eating common lambsquarters - chenopodium album

I've been on a salad kick lately.  In the winter months it's all hearty soups and bread, but when the weather warms, you know how it is, you crave food that is fresh and light.  I had noticed some plants in the yard that I was pretty certain were lambsquarters (or lamb's quarters or goosefoot...some people call this pig weed too, a name assigned to several weeds...let's just call them chenopodium), and knew them to be edible.

I compared them to my field guides and checked them on Wildman Steve Brill's website, and it seemed I did indeed have myself some chenopodium.  You can see by the shape of the leaves why it's also called goosefoot. 

The youngest leaves have a waxy powder on them that is easily wiped off, and the plant has no discernible scent when crushed.  Epazote, a look-alike, smells resinous.

Chances are, you've seen these because they seem to grow everywhere...even in my potted plants.  (by the way, those are the onions I re-grew a few months ago)

As for taste, they're really good!  They're mild and green and perfect in salads.  You can use them like spinach either fresh or cooked.  I like them well enough that I added a row of them to my garden.  Adding weeds to my garden?  Of course!  Any nutritious and free wild edible as tasty as this can hang out in my garden.  Even though there isn't exactly a shortage of it in my yard...

When I pick, I take a few younger leaves from this plant then that plant...never pick all the leaves from only one plant if you want to keep them growing in your yard.

We were in the mood for a sweeter salad last night so we tossed our chenopodium with some lettuce from our greenhouse, a handful of wood sorrel, wild rose petals, one whole apple, a handful of nuts, and dried cherries.  Delish.

Have any of you tried chenopodium?  If you haven't, do you think you will?  It's amazing to me just how many "weeds" out there are so useful once one starts to identify them.

p.s. We gather only wild plants that we can positively identify and only from areas that we trust to be free of pesticides, run-off, and other ickiness.   The occasional bug or clod of dirt is okay with us, but chemicals are not. blech. 

dandelion fritters with cheese

The dandies have come out in full force and our yard looks like it's covered with a thousand tiny suns. (okay, maybe more than a thousand)  We've had bouquets in the house, been wishing on puffs, eating leaves, picking flowers and digging roots.  The dandelion is such a useful plant.

Dandelion "honey" is one of my kids' favorites, and they've been requesting it and dandelion bread already.  I was in the mood for something a little more savory the other night so instead I made some fritters.

The kids gathered a basket of nice, full, dandelion flowers and I cut some chives from the herb garden.  We had some leftover corn in the fridge and some cheddar cheese so they went into the mix as well.  I stirred it all into a batter and deep-fried them.  The result was a fritter that was crispy on the outside and puffy on the inside with a mildly sweet/oniony flavor.  They were really good with a little dip in ranch dressing.

dandelion fritters

2 cups dandelion petals, greens removed (I cut mine off as seen here)

1 cup finely grated cheddar

1 cup cooked corn (I bet other veg would be good too)

1/4 chopped chives

mix into batter:

1 egg

1 cup flour

3/4 cup milk with 1/2 tsp vinegar added

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

Stir until everything is good and goopy.  It shouldn't be runny, but if it is, add a bit more flour.

Drop mixture using a table spoon into medium-hot oil in a sturdy pan.  They cook quickly.  Flip when they're a deep golden tan.  Place on a wire rack or towel to drain.

****

You can wash your dandelion petals if you'd like.  If you trust the source to be free of pesticides and pet "traffic" you can skip it.  We pick from a clean area so we generally skip it.

The dandelion petals give pretty little flecks of color to not only fritters and breads, but cookies, ice cream, and more.  My husband isn't a fan of the dandelion-covered yard but I'm hoping to change his mind through food...he'll eventually see it my way.  Maybe.

Happy Weekend, everyone!

stinging nettle for supper

Some of you eagle-eyes knew right away that yesterday's wordless Wednesday post were stinging nettles, didn't you?  I'm considering myself an eagle eye for having found them in the first place.  After 5 years of living here without ever finding a patch, I had resigned myself to the fact that I would have to venture off my land to find some.  But lo and behold, there they were.

  They had snuck a ride in with a load of fill dirt we had delivered last fall.  I'm so happy to have them that I'm going to try transplanting them to another area of the yard, away from the house.

There are a ton of ways to prepare stinging nettles, and they are quite common in many societies, but this was my first time sampling them.  I decided to go with a nettle pesto and it was absolutely delicious.  But then, what isn't when mashed with garlic, cheese, and pine nuts?

For those of you that aren't familiar, stinging nettles are aptly named.  They have tiny hairs on them that inject histamine and other chemicals when touched.  And it hurts.  My arms and calves can still conjure up the feeling of stinging welts on them from my childhood.  The chemicals are neutralized when you briefly cook them.  The sting is gone and the tasty begins.

I'm thinking nettle gnocchi next...

(oh, and Annie... you're right there are some in the dye pot too)

Happy Thursday, all.

acorn ornaments and crafting with squirrels

Yesterday you caught a glimpse at what was on my work table and here today we have the end result, teeny tiny acorn huts for mushrooms.  I like to think that if the pine squirrels came over for a crafting night, this is what they would make.

