Asian Style Cattail Shoots

If any vegetable--wild or otherwise--comes closeto bamboo shoots in the Great Lakes bioregion, it's cat tail shoots. Their flavor, shape and growth habit are reminiscent of the common bamboo shoot, but with their own special something's of their own. Whilst picking some nice tall shoots I was inspired to create this recipe, and it was a winner.

Cattail shoots are best when between 1 and 3 feet tall, depending on their location. Pull close to their base and pop them off their root. Peel off all of the fibrous outer layers until you reveal the tender inner core. I bend and nibble sections to find those that are most tender...

Asian Style Cattail Shoots

What You Need:

10 ~2 foot cattail shoots, peeled--about 2 cups
2 tbsp sunflower oil
1 scallions
a couple sprigs cilantro, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tsp minced fresh ginger
2 tsp dried cayenne/hot pepper flakes
2 tsp sesame seeds
drizzle of soy sauce or tamari
drizzle of sesame oil
drizzle of maple syrup
drizzle of rice wine vinegar

• Peel cattail shoots. Chop into 2 inch segments and cut lengthwise.


• Fill a sauce pan with one inch of water and put it onto the boil. Set up your steamer basket inside and pop on a lid.


• In a skillet, heat the sunflower oil on medium heat. Once hot, add the pepper flakes, garlic, and ginger.


• Sizzle the pepper flakes, garlic, and ginger until the garlic just starts to turn golden brown and remove the pan from the heat. Immediately stir in the sesame seeds.


• Set the cattail shoots in the steamer and cover. Allow to steam for 30 seconds to 1 minute checking often to make sure it doesn't over cook. Once they're heated through, quickly remove and add to the skillet.


• Into the skillet drizzle the soy sauce, sesame oil, maple syrup, and rice vinegar. Stir everything together and taste. Adjust soy/sesame/maple syrup/rice vinegar to taste/


• Serve immediately with the freshly chopped cilantro. Chopsticks optional!

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Acorn Pancakes (or Waffles)

This is up there as one of my favorite ways to work with acorn flour in a baking/bread situation. You can take this same recipe and use it in a waffle iron to make waffles as well. As I've mentioned in my ACorn bread recipe, I really emphasize making acorns close to half of the dry ingredients, allowing them space as stars and not just side roles. Acorns are rich and buttery and take care and time to prepare, so it seems a shame to me to only add a dash of acorn flour to something. Especially in something so classic and awesome as a pancake or waffle. Like most of my bread recipes, grain ingredients soak and ferment at least 8 hrs to break down enzyme inhibitors, release & add nutrition, and for texture and superb flavor. Finally, I find it hard to believe many folks can resist a hot pancake dripping in butter, autumnberry jam, and maple syrup!

I should note: you may notice that after eating one or two pancakes or waffles (depending on size), you feel more satiated than you may when eating a straight flour, unfermented pancake or waffle. I generally reach a generous feeling of "stuffed" after three pancakes or waffles. The acorns are super nutritious and hearty, and I find myself wanting or being able to eat less. Plus, the energy from this food feels more sustained and nourishing, especially from the fermentation process.

Acorn Pancakes (or Waffles)

What You Need:

1 1/2 cups wheat (or your favorite grain) flour
1 1/2 cups acorn leached acorn flour
2  cups milk, preferably raw or organic/grass-fed.
2 eggs, separated
3-4 tbsp maple syrup
4-5 tbsp melted butter
pinch of salt

• The night before your pancake breakfast, mix your  flour and milk together in a bowl. It should have a loose consistency, similar to paint. Cover and set somewhere warm to ferment/soak.


• The following day, uncover your batter for observation. It should be slightly bubbly and much thicker.


• Preheat your griddle or waffle iron.


• Whip the egg whites to a soft peak in a glass bowl with a pinch of salt.


• Gently incorporate the whipped egg whites into the mixture.


• One at a time, add the acorn flour, egg yolks, melted butter, maple syrup, and another pinch of salt to the batter. Mix each in carefully and thoroughly (trying not to deflate the whipped eggwhite).


• Ladle the mixture onto your griddle or waffle iron and cook them until a crispy, light brown crust forms on the outside. I start with one to get a feel for how long I want to cook them—cooking it until I think its perfect, then breaking it open and trying a few bites.


• Once cooked, stack the pancakes or waffles on a big plate.


• Pull out the butter, maple syrup, an favorite sauce or jam. I pile thick knobs of butter, a few healthy spoonfuls of autumnberry or wild blueberry jam, and light drizzle of maple syrup and dig in!

