Archive for the ‘wild food’ Category

3 Nov

Fall Renewal

Posted by wooddogs3 in edible landscaping, front yard gardening, home food production, Uncategorized, wild food. Tagged: , , , , , .

 

It’s been an unusual growing season at my place, with the strangeness in the larger world reflected in strange events that affected my gardening. First, a hard freeze two weeks later than I have ever had at my property before. Then after things were replanted, a heavy hailstorm in late spring that tore all the vegetable plants to tatters, shredded the tree leaves, and knocked little green fruit off the fruit trees. Then lots of clean-up and a new round of replanting. Then, about five weeks later, an even worse hailstorm. This one had hailstones an inch in diameter, and was followed by flooding rains. Replanting was a real issue this time, because there were lots of supply problems and many seed companies were out of the seeds that I wanted.


All this was followed by the hottest driest summer that I have experienced, so hot that I couldn’t water enough to keep things growing and no amount of mulch kept plants from desiccating. Broccoli and sugar peas and all my other favorite early-summer crops were lost completely. And in late summer when the fruit, even though scarred and pockmarked by hail, did start to ripen, squirrels moved in. These were intense, driven squirrels, with the focus and aggression of shoppers trying to score the last pack of toilet paper. My European plum tree was loaded with fruit and one day I tasted one and decided that they were almost ready to pick and I would start picking the next day. By 9 o’clock the next morning, there were exactly 5 plums left on the tree. I have never seen anything like it. I think that the squirrels were running a wholesale operation somewhere. If I knew where, I would’ve bought my own fruit back rather than lose it all, but that did not seem to be an option. I did get a few peaches and apples, and they left the quince tree strictly alone, but everything else was gone.

Sometimes I think really hard about moving to a more garden friendly climate zone, but then October comes. October in New Mexico would make a convert out of anybody. Long walks along the acequias in cool crisp air under the gold cottonwoods make me intensely grateful for where I am, and we get gorgeous sunsets year round but especially in fall.

So I gave up my musings about moving and started thinking about what did work this year.

The bramble fruits were a loss but the small fruit like elderberries and pie cherries bore abundantly, so I made lots of crisps and fermented lots of wine. The perennial greens like nettles and scorzonera were unfazed, and the collards lost all their leaves to hail but grew a new crop despite the heat. Mulberries bore beautifully all over town. Fennel’s threadlike leaves just giggled at the hail. Butternut and Tahitian melon squash   lost their leaves to hail but kept growing, and by the end of the season some 30foot vines had climbed the apple trees and large squash hung among the apples. I picked some immature ones to use as summer squash.  Potatoes held onto enough foliage to grow a beautiful crop of tubers.
I also learned some things. In the southwest, if you want to have dandelions you have to water them. All but three of my cherished dandelion plants died because I had underestimated their water needs. This is good information for next year. The local edible weeds like lambsquarters and amaranth are adapted to our seasons, so if you just give them a reasonably fertile piece of ground, water some, and don’t disturb them, you will get a good greens crop and can put enough in the freezer for winter. Always order more seeds of your favorite varieties than you think you need, in case you have to replant once or even twice. Be prepared to be flexible about what you eat. When a really bad season comes along be glad of what it does produce, because it could be worse and may yet be. If you eat meat, please seek out and support your local farmers.

Do less of what doesn’t work and more of what works, and plan your meals for the conditions you’re in and not the conditions you wish prevailed. Right now, the three surviving dandelions have grown to a huge size, and with a few late sprigs of lambsquarters and some Berkshire bacon from the freezer, they’ll make a delicious meal.

 

6 Jun

Using What You Have VII: Primary and Secondary Consumption of Elm

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, edible landscaping, front yard gardening, greens, herbs, home food production, Perennial edibles, sustainable, Uncategorized, wild food. Tagged: , , , , , .

I’ve become more and more intrigued by culinary uses of tree leaves, since there is nothing more ecologically sound: the soil is never disturbed, carbon is sequestered, soil biota is preserved, and a small tree can produce an awful lot of leaves. The drawback is that there is little information about how to use them or even which ones are safe to use. I’ve written recently about my elm leaf pasta.  Today I experimented with spaetzle, the firm eggy dumplings made in Eastern Europe but highly adaptable anywhere.

