chenopodium, which also includes quinoa. Here's an interesting site about them:
http://www.herbvideos.com/globale.htm