Foraging for favorites

[suzilightning]

45 minutes ago, heidih said:

Thinking a greens soup since it is Green Thursday, I wandered out to see what I could include. Found some mallow, wild fennel, dandelion, and mustard. A bit of the raw mustard had a perfect sharpness. 

Gumbo z'herbes

Edited March 29, 2018 by suzilightning
can't spell (log)

[heidih]

21 minutes ago, suzilightning said:

Gumbo s'herbes

 

I'm doing a modified Ashe Reshteh with just lentils as the legume. It is vegetarian and delicious so it works for the veggos coming over

If you have not read Kim Severson's account of her first attempt making Leah Chase's Gumbo z'herbes on Holy Thursay I highly recommend it. It is in the chapter on Mrs. Chase in Kim's  "Spoon Fed - How Eight Cooks Saved My Life". Great book in general. 

Edited March 29, 2018 by heidih
Corrected book title (log)

[suzilightning]

Just now, heidih said:

 

I'm doing a modified Ashe Reshteh with just lentils as the legume. It is vegetarian and delicious so it works for the veggos coming over

If you have not read Kim Severson's account of her first attempt making Leah Chase's Gumbo z'herbes on Holy Thursay I highly recommend it. It is in the chapter on Mrs. Chase in Kim's  "Spoon Fed - 8 Women Who Saved My Life". Great book in general. 

OHHH great ANOTHER book to add to the notebook!!!!

Just kidding @heidih.  I so do appreciate the suggestion and I had never heard of the book before.

 

suzi

[gfweb]

Ramps just peeking out of the soil. Looks like I lost more than a few. : - (

 

[Darienne]

Spring is late this year in East Central Ontario.  We had a terrible ice storm a few weeks ago and there was a lot of damage to the trees on our farm.  The Fiddleheads are past eating of course...will we ever eat them? ...and now I am on the lookout for the morels.  Last year's crop was amazing.  I found two in 2016 and then in 2017, we were inundated with them. 

 

Strangely enough we had not one puffball which survived.  We are usually overrun by them.

 

Last year we had elderberries like crazy.  Again, they were the first I had seen on the trail.  Contrary...we had no apples after several years of bushels.  Oh well.

 

And in the vein of confession...last year's butternuts, all 90-something of them, picked up mold one day and were tossed the next.  To my shame. 

 

[Tri2Cook]

Haven't seen much of anything here yet. Like where Darienne lives, winter lingered a little longer this year (which was fun since it also started earlier and maintained that deep winter extra-cold segment much longer than usual). Not even any dandelions in the yard yet. I took a stroll down to a field not far from my house and it looks like the wild horseradish is breaking through the ground but I rarely do much with it. The leaves are tasty when young and tender but don't stay in that stage long and I have a habit of not catching them at the right time.

[pastrygirl]

I didn’t forage these, I bought them at a farmers market, sold as “wild spinach”. But all the pics that come up when I search that term show lambs quarters or pigweed with serrated leaves, while these have smooth edges. So what do I have and can you suggest a recipe?  Backs of leaves have a slight purple tinge, if that helps. Thanks!

 

 

Edited June 29, 2018 by pastrygirl (log)

[Shelby]

4 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:

I didn’t forage these, I bought them at a farmers market, sold as “wild spinach”. But all the pics that come up when I search that term show lambs quarters or pigweed with serrated leaves, while these have smooth edges. So what do I have and can you suggest a recipe?  Backs of leaves have a slight purple tinge, if that helps. Thanks!

Could it be sorrel?

[pastrygirl]

5 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Could it be sorrel?

 

I don't think so.  It doesn't have that lemony taste, tastes like pea vines or how fresh cut grass smells, and sorrel looks like it grows more like lettuce with individual leaves rather than many leaves on a stem.  Maybe some kind of watercress?  I'm sure I can just saute it up with some garlic, but I'm curious.

[TicTac]

Mushroom season is upon us.

 

Today's haul - about 30 minutes in the forest - approx 5-6 lbs.  Toonie for scale.

 

[Smithy]

One of the crabapple trees a mile or so down the road produces delightfully tart-sweet, crunchy fruit every 2 or 3 years. This year its crop was especially good. I came back from a walk or two with a couple of quarts' worth. The only problem with them is that they're labor-intensive to get the seeds out...and I'm not a fan of applesauce so they can be cooked down without coring.

 

 

They'll be going into litle hand pastries, I think.

[Darienne]

59 minutes ago, Smithy said:

One of the crabapple trees a mile or so down the road produces delightfully tart-sweet, crunchy fruit every 2 or 3 years. This year its crop was especially good. I came back from a walk or two with a couple of quarts' worth. The only problem with them is that they're labor-intensive to get the seeds out...and I'm not a fan of applesauce so they can be cooked down without coring.

