The nutritious weeds in my garden

Have you heard of purslane? It "has more omega-3 fatty acids than some of fish oils" Sound good? It is also completely free! and usually driving you mad for taking over your garden!

I first heard about purslane, also known as pigweed, when my sister in-law, who grew up in Trinidad came to visit. One afternoon while talking in the backyard, she started rooting around the garden and said she found some pigweed. Um great I thought bewildered. She cleaned it up and sauteed it up with dinner. Only she and my father in-law ate it :) At that time I didn't know how good it was for you.

I recently researched it and then looked in my current garden beds which are badly in need of weeding and lo and behold, what did I find?!

You can read here about the nutrtition puslane has.

You can find some recipes for purslane here and here, although you can also eat it raw just tossed in salads.

As I was writing this post and researching purslane further, I came accross yet another edible weed in my garden.

This one is called Lamb's quarters (also known as wild spinach) and I have a ton of it sprouting up everywhere and have been pulling it up and tossing it!

 Click to enlarge the photo and see the 

arrows pointing to the lambs quarters

You can get more info here.

"Nutritional Value
High in vitamin C and rich in riboflavin, one cup of cooked wild spinach provides an excellent source of vitamin A, folate, magnesium, potassium, vitamins E, B6, and thiamine. Wild spinach actually contains substantially more nutrients than cultivated spinach."

Here are some recipes for lambs quarters.

I have already picked some purslane - now I have to go get some lambsquarters, since I know i have a bunch out there!

I'll cook & eat some tonight and let you know how it all turns out :)

LATER:
Ok I sauteed up the purslane in some bacon fat and some garlic. I did the lambs quarters the same way. I mean you could pretty much cook dirt in bacon fat & garlic and have it taste good right?

The taste test...they were ok. Not horrible, not delicious either. I think I would leave out most of the lambs quarter stems next time, even the smaller ones were a bit woody.

I don't think I will be foraging in my garden again any time soon, but it is nice to know, if I had to, I could.

Want to know more about edible weeds? Here are a few sites with info.