Category Archives: Blog

Wild garlic cheese balls

February 17, 2013Food, ForagingRamsons, soft cheese, Wild GarlicLynn

I’ve been making different types of soft cheese at home and this weekend and wanted to share this incredibly simple recipe. The soft cheese is made from yoghurt and then is infused with wild garlic leaves, fresh from the local park.

All that you need is:
A cup or two of good quality yoghurt (no added thickners etc, goats or cows is fine),
Cheesecloth, very clean and just scalded (by dunking in boiling hot water for a few seconds),
Olive oil
2 wild garlic leaves, finely chopped (other fresh herbs can be substituted)

To make the yoghurt cheese simply…
1. Pour the yoghurt into the centre of the cheesecloth and pull up the four cloth corners to prevent the yoghurt spilling out.
2. Use a rubber band/clean string etc to tie up the cheesecloth somewhere convenient.
3. Hang it up somewhere clean for about 24 hours, over a bowl so that the drips are collected.
4. After that time you should have a cream cheese consistency, with a milder taste than yoghurt – soft cheese!
5. Scoop out teaspoons of the cheese and form into small balls with your hands.
6. Place in a clean container along with enough olive oil to cover the balls and of course, the chopped wild garlic.

7. You can eat it straight away but after a half a day or so, the cheese will become deliciously infused with the wild garlic flavour.
8. If you manage not to use it all up before hand, it should keep well in the fridge for a week.

365 Frankendael day 302

February 16, 2013365 FrankendaelIvyLynn

Ivy, growing up around the trunk of a street tree. The council gardening team will catch up with this one sometime soon and will trim the ivy back. So a good idea to do it yourself, if you have a climber such as this.

365 Frankendael day 301

February 15, 2013365 FrankendaelCurry plant, grape hyacinth, IvyLynn

Here are a few of the plants, growing in my tree pit today:

This large leaved plant was a gift as a seed, from Elodie. I can’t transfer the name but it’s a fruiting plant, from Greece, I think. I must check, especially as I notice that birds have moved one of the original seeds to a neighbour’s geveltuin.

This is a Curry plant, looking and smelling a little like last week’s curry, rather than a fresh tikka masala, but come late sporting this will be a culinary herb to be reckoned with! I love a pinch of the leaves in a salad our cooked into many different dishes. I find the scent fragrant and mildly spicy. Quite delicious and very easy to grow and take cuttings from.

And lastly today, several easy to multiply bunches of Grape hyacinth, developing their floppy, messy foliage, in preparation for the unique blue flower spikes. I didn’t realise until lately that this popular little plant has some historical uses. None are very interesting to me these days, especially as the bulb is poisonous. But the fact that the flowers are nectar rich and very useful to bees, is interesting.

You’ll also see easy to grow Ivy, in the photo and a strange plastic tube which I’m told, is there to aerate the soil around the young tree roots.

365 Frankendael day 300

February 14, 2013365 Frankendaelfigwort, ransoms, Wild Garlic, willowLynn

A lovely walk through the snowy woods of Frankendael for me today. I picked a few Ramson (Allium ursinum) leaves to make infused olive oil and then wild used that to make garlic bread sticks.

Apart from Ramsons and trees like these coppiced Willows, the most obvious plants at present are the dry seedheads of Teasel and Figwort.

For once, I can photograph the pretty Figwort, it usually merges so well with the background. I’m very much looking forward to the spicy smell of this plant in the late spring.

365 Frankendael day 299

February 13, 2013365 FrankendaelHollyhock, HydrangeaLynn

Today I’ve been planning a new herbal tree pit project.

Rather than a tree pit photo though, here’s a geveltuin near my home with last season’s hollyhock seedheads still intact.

And signs of life for potted Hydrangeas.

365 Frankendael day 298

February 12, 2013365 FrankendaelLynn

Campanula, an edible plant (though I’ve no idea how tasty it really is), growing all over Amsterdam still. It has blue flowers but not at the moment.

365 Frankendael day 297

February 11, 2013365 Frankendael, ApprenticeshipLynn

An apprenticeship meeting today and a nice walk in the woods of Frankendael, to find Wild garlic (Allium ursinum) and other plants popping up from beneath the snow.

365 Frankendael day 296

February 10, 2013365 Frankendael, River of HerbsHollyhock, River of herbsLynn

Today was the first meeting of the first River of Herbs course. We Al gathered in Oosterpark, sure some wild garlic bread sticks, tried to stay warm and liked at ways to get started with urban herb gardening that can benefit people and pollinating insects. It was so beautiful, snowy, bright and I was amazed that all but a couple of booked-on people turned up!

Have a look at riverofherbs.org for further information, to download the booklet every one received today and to get involved.

Here’s a snowy but thriving Hollyhock (Alcea rosea) photo, on the Middenweg as I travelled home from the meeting. I think this of the perfect urban herb for Amsterdam!

365 Frankendael day 295

February 9, 2013BlogLynn

It snowed here again today. Here’s my balcony Tea plant (Camellia sinensis), standing up well to the changable weather.

A patch of Chives (Allium schoenoprasum L. )

And developing Wild garlic (Allium ursinum) behind a pretty clump of non-edible snowdrops.

365 Frankendael day 294

February 8, 2013365 Frankendaelbuddleia, pansy, VioletLynn

Buddleia shrubs are a favourite of local insects, butterflies being the most obvious when summer comes. They also grow easily and where there is one bush you’re likely to find many tiny offspring in pavement edges and plant pots. But the plant is apparently not edible or medicinally useful , a pity! It can be used to produce natural plant dyes. I’ve read some reports that rather than helping insects our even being particularly attractive to them, Buddleia may take over space from really beneficial plants. I’m not too sure about that as I recall many days, standing close to the plant and counting the butterflies on it. They appear to love it.

Another of my favourites is the humble Pansy. It can be used interchangeably with the herb Violet.

Urban Herbology

Foraging, Growing and Using Herbs in Amsterdam