Nettle soup recipe

This is a bright-green and hence quite unexpectedly delicious soup. Truly foraged, nettle-only. Did I say unexpectedly delicious? Of course you can add potatoes and onions to thicken it up once they too are in season. But for the moment, the seed onions are in a bag in the hallway, and the first early potato plant only just poked out the ground today. So nettle-only it is.

Ingredients (highly approximate!):

• 400g (half a plastic bag) of freshly foraged nettle leaves (uncompressed). Pick only the four to six leaves at the top of the plant, as these are tender.
• 1-2 cups of water
• 4-6 teaspoons of Swiss vegetable bouillon powder
• 2 teaspoons of minced / crushed garlic
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Put the water in a pan and put on the heat.
2. Wash the nettles. Carefully! (reminds me of the joke: how to hedgehogs make love? - carefully!)
3. Once the water is boiled, add the nettles. Don't be shocked if it looks like there are far too many for the amount of water, as they'll reduce down a treat.
4. Boil until the nettle leaves are nice and soft, then blend using a hand blender.
5. Add the bouillon, garlic and salt and pepper to taste.
6. Serve and enjoy!

Oh, and here's a picture of the current state of our kitchen table...