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ACorn Bread

 

When I cook with acorns, I prefer ways that accentuate what the acorn has to offer, as opposed to just throwing them into any old dish just because. This ACorn bread not only accentuates the buttery, rich flavor of the acorns, it allows them to act as close to half of your dry ingredient list. I'm also a huge proponent of making grain dishes using traditional fermentation techniques that break down the nutrient inhibitors and enzymes present in the grain, and unlock not only their deeper flavor and nutrition, but offer texture and structure to the final product. This bread should come out moist and dense.

*If you aren't growing and grinding it yourself, look for true corn flour, not corn meal. It will make a world of difference.

ACorn Bread

What You Need:

1 3/4 cup corn flour—preferably freshly ground.*
1 cup acorn leached acorn flour
1 3/4 cup milk, preferably raw, hopefully organic/grass-fed.
1 egg, separated
3-4 tbsp maple syrup
4 tbsp melted butter
1 tsp baking powder
2 pinches of salt

• The night before baking, mix your corn flour and 1 3/4 cup of your milk together in a bowl. It should have a loose consistency, similar to paint. Cover and set somewhere warm to ferment/soak.


• The following day, uncover your corn flour and milk mixture for observation. It should be slightly bubbly and much thicker.


• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.


• Whip the egg white to a soft peak in a glass bowl with a pinch of salt.


• Gently incorporate the whipped egg whites into the mixture.


• One at a time, add the last 3/4 cup of milk, acorn flour, egg yolks, melted butter, maple syrup, and another pinch of salt to the batter. Mix each in carefully and thoroughly (trying not to deflate the whipped eggwhite).


• Pour this mixture into a buttered 8-9inch cast iron pan (or 9 inch square baking pan, or equivalent—I've found cast iron is the best for corn breads). Place in the preheated oven an bake for 35 minutes.


• After 35 minutes, insert a toothpick into the bread. If it comes out clean, remove the bread from the oven, remove from the pan, and let rest on a cooling rack for 10-15 minutes.


• Slice, apply thick slabs of butter, (some honey if you like) and indulge!

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Autumnberrykin

I'm a really big fan of closing loops. For that reason, I'm always thinking of how to most efficiently and frugally use all things, especially with food. I've always got my chickens to eat my scraps, the compost pile, or my pet red composting worms, but making more food/drink is always option one for me. In my cider pressing experiences I learned about a techniques used throughout all traditional apple/cider cultures called Ciderkin. It was a fermented preparation made by pouring water over the spent pomace from cider pressing (apple pulp that had its juiced pressed out) and left to ferment, the yeast eating up the remaining sugars. I was a big fan of this ciderkin after I made it—it's light, bubbly, and a mild apple flavor. After making a batch of Autumnberry fruit leather, I had a whole pile of autumnberry pulp and seed and thought to myself, "Why don't I make Autumberrykin?". So I did.

It's something you can ferment a lot or a little, and like ciderkin, extracts those last sugars left in the pulp, giving you a nice lightly autumnberry flavored sparkling drink.

Autumnberry Kin

What You Need:

A pile of Autumnberry pulp left over from your fruit leather making

• In a large jar—one that is large enough to accomodate the volume of pulp you have plus some water—pack in your autumnberry pulp. (you can use a Ball jar. an old pickle jar, or a big jar with one of those flip-top jars with a rubber seal, which is what I used)


• Cover the pulp with water until it is fully saturated.


• Cover the jar tightly and set it in a warm place.


• After a day or so, it will start to bubble as the wild yeast on the pulp start to increase their population. Release any pressure built up by the second day.


• If you want a sweet Autumnberrykin, ferment it only one-two days. For a drier or more lactic drink let it go three-four days, making sure to release the built up pressure once a day.


• After you've achieved your desired sweetness or dryness, strain out the pulp, and bottle it up into any airtight bottle you have. The best are flip-top bottles, but glass screw-top on bottles from sparkling water or even plastic 2 liters work great.


• Let the bottle sit for a day or two to build up carbonation. Once they're carbonated, chill them down and enjoy!

You will notice that the pulp fromt he autumnberries will come out of solution—simply shake the autumnberrykin before serving.

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Autumnberry Fruit Leather

I'm a huge fan of fruit leather. I've spent hours mixing up different concoctions of fruits, herbs, spices, and drying them into thin, sticky, sweet sheets. It's all good fun and one of my favorite ways to preserve food. But, of all of the fruit leathers I've made, Autumnberry remains my all time favorite. Its a fruit that has, in my opinion, the perfect balance of sweet and tart. Its pulp is very fine, almost silky, when cooked down and extracted from its seeds. Drying this fine pulp results in a firm, flavor packed sheet of goodness.