I've hollowed out some acorn bodies and after they were cleaned and dried, glued in a wool mushroom and moss.  I sewed small french knots on the caps for their spots.

They're so tiny and they fill me with glee.  I am gleeful when I look at them.  This one with the extra nub on the cap is my favorite.

These little guys will be in my shop soon and will be available on Sunday morning, not Saturday as I said earlier, as I've had a couple of commitments come up since then.

To celebrate the acorn theme, I decided to make myself a cup of acorn tea.  I poured boiling water over some of the acorn flour I made, allowed it to steep, then strained out the acorn. (a french press would be really handy for that)  I added a bit of sugar, but next time I might not, it was really good on its own.  The acorns have a caramel taste to me and this was like sipping warm, milky caramel.

I think the pine squirrels would approve.

Today I am ever so flattered to have been featured at re-nest, a gorgeous green home site.  I was invited by the talented and charming Rikkianne to define "needle-felting" and offer a few thoughts on the process.  I'd love it if you'd stop over and have a look.

On Needle-felting : Lisa Jordan of lil fish studios

Have a good day everyone.

behold the chokecherry

Before I moved to Minnesota, I had only a vague notion of what a chokecherry was and never had I tried one.  My husband, who grew up here, talked of having chokecherry jelly and recounted popping the astringent cherries in his mouth as a kid and trying not to pucker.

We had been here almost two years before I discovered that our woods held a number of these trees and another year still before I tried my hand at making anything with the cherries.  My first batch of jelly wasn't much more than sweet, not what I expected from these notorious little fruits.

This year I was able to pick a good amount of cherries before the birds or bugs got to them, and made a chokecherry syrup.  To counteract the astrigency of the cherry, it's important to wait until they're black without a trace of red, and to add lots and lots of sugar.  Now, I did both but my syrup still had a rather medicinal taste.  Not unlike Nyquil, actually.

I tried making a bubbly drink by adding some club soda and got something akin to um, bubbly Nyquil.  I figure my only recourse at this point is to make an alcholic drink of it.  Enough vodka in there and I probably won't notice the taste at all.  Or anything else for that matter...

I was a little more successful with my other chokecherry experiment.

I look pretty dangerous here, don't I?  You may think I'm all sweet mushrooms and soft wool but I have a darker side.  And a knife.  And mom gym shoes.

Yeah, I'm scary.

One of our chokecherry trees had fallen this summer and I finally got around to hauling the wood into the barn for drying.  I cut off some of the smaller limbs and thought I'd try dyeing with the bark.

I used one of my old kitchen knives to strip the bark (a draw knife is on my list of wants, but what I have are old kitchen knives) from the limbs.  I tore the strips of bark into pieces and simmered it in some water for about an hour.  The water had taken on an orangey color and the house smelled like earth and cherries, which I didn't mind.

I drained the dye and added a piece of unmordanted, scoured silk and wool.  The resulting color is a warm tan, sort of like buckskin on the silk and a pale tan on the wool.

It's tan, which isn't hard to come by with natural dyeing, but it is quite lovely, a nice shade for autumn.

How about you?  Have you tried chokecherries?  Did you pucker?

Have a great weekend, everyone.

acorn gathering

You know fall is near when the acorns start dropping.  Trips to the clothesline are fraught with danger of being beaned by oak-powered projectiles.  Though this may be the land of Poplar and Pine, Oaks are just as prevalent in my yard.

I've noticed that while the red oaks started dropping acorns a few weeks ago, the white oaks, especially the Bur Oaks, dropped them en masse a few days ago.  I've been wanting to try my hand at acorn processing ever since I saw the beautiful pastas, breads, and even "coffee" on Hank Shaw's site (do a search for acorns once there, you'll be in awe).  I grabbed my gathering basket, a couple of my grubby-handed kids, and started scooping the acorns in.  They easily fell out of their caps and I found out later, were nearly bug-free, unlike their red oak cousins.

The process of removing the nut meats from the acorn shell is a tedious one.  It helps to enlist some helpers for this step too.

Whack the acorn, remove the meat, drop meat in a pot of water, repeat.

After we had de-shelled our entire batch of acorns, I needed to leach the tannins out.  The tannin in the acorn is what gives them their bitter taste.  Even before leaching, these acorns were pretty mild so I didn't have to do much soaking, three changes of water was all it took.  When the soaking water remained clear I put the drained acorns in my dehydrator to dry so I could later grind them into flour.  (see Hank Shaw's post for processing tips)

With the sudden cold snap it seemed like soup weather so I decided that acorn bread would be on the menu.  I used Amber Dusick's recipe and it turned out fantastically.  It was hearty and slightly sweet, so good slathered with butter and served with my roasted squash soup.  We enjoyed it so much I headed right back out and gathered more acorns.  I'm dying to try that coffee recipe...

Tomorrow I'll show you what I did with these.