Here I will make my usual disclaimer about eating wild foods or foods that you have never eaten before: never trust your safety to a stranger on the Internet. Do your own research, be aware that your tolerance may be very different from mine, and experiment cautiously before you eat a lot if you do decide to eat wild foods. All green leafy foods can be laxative to people who don’t usually eat them. The decision is yours.

I refer in the title to “primary and secondary consumption” because not only do I eat the leaves directly in the spaetzle but the eggs come from my chickens, who eat a lot of elm leaves. So this is double-layered tree-eating.

I couldn’t find my spaetzle maker, so I tried a potato ricer, which I had read would also work. It doesn’t really. Have a spaetzle maker and life will be simpler.

This was a freewheeling experiment and quantities aren’t exact. Basic proportions for spaetzle are a cup of flour, two eggs, a quarter cup of milk, and a half teaspoon of salt whisked together, but this one is different because of the leaves. I started with all the elm leaves that I could squeeze into one hand, about two cups when fluffed up more loosely. They were steamed for seven minutes and cooled.

Then I put one and a quarter cups of flour in the blender, added the leaves, and chopped as finely as possible. This is a bit tedious, with some stopping and stirring required. Then I added half a teaspoon of salt and five egg yolks, and just enough water to make a very thick batter. Run the batter through the spaetzle maker into salted water at a fast simmer, cook until the spaetzle rise to the top, and simmer until done. Take one out and bite it and examine the interior. They should be cooked through when finished, no longer wet and sticky inside. This is usually 2-4 minutes tops. Drain, and spread out on a flexible cutting board to cool. Don’t use wax paper, as I show here, because it turns out they stick to it and it is a bit annoying getting them off again.

At this point you can proceed or refrigerate them for a day until needed. I wanted to try them right away, so I heated up a skillet to a bit above medium and chopped up a bit of celery, two healthy sprigs of marjoram, and two small cloves of garlic. Two tablespoons each of butter and olive oil went in the skillet, the garlic went in to sizzle for a few seconds, and the herbs were added and tossed around for a minute. Then the spaetzle went in. At this point you can either cook them at medium heat until heated through as seen here,

or do as I prefer and keep cooking until the little dumplings have some browned spots, as shown here:

Serve as a landing with something nice on top. My preference is fried eggs with runny yolks and nice crisp brown rims. My husband’s plate is shown at the top of this post, and yes, he really does like that much pepper on his eggs. I can also imagine the assemblage looking even more colorful with some deep red chile drizzled over the green dumplings and eggs.
There is no strong or objectionable flavor in elm leaf spaetzle, and there are certainly far more fiber and fewer carbohydrates than in all-flour spaetzle. My mother’s objection to nearly all my leafy foods is that they are green. Well, leaves are green. Maybe we just need to get used to eating some green food, and given that people love some odd colored things like deep blue potatoes, I don’t see any reason why green food is beneath consideration. Green is the color of growth, so maybe we can come to think of it as “growth food.”

no doubt it goes without saying that if you don’t wish to experiment with wild foods, you can use chard or similar mild greens instead. Steam, squeeze dry, and proceed as above.

20 May

Using What You Have IV: Your Friendly Local Weeds

Posted by wooddogs3 in Books worth reading, edible landscaping, front yard gardening, greens, home food production, kitchen staples, Nose-to-tail vegetables, sustainable, Uncategorized, wild food. Tagged: , , , , , , .


I have written a lot about foraging at various times in the past, but it occurs to me that there was never a better time to bring it up again. And if you are not willing to commit the time to learning foraging in general, then learn two weeds: amaranth and lambs quarters. These two are worldwide and ubiquitous, mild-flavored and easy to use, and in warm weather they are nearly always somewhere nearby.
The botanical  names are Chenopodium berlandieri for lambsquarters and Amaranthus (various species) for amaranth. You can see them above coming up in a pot near my porch, lambsquarters toward the top of the photo and amaranth further down, and they come up everywhere that I water a piece of soil. They both get huge but are best when young and tender, and both are available from May to August. Both have mild flavor and are a reasonable substitute for spinach. Both are nutritional powerhouses. And both need to be carefully identified if you aren’t familiar with them, as does any unfamiliar food.

This is the book I recommend as your first foraging book, because the plants are widely available, Dr. Kallas is an acknowledged authority, and the information on identification is impeccable. Get your IDs down cold. Not because there are any poisonous look-alikes, but because it’s the right way to approach foraging. The book also contains excellent information on kitchen preparation and cooking.