Fruit leather is really simple—much more so than jam or jelly. Really, all you do is pulp up your desired fruit, spread it in thin sheets on a non-stick surface and dehydrate it. Also, it can store for years, and I've kept some leathers over 3 years in an airtight jar.

Autumnberry Fruit Leather

What You Need:

1 gallon ripe Autumnberries

• First things first: turn your autumnberries into pulp. To do this, load them into in a medium-large pot and put them on the stove at medium heat. Pop a lid on the pot and let the berries begin to soften.


• Once they start to simmer, stir the berries every few minutes until they're heated all the way through—this will soften the flesh and bring out a lot of juice from them.


• Take the berries off of the heat. Using either a standard blender or immersion blender (I prefer immersion), blend the cooked berries until they become a nice fine pulp with seeds conveniently suspended throughout.


• Strain this through a fine sieve into a bowl. I use a ladle to take them from the pot to the sieve, then use the bottom of the ladle to push the pulp through. I finish of the extraction with a flat wooden spoon. It works best for me to strain one ladle full at a time. (don't forget to save the excess pulp/seed mixto make Autumnberrykin, an interesting fermented drink!)


• Once you've extracted a satisfactory amount of pulp, you're ready to dry it. There's two ways to do this—using a purchased dehydrator (round or square, doesn't matter) or in an oven. In the dehydrator, spread a layer of the autumnberry pulp across a nonstick sheet (could be what comes with your dehydrator model or even parchment/wax) paper to roughly 1/4" thickness. Then dehydrate on the fruit setting for roughly 3 -4 hours.


• If you don't have a dehydrator, set your oven to its lowest setting, which is usually around 170 degree F. Cover a baking sheet in parchment or wax paper. Spread the autumnberry pulp across the nonstick surface to approximately 1/4" thickness. Stick your sheets of pulp into the oven and then prop the door open by jamming the handle of wood spoon in it. Allow them to dehydrate for 2 hours, then check them every 30 minutes or so until they're nice and firm and tacky all the way through. A nibble never hurts at this point, either.


• Peel your finished fruit leather from your dehydrator surface—it will be nice and sticky. I tear mine up into small bite size pieces and jam them into a clean, airtight, glass jar. They'll keep in there for years—but I highly doubt they'll last that long. Make a bunch!

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Herby Autumnberry Ketchup

I love a good ketchup. Not that mass-produced and overly sweetened kind, with no real complexity of flavor to enjoy. A few years back my mom and I made a batch of homemade ketchup that we learned through Jamie Oliver. It had lots of herbs and spices that set a new bar of ketchup experience. Ever since I've tried to get in a batch or two during the harvest season to store and use all year. This year, while out harvesting Autumnberries, I got the idea that their pulp would be the ideal replacement for tomatoes. Not just because it contains over 17 times more lycopene than tomatoes, but because it has a wonderful balance of sweet and tangy flavors and beautifully silky pulp. So I made up this recipe... Make sure to use fresh herbs—and don't be afraid to add in some of your favorites like fresh oregano, winter savory, or wild analogs like bee balm or lemon balm. To yield your Autumnberry pulp: Cook down around 3-4 cups of autumberries in a small pan at medium heat until their juices start to release. Blend them with an emersion blender (or a blender) after they've simmered for around 5 minutes. Then run this pulp through a fine sieve or folly food mill and you're good to go.

Herby Autumnberry Ketchup

What You Need:

2 cups Autumnberry Pulp
2 heaping tbsp fresh basil, chopped (or dry, if that's all you've got)
1 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp fresh lemon thyme, chopped (or any other thyme you have growing)
1 tsp fresh fennel leaf, chopped
2 heaping tbsp chopped chives
1 large clove of garlic, chopped (or 2 small cloves)
1 small handful of gold raisins
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp olive oil s
alt and pepper to taste

• Rustle up two 8oz half pint canning jars and two clean, unused lids. Submerse these in a pot of water and bring it to a boil (to sterilize).


• In a medium pan, heat the olive oil and sauté the garlic and chives for 2 - 3 minutes.


• Toss in the fennel seed, stir the mixture and then sauté  for another 2 minutes.


• Toss in the thyme, fennel leaf, basil, and gold raisins. Stir it again and let sauté  for another 2 minutes.


• Pour in the autumnberry pulp, brown sugar, and apple cider vinegar. Add salt and pepper to your taste and stir it all together.