How about you?  Have you ever eaten acorns?  What did you think?

Sulphur Shelf aka Chicken Mushroom

I found my first Sulphur Shelf mushroom last year.  I almost walked right past it, as it was high in a tree, and I was looking down for mushrooms.  We cut down that first mushroom and marveled at how good it tasted and I've been keeping my head up looking for another since then.

On my way out of the woods the other day a flash of orange caught my eye and there it was, right at hip-level.  Thanks Mr. Sulphur Shelf, that made for much easier harvesting.  This guy was nice and young and tender.  He was bright orange on top and bright sulphur yellow on the underside.

I cut off about half, thanked him for his sacrifice, and skipped to the house to cook them up.  This was a smallish harvest so I planned to eat them right away, rather than cook and freeze them like I might do with a larger flush.

And speaking of larger flushes...

My mother in law spotted this huge one on a dead oak while taking a walk and shared pictures with me.  Having the poker face that I do, I squealed and frantically emailed her asking if I could come and harvest.  She agreed and I came home with about 10 pounds of mushrooms.

This specimen was a bit older than my first one and I had to trim a lot of woody and buggy bits.  Those I tossed in the dye pot.  The rest was sauteed in butter and frozen in serving sizes for this winter.  Sulphur Shelf is one of those mushrooms that freezes really well and it truly does taste like chicken.  It doesn't have any poisonous look-alikes but if you harvest, be sure to leave any that are growing on pine or hemlock.  Look for those growing on dead Oaks, to be safe.  (You can read more here).

Yesterday seemed like soup weather so I pulled out the mushrooms I had sauteed from my first find and tossed them in to a tortilla soup recipe.  Oh so good. 

The results from the dye pot were decidedly ho-hum, so much so that I didn't photograph them.  I'm sure this is because I was using older mushroomes.  I think that with a fresher mushroom the yellow would have been brighter.

So if you see a flash of yellow and orange in the woods this fall, check it out.  It could be your next chicken tortilla soup calling.

red clover tea

One of my favorite snacky plants is the Red Clover.  They offer up big fluffy flower heads with petals that can be pulled out easily for nibbling the sweet white tips.   This is how I ate them as a kid (and still do) and how my kids eat them but you can pop the entire flower head in your mouth too.  I had read that a tea can be made from them so I decided to give it a try.

I placed a couple of flower heads in a cup of boiling water, after checking them for unwanted insect friends aka "extra protein", and let it steep for about 15 minutes.

The resulting tea had turned a pale tannish yellow.

I had read that tea was slightly sweet and that the leaves had a taste that hinted at vanilla so it was with great anticipation that I raised the cup to my lips.  I took my first sip and it tasted rather...blech.  Mushrooms.  It tasted like weak mushroom water.  Don't get me wrong, I love mushrooms more than life itself, but not so much as a tea.  I took another sip just to be sure there wasn't something worth salvaging then dumped the rest in one of my houseplants.

You can't win them all.

I took a nibble from another of the flower heads that I had gathered and it didn't have any of its normal sweetness so I'm guessing that was the problem.  It may be too late in the season or something for this but I've also read that the tea is better with the addition of other herbs like mint.  I'll try it again next year.

Until then it looks pretty on my drying rake between the Tansy and Yarrow.

Have you tried red clover tea?

a side of daylilies please

The ubiquitous orange daylily.  Seen in almost every farm house's yard where I grew up.  They lined the old railroad tracks where I played as a kid; we called them tiger lilies though I don't know why and stomped over them on our quest for black caps.  They seemed to be everywhere except my own back yard.  That is, until this year. 

After discovering last summer through Hank Shaw's blog that these common daylilies are edible, I had to give them a try.  I found a patch of plants and cooked up a few buds and tubers and declared them delicious.  Color me surprised!  I figured they'd make a fine addition to our summer menu so I begged a patch of them off of my in-laws to plant in my own yard.  They were more than happy to let me dig up a load of them because as anyone who has these knows, they grow (and spread) like weeds.

Our lily patch is pretty small this year but we've been able to get a few harvests of buds so far.  In a year or two I should have enough that I can start thinning them out and then I'll be able to harvest the root tubers, which taste like fingerling potatoes.  For now we're enjoying our buds sauteed in butter with a little salt. 

Oh yum.

For me they taste a bit like a cross between a green bean and asparagus.  Cooked just briefly they have a nice texture too.  Seriously, did I mention, oh yum?

I recently read that you can pickle the buds, and I suppose they'd be good deep fried, (because like, what isn't?), or tossed in stir fry.  The whole plant is edible actually and I've already promised to deep fry the flowers for my son who loves, and has been deprived of this year, squash blossoms. 

I love having useful plants in the yard.  How about you?

per the Peterson Field Guide - Edible Wild Plants:

On identifying the edible day-lily "Note the unspotted tawny blossoms (open 1 day only) facing upward from the top of a leafless flowerstalk.  Basal leaves light green, long, swordlike.  Root a tangle of small elongated tubers."