I decided to live dangerously and not don my gloves. I circled the solarium like a hungry wolf deciding which plants could spare their tops for my mid-morning snack. I clipped the tops of the nettles into a large bowl with my scissors and held the bowl so that they would simply drop in and I wouldn't have to touch them. I got maybe 1 cup of leaves and a couple of stings, but nothing too bad.
I was rather disgusted by the aphids who had situated themselves on the leaves of one plant, but I did not want to touch the leaves to get them off. I decided they would die in the boiling water. Sure enough after 3 minutes of blanching the nettles in salted boiling water, I could see dead aphid bodies floating on the top. I scooped out the nettles and dumped them in some ice cold water to stop the cooking. I rinsed them up and down to make sure any dead bodies would be left behind. I rang out the water and then chopped up the nettles into small wet chunks. It was about 1/4 cup. I added an equal amount of walnuts, and about that amount of parmesan cheese, some olive oil and then I mixed it with my handy-dandy hand-held stick blender.
I'm eating it now. I'm waiting for that little feeling of warmth that supposedly comes after ingesting it. It's pretty good, but I'm kicking myself since I forgot the garlic. That would have been better. I hope the nettles grow fast now that I've cut them. I want to try it again! Soon!