• Cook this on a medium heat for about 5 minutes—it will reach a steady, yet mild boil that will "set" the whole mixture together.


• Your jars should be nicely sterilized by this time. Remove them from the boiling water and slowly & carefully fill the jars with the hot ketchup. I fill mine all the way to the brim, top them with the sterilized lid, and then screw on the ring nice and tight.


• Let the jars sit until fully cooled down. Make sure that the lids "pop" and seal. Once they've cooled and sealed, labelt hem up and let mingle in the pantry for at least 6 weeks before you tap in. Luckily, you should have about a 1/4 cup of excess ketchup that won't fit in the jars. Go ahead and make some homemade french fries or and enjoy it!

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Wild Blueberry Ice Cream

I admittedly adopted the base recipe from Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions book, but with one minor tweak. She uses arrowroot powder, which I find gives the final ice cream a slightly "powdery", for lack of a better word, mouth feel. Regardless, it's nice and creamy, especially with good raw milk. And the final color and flavor are incredible—a deep dark purple blue and intense wild blueberry aroma. Sure to please!

Wild Blueberry Ice Cream

What You Need:

2 cups fresh wil blueberries
3 cups milk, preferably raw or organic/grass-fed
1/2 cup maple syrup
pinch of salt

• In a food processor or a blender, add all of the ingredients together. Alternatively, you could use a large bowl and an immersion blender. Blitz the whole lot  until everything is evenly incorporated, and a nice purple-blue hue.


• Taste the mixture and adjust blueberry, maple syrup, or salt quantities to taste.


• In an ice cream machine, whether electric or hand powered, add your mixture and turn until ice crystals start to form.


• Once the mixture reaches a thick consistency—similar to soft serve ice cream, but a tad more loose, transfer to a freezer safe container and then pop into the freezer for at least 2 hours.


• Check on it to make sure its frozen through and dig in.

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Red Currant and Lemon Balm Sorbet

This is a recipe inspired/adopted from this Red Currant Sorbet recipe. I've replaced the use of citrus with lemon balm, an herb widely grown in gardens and commonly found in the wild. It adds aroma and even more cooling satisfaction to this summertime treat.

I made this in tandem with red currant sauce, so I just drew off 250ml from the red currant juice I was going to use for the sauce.

Red Currant and Lemon Balm Sorbet

What You Need:

150ml water
140g sugar
1 large handful of fresh lemon balm
250ml of red current juice/pulp, strained

• Wash and de-stem around 1 quart of fresh red currants.


• Add the de-stemmed berries to a food processor or blender. Alternatively, you could use a large bowl and an immersion blender. Puree and then strain as much juice/pulp as possible through a sieve. Set aside.


• Add the water, sugar, and lemon balm to a medium pot and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes (covering keeps the essential oils from dissipating into the air). Once the sugar is dissolved and the sugar well dissolved, take it off the heat and allow to cool.


• Once the syrup is cool, strain off the lemon balm.


• Mix the syrup with the currant pulp a little a at a time—stirring and tasting after each addition. This allows you to control how tart/sweet the sorbet becomes. Any excess syrup can be used to make a refreshing drink mixed with sparkling water or added to tea, etc.


• If you have an ice cream maker you can use this to make the sorbet. Alternatively, you can simply pour the mixture into a shallow glass baking dish and pop it into the freezer. Take it out of the freezer every 15-20 minutes for an hour or so, stirring/grating each time with a fork to separate the ice crystals.

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Cornmeal Crusted Bass with Moscato Red Currant Sauce

Probably one of the most delicious and abundant wild food sources out there is fish. Every few weeks, a good friend of mine takes me out to a private spot where he shows me the in's and out's of fishing for the best of the lake fish of our region. The other day I came home with a whole mess of Large Mouth Bass filets, a basketful of foraged Red Currants, and whipped together this truly scrumptious meal. The tangy red currants, simmered in the sweet muscato, poured over the juicy, crunchy, spicy, and rich fried fish is such a treat.

Cornmeal Crusted Bass with Moscato Red Currant Sauce

What You Need:

Fish:
4 Filets of Bass
1/2 cup Corn Meal
1 tbsp whole wheat flour
2 egg whites, lightly beaten
3 tbsp butter
Sprinkle of paprika
Sprinkle of cayenne pepper
Sprinkle of salt & pepper
Sauce:
1 cup de-stemmed red currants
1/2 cup Moscato wine (or Riesling or your favorite sweet white wine)
2 tbsp organic cane sugar
2 tbsp butter

• Mix the dry ingredients together on a large plate or 4x8 baking dish. (Add paprika, cayenne, and salt & pepper to your preference—I like it spicy!)