Now that you know exactly what plants you are dealing with, how do you want to prepare them? The possibilities draw from all the cuisines of the world. I love greens as a simple stirfry with some ginger and oyster sauce to be eaten with rice or by itself, and I make gallons of the Greek mixture called Horta, flavored with garlic, herbs,  and black olives, to keep in the refrigerator or freezer and eat by itself on a piece of sourdough bread or baked into a quiche or hortapita, or any other way. Horta also makes a great base to land some fried or hard boiled eggs on, and is a good side dish for nearly anything. Smoked pork has a magical affinity with greens, and some ham trimmings or meat pulled from a leftover smoked rib is a great addition to greens sautéed with onion and garlic.  Rick Bayless has published some tasty variations on a theme of greens tacos (here’s just one) and he uses chard or spinach but using your own weeds is an easy substitution. Combinations of greens and beans or chickpeas are classic. Pile seasoned horta into salted zucchini shells with some feta or Parmesan and a topping of pine nuts and bake until done, serving with or without seasoned tomato sauce. Or click the “greens” heading in the sidebar of this blog for more greens talk and recipes.



When I gather a bunch of greens I try to wash them immediately and, if possible, blanch them briefly or stir-fry in neutral oil just until wilted down, so that they use minimal refrigerator space and are ready to use in seconds when a quick meal is needed.
Be aware that both these plants can get enormous, up to ten feet in good soil, so grab them young if you want to grow anything else in that space.

28 Mar

Living in Interesting Times: Spring Greens

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, edible landscaping, front yard gardening, greens, Perennial edibles, sustainable, wild food. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

This is a very strange time for everyone. As a healthcare provider, I know how much there is to worry about. I know that not everyone can isolate themselves from exposure, and not everyone has the luxury (and it is a luxury) of the money and space to store some crisis supplies. Not everyone has the luxury of a job right now, by a long shot. If you do, appreciate what you have and help others if you possibly can.

At this as at other tough times, I find myself thinking back to growing up in Louisiana. In hurricane country people were used to regular interruptions of basic services and kept on hand what they needed to get through 2-3 weeks. They helped each other and they followed the hurricane directives. So respect the restrictions we operate under right now and do the best you can not to be part of the problem.

Narrowing this down to the garden, there is nothing as comforting as being able to get some food from your own yard. There’s an egg shortage, but my chickens are laying, supplying us and a few colleagues and neighbors with at least some eggs. Rice and beans and seasonings are in the pantry, and if you always keep herbs in the garden and a few ham hocks in the freezer, you have the means to make things taste good.
This is a great time to learn to use your weeds if you haven’t already. I actually had to buy seeds to have dandelions, but once you have them they are faithful kitchen friends every spring. If you don’t care for bitter greens, mix them with milder greens like nettles, scorzonera, bladder campion, and salsify, all growing lustily in my yard right now and all perfectly delicious when cooked. If you don’t know these unstoppable weeds, learn about them and plant them now or learn where they grow. Then spring will be a time of abundance, regardless of what’s going on in the greater world, and the less need you have for outside groceries, the more there are for someone else. Seal and freeze the extra to eat another time. If you have a patch of Egyptian or other perennial onions, you’ll always have seasoning on hand, and a handful of chopped oil-cured olives adds delicious umami.


Mixed cooked greens in the refrigerator can be eaten in tortillas with cheese, used to top rice with some butter and meat juices, or (most deliciously, in my view) spread on toasted sourdough bread and topped with fluffy grated flakes of good Parmesan.
After that will come the meaty delicious leaves from last year’s chard plants, mulberry sprigs, hops shoots, and who knows what all. This may be the year that I finally try cooking the newest Siberian elm leaves, instead of feeding them all to the animals. I’ll comb my foraging and permaculture books for other things I haven’t tried yet.

The reason to do all this is not that there is no food in stores. There’s lots of food, with strange exceptions currently caused by hoarding more than any actual lack of supply. The reason is to take yourself out of the hoarding mentality and into a frame of mind to nourish yourself well and realize that you will act responsibly and do as well as you can. Life is uncertain and COVID-19 even more so. Everyone is at risk right now, but if we are staying home responsibly when not working and minimizing risk to ourselves and others we’ll feel better. If we feel that we can get things for elderly friends and relatives so that they can isolate more effectively, we’ll feel better. And staying home to garden, tend animals, and forage in the yard feels a lot better than sitting around watching television.

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