Although my kids live in and love their permaculture garden, I still need to be creative with ways of getting them to eat their greens.
Tonight’s strategy is super greens homemade pasta.
Together we foraged in the garden for greens and ended up picking 2 leaves of tuscan kale, a leaf of comfrey, a sprig of tulsi (sacred basil), a handful of garlic chives and one of it’s flowers – I think that was all.
INGEDIENTS
- 2 cups organic plain flour
- a few handfuls kale, comfrey, tulsi, garlic chives and flowers
- 3 eggs
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1tbsp coconut oil
- 1 tbsp milk
- 1/4 tsp salt
METHOD
- Make Dough: We tossed the greens into the blender with the egg, oil, garlic, milk and salt, then we added the flour, until it was all fully mixed. (Ours was still crumbly because I only had one egg left – the chooks are hiding them – so I tipped it into a large mixing bowl and added a couple of extra teaspoons of oil. I used coconut oil just because it was next to me on the bench when I was looking for something – it worked beautifully!).
- Make pasta with pasta machine: cut dough into 4 pieces, roll , put through the thicknesser, then choose spaghetti or fettuccine.
- Cook: Add pasta to boiling water for a few minutes (until floating)
- Serve: We mixed a tablespoon of pesto through the pasta and served hot.
The kids had a fabulous time helping to make the pasta and everyone thought it was delicious!
I loved the dinner conversation led by the kids – all about how amazing it is to be able to eat your own deliciously flavourful and soft pasta full of absolute goodies. They raved about how incredible it was to know exactly what is in their food – where the milk came from (the names of the cows too!), where the eggs came from (their names as well), the source of the greens and garlic, knowing that the oil was organic and fair trade, and that the flour is organic and bought in bulk from our community food coop.
Needless to say, there are no leftovers tonight.
Love all your blog post. It serves as great inspiration for me…like your family, we also share the joy of simple living, growing and eating food from our garden…but I still learn a lot from what you are doing…Thank you for sharing what you do:)
Have fun with it! We are going to keep trying out the endless possibilities of variations – next one I think will be pumpkin and greens, followed by a red version (beetroot), a seedy version, a black activated charcoal version, and was thinking to grind up some quinoa into flour and see how that worked.
Thanks Annie for your kind message. I saw that you are living a simple life in Bulgaria with your homeschooled children – sounds wonderful!
This one's going straight into my recipe book!