When the Challenge this month for the CHC Canada 150 Food Blog Challenge 2017 was the fresh foods of spring.  I knew that other folks minds would go to asparagus or rhubarb as those are the first foods of spring in the stores.

Here on the farm.. the first spring foods are Burdock Roots and tiny spring greens, Sunchoke Roots, Tigerlily roots and greens, Horse radish Roots and Greens,  Dandelion Greens and Nettles.

With so many wonderful spring foods the issue became how to do I pick and share a recipe with you in this regards. I have decided to share a few basic ones and then maybe one or two that are more homestead 🙂

Farmgal’s Fresh Greens Burger  (with your choice of a wild greens Mayo or Dandelion Mustard)

Spring Greens Burger Recipe..

• One pd of grass-fed pasture raised beef- 0 mile
• 2 fresh eggs- Pastured eggs- o mile
• 2 cups of finely diced greens- Mine was a mix of stinging nettles, horseradish leaves, Danelion baby greens, fresh spring garlic greens, green onions and chives.
• Half a cup of leftover homemade pasta sauce (or tomato sauce)
• Salt, Pepper, Seasoning salt,  Worchester sauce to taste
• This will give you a very firm filling burger, if you want lighter, consider adding bread crumbs or oatmeal.

Mix very well, now you have a couple choices, you can make meatballs, or you can make burgers and grill then or make burgers and bake them or you can turn this into a awesome meatloaf..

To serve, I went and cut a huge handful of fresh horseradish greens, destemmed them, cooked with till Just wilted in a touch of butter, and then mixed them with mayo, with a touch of seasoning salt which was our burger topping, and it was delightful!

This recipe is credited to the late Rose Barlow.. (this recipe comes out of Whitehorse, Yukon)

Dandelion Mustard

1 cup of yelow mustard seeds whole

1 and 1/4th cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup of Dandelion syrip or birch syrup or dark grade b maple syrup

1 cup of fresh cleaned dandelion greens pureed, if you don’t have enough dandlion, you can use chickweed or lambs quarters

1/2 cup of Dandelion petals, (make sure to remove the bitter green parts)

4 cloves of galic, finely chopped.. Pinch of sea salt.

Soak the mustard seeds in the apple cider vinager for several hours, then blend with the rest of the ingredents till as smooth as you would like it. Makes about two cups, to keep it for longer in the fridge, its recommended to pour a little olive oil on top to keep it fresh and moist.