Lamb's Quarters

I first read about lamb's quarters in Sam Thayer's book. This spring I started to look for it, to no avail... until I finally realized several months later that I had been pulling up the young plants in my new garden all along! After I discovered this, I showed my wife a few weeds that I wanted her to let grow in our sunflower bed.

This morning, I cut ten perfect leaves off these plants. I washed them carefully because there is this funky powder on the undersides of the leaves that I'm not a big fan of. Then I ate half with my breakfast this morning and put half in my lunch for today. I usually have spinach like this everyday, but I think I actually prefer lamb's quarters. Nice. Not only is it free, it is good!

Here's a picture I stole off the web of it. (I need to get my camera going, so I can get my own photos going, but I suspect the person I stole this from won't be too angry... When I get my own photo I'll replace this one.) I seem to have two varieties of this growing. The first looks just like this picture. The second is a fair bit smaller, with narrower leaves, but still with the goosefoot pattern, and still with the funky blue-green powder under the leaves. The leaves of both varieties taste the same, but the smaller variant has seeds on it already. I tried eating these and it left a very unpleasant taste in my mouth.

Thayer recommends cooking lamb's quarters, but I've never done this. In general, I vasty prefer uncooked vegetables. I despise cooked carrots, but love them raw. I love raw snap peas, but if you cook them, I'll stick out my tongue. Etc. So I'm in no rush to try this.

This wild food has been a very pleasant surprise. It's easy to get. It tastes great. And it looks like it is as healthy if not healthier for you than what I am replacing (spinach).