• Beat the egg whites in a similar sized container as the dry ingredients.


• Put the currants,wine, and sugar in a small pot and cook at medium heat.


• Heat the butter in a large skillet or cast iron pan.


• Toss each filet first in the cornmeal mixture, then in the egg whites, then back in the cornmeal mixture.


• Once the butter is hot, plop in your crusted filets and let fry on each side until crispy and brown (about 5 minutes each side).


• While the fish filets fry, watch the currant sauce. Let it cook at a low boil so that it can reduce by the time the fish finishes up.


• Remove the finished fish from the pan and plate up. Stir the butter into the reduce currant sauce, then drizzle it on top of the bass filets and enjoy!

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Wild Amaranth in Sesame Ginger Miso Sauce

Admittedly, wild amaranth aka pigweed, is on the top of my most favorite all-around wild greens. They mimic most similarly cultivated spinach (of which they're a cousin) in texture, flavor and culinary application. This recipe was made with mostly wild amaranth greens, but with a few generous handfuls fo shepherd's purse and wood sorrel. Use your favorite wild greens.

Wild Amaranth in Sesame Ginger Miso Sauce

What You Need:

About 2 quarts of wild amaranth (or more, it'll cook down if you have 'em)
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup water
3 heaping tbsp miso
3 tbsp sesame seed oil (toasted is preferable)
2 heaping tsp fresh ginger, finely minced
pinch of cayenne
2 tbsp sesame seed

• Heat the butter in a medium skillet until melted.


• Toss the smashed garlic and minced ginger into the melted butter and let cook down until the aroma mellows and the garlic softens.


• Wash and drain the greens, then roughly chop. Toss them in the hot pan and cover with a lid to wilt.


• In a small, dry skillet, roast the sesame seeds at a low heat and stir often to toast them.


• While all of this is going on, mix the water, miso, sesame oil, and cayenne in a bowl until the miso is fully dissolved.


• Check the greens and stir. Once they have reduced in size by about half, pour in the sauce and toss in the toasted sesame seeds. Stir and allow to heat through.


• Serve immediately as a main dish, over rice or rice noodles.

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Herby Cattail Quick Pickles

Cattail shoots are almost made for pickle—they're crunchy, slightly cucumber flavored, and super tender and juicy. Following along with my newfound love for quick pickles, I decided to give this recipe a go. They're herby, slightly spicy, and really nice on their own for a snack or as a side dish for a 'plowman's lunch'. Feel free to use whatever fresh herb you have in your garden or whichever is your favorite. The Prickly Ash Berries are the native, wild cousin to the culinary Szechuan pepper. They're intensely aromatic, with strong notes of citrus and white pepper.

Herby Cattail Quick Pickles

What You Need:

1 cup peeled cattail shoots
1 cup vinegar (I use my homemade kombucha vinegar)
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp raw honey
1 scallion, chopped
1 tbsp chopped fresh oregano
1 tbsp Prickly Ash Berries (use Szechuan pepper if you don't have these)
Pinch sea salt
Pinch black pepper

• Chop cattail shoots into 1 inch pieces


• Mix all ingredients together in a bowl until mixed thoroughly. Taste and add salt, pepper and honey to taste.


• Mix everything together in a quart sized canning jar and pop the lid on. Shake it up and pop into refrigerator for at least 8 hours before eating.

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Sweet & Sour Burdock Flower Stem Quick Pickles

This recipes capitalizes on the juicy, crunchy qualities of freshly peeled burdock flower stems, and their earthy flavors pairs really well with the elderberry syrup, if you've got any on hand. I was inspired to make it by the Japanese tradition of quick pickling vegetables. It goes great alongside cheese and sliced salami, in a cup of miso soup, with eggs, or on top of a sandwich. It will also keep for a long while if kept cold, so feel free to double the recipe! And save that brine, it's great for making dressings or sauces.

Sweet & Sour Burdock Flower Stem Quick Pickles

What You Need:

About 6 peeled burdock flower stems
1 cup vinegar (I use my homemade kombucha vinegar)
1/2 cup water
5 tbsp elderberry syrup (or honey, sugar, or maple syrup)
1 scallion, chopped
1 tbsp crusdhed red pepper
A generous handful of fresh fennel sprigs
Pinch sea salt
Pinch black pepper

• Chop burdock flower stems to preferred size.


• Mix all ingredients together in a bowl until the sugar/syrup is dissolved. Taste and add salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste (and sweetener, don't be shy to play around!).


