Pasta with Spring Greens
and Hosta shoots

The first recipe I flicked to in James Wongs book was one for Hosta. I knew about some edible weeds, ground elder, nettles etc, and I knew about lots of edible flowers; borage, nasturtiums etc. But Hostas? How exciting!

I needed to try this. We had some fresh pasta, I finally had some time to pick a few leaves, and it was probably my turn to cook (blue moon and all that). There was obviously some trepidation from the guinea pig, I mean husband, about eating random plants, but I was all set.

I'd almost missed the start of the hosta plants, given that you have to pick the leaves as buds before they start to unfurl. I only had about nine shoots. Luckily, I spotted a few ground elder leaves to supplement the greens.

The recipe in the book is basically a pasta primavera with tagliatelle. I made a few changes, but the result was pretty much the same.