antonis - status 1460977715
Status
11 months 16 hours ago
As every summer, Purslane appears in my garden and ends up in my salads. Utilizing wild weeds is a novel thing......
Jessica Still
Is your Purslane a short, creeping variety? Both Roger Doiron <PRO> & Farmer Dave <CON> have written about Purslane here on kgi.org. I have research files on Purslane, in part because it is one of the few plants that proves Omega 3 fatty acids. I love using common weeds & I'd love to pickle Purslane using either Johanna Green's QUICK PICKLE recipe or David Kelly's PICKLE BRINE FORMULA in the kgi archives - where he reveals the perfect balance of salt & vinegar to keep pickles crisp. I will be growing Purslane in my garden this summer - a culinary variety from Pinetree Seeds, which describes reddish stems & *soft green leaves.* I hope the *soft* refers to the color, since i am envisioning pickled Purslane this winter. I want to try the creeping variety too, from one of our alleys.
Jessica Still
Thanks, Antonis - you've mentioned Linseed oil before! I will check the health food stores here. In our town the installed street trees are Linden trees. Do you know if that tree is the source?
antonis
No,the tree flowers do make an excellent tea,though.Linseed is a fiber plant similar to hemp or cotton and it's seed yield oil: linseed oil.The remains from oil extraction is also a valuable for feeding livestock. P.S: Linden wood is a praised carving material,it's soft and easy to work with,yet dimensional stable.(doesn't warp or crack much).
Jessica Still
Thank you for this info, Antonis! And how did you know I am < still > interested in carving? Today my dear E posted some photos on FB of finger-rings carved from wood < she thinks > with insets of lichen. I thought the rings might be stone. I mentioned your Linden info to her ... :-)
Jessica Still
Hello Antonis - Could you please post a recipe - even with a photo - of your salad that includes wild Purslane? I was selected as one of four people to have a private garden plot at our Blaine County Hunger Coalition food-bank garden. There they weed out the Purslane *weeds* & today a visitor to the garden told me she also composts all her Purslane weeds. Seedlings in my Purslane & Alyssum flat are still too small to tell if this *culinary* variety from Pinetree Seeds will be different than the creeping variety. I told the visitor I was going to pickle mine for winter use - so a tested summer salad recipe would be nice.
antonis
There is no special recipe to it,really,Jessica. I simply toss the leaves and tips into any salad I don't mind on having extra greens in. I should mention that I don't use fancy dressings,just salt lemon juice or vinegar and olive oil,in this order. Recently I have started to fry the stems in olive oil for a couple of minutes at medium heat,this makes a nice supplement to salads (meals).Greetings,antonis.
Jessica Still
Thank you for those Purslane tips - I apply my viniagrette ingredients in the opposite order, thinking the lemon juice or vinegar first would wilt the greens more. Does that happen? - as a desireable effect you're going for? Your saute tip is useful - my flat of pretty *Culinary Purslane* seedlings is coming along ...
antonis
There are several ways to cook purslane to be found when googeling it but ,of course, most beneficial is eating it raw - as a salad. The lemon/vinegar component, as it's watery, will spread better on the watery vegetable surfaces when applied before the oil. It also spreads the salt. I have not observed any wilting by this, but then, I haven't paid very much attention to it. I will get more purslane to use now, as I have decided (after a major psychological gardener's crisis) to actually encourage it to take over the empty space in my ground plot - once more, summer crops are dying from the excessive heat - until september when the autumn crops will go in.
Jessica Still
Question to others: do you see the two profile photos above as elongated smears - or is this just my Safari browser?
antonis
No such thing with Firefox + Lucid Lynx. May be, safari marks the thread You are active in and may be by using a script - such as Java Script. If so, very likely this can be deactivated, but be aware: make sure You remember what You did in Your settings so in case anything doesn't work in the future You can reverse it. Greetings, antonis
Jessica Still
You are so right Antonis! With the latest Firefox the thread looks as designed! You are also so right about remembering < make notes! > the steps of any significant change. About a year ago I deleted the *screen shot* function on my Mac G4 Powerbook, as advised by a video about how to speed up Macs, recommended by one of my tech colleagues. When I wanted the function back - I couldn't find the pathway & still have not yet met anyone who has ever heard of deleting the screen-shot function. Although I have not made this effort my soul's purpose - I have spent more time on it than I care to think about.
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