• Mix everything together in a quart sized canning jar and pop the lid on. Shake it up and pop into refrigerator for at least 8 hours before eating.

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Burdock Flower Stems in Spicy Butter with Parmesan

While snacking on the tender, juicy, succulent flower stems of Burdock, I wondered, "What other vegetable does this taste a lot like?". I didn't really have an answer. Later on, I was doing some research on the harvest and came across a line that mentioned how in parts of Italy, families call this harvest "gardooni". There's a very popular vegetable in Italian cuisine called Cardoon—a close relative of the Artichoke—and a close relative of burdock. That's when it hit me... prepare burdock flower stem like Cardoon! So here it is...

Burdock stems are at their best in very early summer, a week or two before the flowers begin to mature. When they're ready, the flower stem will be soft and pliable, and will snap off cleanly. You peel off the bitter skin to unveil the delicious inner flesh that is sweet, earthy, and juicy.

Burdock Flower Stems in Spicy Butter with Parmesan

What You Need:

About 10 peeled burdock flower stems
2 tbsp butter
a pinch of chili flakes
2 cloves of garlic
4 tbsp grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (or any hard cheese)
A pinch of chopped parsley
Pinch sea salt
Pinch black pepper

• Heat a pot of water to a boil with a pinch of salt.


• In the meantime, chop the burdock flower stems at an angle.


• Crush the garlic and remove the skin.


• Heat the butter in a small pan. Once melted, add in the chili flakes and smashed garlic.


• When the water is at a rolling boil, drop in the chopped flower stems and boil for roughly 2 minutes. Check for tenderness ever 30 seconds.


• At the same time, stir the garlic around in the pan. Remove it from the pan after 5 minutes of infusing the butter. Set aside for another dish or compost it.


• When the flower stems are perfectly tender, remove them from the water and add them to the pan of butter. Toss in the grated parmesan and stir to heat the whole mixture through.


• Sprinkle with the chopped parsley and serve immediately.

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Cheesy Garlic Mustard Pesto Pasta with Crispy Dryad's Saddle

This recipes draws on Lisa's amazingly flavorful and fragrant Garlic Mustard Pesto. The garlic mustard pesto is super fragrant, complex, and dare I say, luscious. It gives basil pesto a run for its money...

Dryad's Saddle is a really common wild mushroom that I've been harvesting a lot of lately. In this recipe, they're sliced thinly and fried crispy in butter—they add a savory crunch to the whole dish. If you haven't got this on hand, use fresh shiitake.

Cheesy Garlic Mustard Pesto Pasta

What You Need:

1 lb rice or quinoa pasta of your preference (Or go gluten if you can handle it)
1 1/2 cups Lisa's Garlic Mustard Pesto
1 cup grated parmesan or other hard cheese
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil

Crisp Mushrooms

5 fresh, young Dryad's Saddle (about 2 or 3oz)
1 tbsp butter

• Put a pot on to boil. When it's rolling, drop in your pasta and stir.


• In a small pan, heat the butter


• Slice the dryad's saddle thinly and drop into the butter once it starts to melt. Cook these at medium heat for 5-10 minutes, until they turn light brown and crispy—just in time for the pasta to finish. When they're ready, take them off the heat and set them aside


• Once the pasta is al-dente, strain it from the pot with a large slotted spoon into a medium bowl. The point here is to bring along some of the cooking water in the process.


• Stir the pesto into the hot pasta.


• Stir in the cheese, vinegar, and oil.


• Add a little more cooking water to loosen the whole mixture a touch. Add salt and pepper to taste, if necessary. Sprinkle on the crispy mushrooms and serve hot with a nice glass of wine, or in my case, a beer :).

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Japanese Knotweed & Serviceberry Crumble

*This is a guest post by Mary Angelini. Mary is passionate cook and foodie. She spends much of her free time studying cook books, dreaming up recipes, and, of course, cooking delicious foods. She is starting a small food business centered around using locally sourced ingredients—selling at local markets and providing custom-made nutritious loca meals to busy families. She lives on a suburban homestead with her family in Clarkston, MI.*

This dish pairs the almost rhubarb-like tangy qualities of Japanese knotweed with the rich and sweet qualities of serviceberries, a fantastic wild fruit. If you haven't got your own frozen foraged serviceberries, you can always use frozen blueberries—or frozen wild blueberries, which would be all the better! Serve it hot with a nice local vanilla ice cream, homemade whipped cream, or my favorite, tangy yogurt...