 

They'll be going into litle hand pastries, I think.

What about a hand food mill?  That's what I use for apple sauce.  I don't peel them or core them...just cook them and then into the mill.  

 

ps.  We have no apples this year.  Two years ago the harvest was so heavy that a branch actually broke right off our Macintosh tree.

Edited October 7, 2018 by Darienne (log)

[ElsieD]

45 minutes ago, Darienne said:

What about a hand food mill?  That's what I use for apple sauce.  I don't peel them or core them...just cook them and then into the mill.  

 

ps.  We have no apples this year.  Two years ago the harvest was so heavy that a branch actually broke right off our Macintosh tree.

 

 

I don't peel either and after they are cooked, a hand mill takes care of the seeds and skins.

[dcarch]

9 hours ago, TicTac said:

Mushroom season is upon us.

 

Today's haul - about 30 minutes in the forest - approx 5-6 lbs.  Toonie for scale.

 

 

What are those?

Look like the ones I have in my garden.

 

dcarch

[gfweb]

All it takes is one bad mushroom...

[Smithy]

10 hours ago, Darienne said:

What about a hand food mill?  That's what I use for apple sauce.  I don't peel them or core them...just cook them and then into the mill.  

 

ps.  We have no apples this year.  Two years ago the harvest was so heavy that a branch actually broke right off our Macintosh tree.

 

 

That's a terrible shame about your apple tree. Is its crop cyclic also? I hope the tree recovers.

 

9 hours ago, ElsieD said:

 

I don't peel either and after they are cooked, a hand mill takes care of the seeds and skins.

 

I appreciate the thought(s), but I'm not crazy about applesauce except as the occasional fat substitute. I'd like these best, I think, if I could keep the crunch. I've considered a relish, chutney or salad. I think they'll be good cooked in a small tart. As it happens, today was utterly consumed by non-food tasks, so nothing more has been done since this morning's optimistic post.

[Anna N]

 This will likely only interest a minuscule portion of our membership —  those who live in southern Ontario. Still I was startled to learn that pawpaws grow wild here. 

 

Here.

 

"These are actually the first wild pawpaws that I've seen," he said. "I first read about pawpaw trees. It just seemed like this exotic tree that seemed too mythical, too bizarre to be true."

 

 

[BeeZee]

Apparently pawpaws grow somewhere in our area, a local ice cream shop that makes seasonal flavors from locally sourced ingredients had some pawpaw ice cream recently. I really would like to taste a pawpaw.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Yes, supposedly they are native here.  I have never seen one except for sale in a bucket.

 

[chromedome]

That's interesting. I expect they'd grow in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, if they grow in southern Ontario. Perhaps one day, as/if we buy a house there (our current plan, once the grandkids are in school) I'll look into getting a few young trees to experiment with.

[gfweb]

I just bought two pawpaw trees. I've been meaning to for years and this thread pushed me to it.

 

Another eG purchase!

[TicTac]

12 hours ago, dcarch said:

 

What are those?

Look like the ones I have in my garden.

 

dcarch

 

These are Elm Oyster mushrooms.  Think of a oyster mushroom with 5x the flavour and far 'meatier'.

 

Be cautious as they only grow on one specific type of tree, the Manitoba Maple.  You will never find these guys growing on the ground.  

 

I also saw what I believe to be honey mushrooms , but again, all it takes is 1% uncertainty for something to go horribly wrong!

 

@Anna N - Very interesting re: the paw paw's - I remember reading/hearing about them years ago, but certainly with no local context...I must now start a new search, it seems! 

[Anna N]

26 minutes ago, TicTac said:

Very interesting re: the paw paw's - I remember reading/hearing about them years ago, but certainly with no local context...I must now start a new search, it seems! 

 Thank you. You make it all worthwhile to post these things when I find them. Foraging in my fridge is as challenging and as potentially perilous as I care to get these days. 

[gfron1]

7 hours ago, gfweb said:

I just bought two pawpaw trees. I've been meaning to for years and this thread pushed me to it.

 

Another eG purchase!

They've become my largest (by volume) forage since moving back to the midwest. We pulled over 100# post-processing in three days. All vac-packed and ready for future use.

[gfron1]

10 hours ago, Anna N said:

 This will likely only interest a minuscule portion of our membership —  those who live in southern Ontario. Still I was startled to learn that pawpaws grow wild here. 

 

Here.

 

"These are actually the first wild pawpaws that I've seen," he said. "I first read about pawpaw trees. It just seemed like this exotic tree that seemed too mythical, too bizarre to be true."

That's so odd that they're that far north. I didn't realize they were any higher than say Ohio...I guess its not that much further though.