Japanese Knotweed & Serviceberry Crumble

What You Need:

2 cups frozen serviceberries
2 cups knotweed stalks cut into thick coins
1/2 cup all-purpose flour + 2 tbsps
1/2 cup whole oats
1/2 cup brown sugar + 4 tbsps
1/4 cup butter
pinch of baking soda
pinch of baking powder
pinch of salt
cinnamon to taste
1 tsp pure vanilla
Pinch of ground cardamom

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.


• Cut the butter into the flour, oats, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla,
  cardamom and cinnamon until it forms a crumbly mixture.


• Sprinkle half of this crumb mixture on the bottom of a greased 9 x 9 pan.


• Mix the frozen serviceberries with the 4 tbsps of brown sugar and the 2 tbsps of flour until
  well mixed and coated with the sugar and flour.


• Spread the serviceberries and knotweed in the pan and place the remaining crumb over the top.


• Bake 40 minutes or until lightly browned on top and bubbly.

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Oniony Roasted Japanese Knotweed

A while back, I tasted roasted asparagus for my first time, and it was lovely. I had a glut of Japanese knotweed on hand and figured it would make an awesome star for a roasted dish like the asparagus. The lemony flavor of the knotweed, the carmely flavor of roasted chives, and the richness of the oil, is perfect.

Oniony Roasted Japanese Knotweed

What You Need:

30-40 tender Japanese knotweed shoots
1/2 cup of chopped chives
2 TBSP Olive Oil
1 TBSP Hazelnut Oil
Pinch sea salt
Pinch black pepper

• Heat the oven to 350 degrees.


• With a sharp paring knife, peel the knotweed shoots to remove the thin skin. This takes just the ~slgihtest~ pressure—I sort of scrape lightly to just peel the skin. Too deep and you'll cut the knotweed in half.


• Spread the knotweed on a baking sheet


• Sprinkle over the chives and the two oils. Toss the whole lot together


• Add salt and pepper to taste


• Bake for 4 or 5 minutes, until the knotweed turns pale and the chives crisp up. Serve immediately

read more "Oniony Roasted Japanese Knotweed"

Nettle & Spinach Spanikopita (Crustless)

*This is a guest post by Mary Angelini. Mary is passionate cook and foodie. She spends much of her free time studying cook books, dreaming up recipes, and, of course, cooking delicious foods. She is starting a small food business centered around using locally sourced ingredients—selling at local markets and providing custom-made nutritious loca meals to busy families. She lives on a suburban homestead with her family in Clarkston, MI.*

Serves 6 - 8 if made in a pie dish
Serves 4 in 8oz ramekins

Nettles are the ~perfect~ star for the classic spanikopita recipe—rich, flavorful, and super-nutritious. This time around, the dish comes without a crust, cooked in ramequins. Perfectly gluten free!

Nettle & Spinach Spanikopita (Crustless)

What You Need:

1  lb frozen chopped spinach
1 lb fresh chopped nettles
3 cups water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
1 1/2 tsp dried dill
1 tsp salt
30 grinds of pepper
8 oz feta (crumbled)
2 eggs
½ to 1 cup of heavy cream
1 tbsp butter (for greasing the baking dish)

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


• Place frozen spinach and nettles into a pot, add water cover and bring to a boil.


• Boil for several minutes until spinach is thawed and nettles tender, about 5-8minutes.


• Drain the greens in a colander (and save the boiling water for use as soup stock forlater).  When the greens are cool enough to handle squeeze all the water out of them that you can.


• Heat the olive oil in a medium sauce pan.  Add the onions and saute untiltranslucent.


• In a medium sized bowl whisk the eggs, ½ cup of cream, dill, salt, and pepperwith a fork until well mixed.


•  Add the greens, onion, and feta and stir again untilcompletely mixed. If the mixture is too dry add more cream a tablespoon at a time until it is “loose” as it will firm up when baked.


• Spoon into a buttered pie dish or buttered ramekins and bake for 40 minutes or until egg mixture is cooked.

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Wild, Weedy & Edible: Garlic Mustard

*This is a guest post by Lisa Rose Starner. Lisa is an urban homesteader, wildcrafter, forager, gardener, and herbalist who lives in Grand Rapids, MI. She runs a small herbal CSA and writes about local foods and herbalism. Learn more about her work @ Burdock & Rose*

What is the adage, "A weed is a plant that is growing where you don't want it?"

[caption id="attachment_526" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Young garlic mustard shoot"][/caption]

Abundant in areas of disturbed soil—at the forest's edge, along roadsides, and on river floodplains, the Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is deemed by conservationist organizations like The Land Conservancy to be more that a noxious "weed," but an invasive species—choking out native vegetation and spreading wildly across the state. The National Park Service describes the earliest appearance of the Garlic Mustard on the Atlantic coast to be documented in 1868. It is believed that it was brought along by settlers to the area of Long Island, NY for food and medicinal purposes.

Since that time in the 1800s, Garlic Mustard has spread south and west and has wrecked havoc on natural areas throughout the Eastern United States, particularly throughout fields, floodplains, and woodlands here in the Great Lakes BioRegion.

What makes Garlic Mustard able to take over so much area in so little time? Garlic Mustard thrives on disturbed land and areas under development. It is winter hardy and can reproduce lightning fast with its ability to produce hundreds of seeds once it goes to flower. And once the plant sets its seed, the seeds can remain viable in the soil for many years.

Behind Every Vice… The Garlic Mustard's Virtue

And while Garlic Mustard continues to persist throughout our Great Lakes bioregion and threatens to crowd-out wildflowers and native vegetation, we can consider one of its virtues: It is edible!

Like many early spring greens, the flavors of the Garlic Mustard are predominantly bitter. Different parts of the plant, as well the age of the plant can affect the degree in the bitter flavor.

Great Lakes Herbalist Jim McDonald believes that the Bitter flavors of plants, while having a negative connotation to many, may be one of the keys to our wellness. Bitter flavors help stimulate digestion, bile production and can support healthy liver function. Other bitter plants that are beneficial to add into the diet include parsley, arugula, romaine, radicchio, endive, dandelion, and coffee. Best thing about Garlic Mustard as a bitter—it can be easily harvested for FREE with little concern of damaging its plant population!

Forager and wild food expert, Steve Brill, explains early basal roots are more bitter in the spring, the fleshy stems less so—and it is sweeter in the fall after a frost. The roots are slightly nutty, and the second year plant should be harvested just before it flowers… But don't get caught up in these rules—if you are pulling it to preserve other plants in your garden or a participating in a pull, use it and partner it with other flavors like parsley, walnuts and lemon to suit your palate!

One of the most popular ways to prepare Garlic Mustard is preparing it as a versatile, delicious pesto. Variations on pesto recipes can vary to suit personal taste preference and the flavor of the Garlic Mustard that is being harvested.

Want to prepare a large batch? Pesto can be made without the nuts (they tend to taste rancid after thawing) and froze into ice-cube sized portions that will last for several months until the local Basil is ready for harvest here in Michigan.

Need ideas for uses of the Garlic Mustard pesto? The pesto can be added to pasta, used in soups (like a French soup au pistou), served on crackers with cheese as an elegant appetizer, or even used as a base for a wild foods pizza of local Michigan Morels, homemade soft cheese, and wild onion.

Basic Foraged Greens & Garlic Mustard Pesto

What You Need:

4 cups leaves, stems of Garlic Mustard (washed)
1 cup wild chives
1 cup wild garlic scapes
1 cup parsley (if desired)
1 cup walnuts (or pinenuts - though I am not a fan)
4 TBSP olive oil
1tsp sea salt, pepper, squirt of lemon juice to taste

• Add all to food processor, puree.


• Check flavor, add parsley, salt, pepper to preferred taste.


• Serve over crackers, on pizza, pasta, soup… the ideas are limitless and the pesto can be used in similar ways to traditional basil pesto.

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Steamed Garlic Mustard Marinara

The much-maligned and ubiquitous inhabitant of disturbed forest soils—garlic mustard—is in its prime right now. This recipes utilized the tender top 5 or 6 inches. You can harvest them when in flower or bud stage, just follow the stem to the top and bend until they snap cleanly. I harvested mine while pulling them up to feed to my chickens, but you could just as well go for a walk in your local woodland and snag enough in a few minutes. The garlicly, mustardy flavor pairs perfectly with the acidity of the tomatoes, richness of the onions and garlic, and creaminess of the cheese and oil.

What You'll Need:

2 or 3 large handfuls of tender garlic mustard tops (top 5 or 6 inches)
1 medium onion sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups tomato sauce or puree (or leftover pasta sauce, home canned tomatoes diced up, whatever is on hand)
4 tbsp butter (or your favorite fat/oil)
4 tsp ground black pepper
A fistful of fresh herbs from the garden, chopped (parsley, thyme, oregano, whatever is on hand).
1/2 cup grated hard cheese
Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
Salt to taste

• Put a large pan on medium heat and melt your butter.


• Toss in the garlic and onions, and sweat them down until they're translucent—should take around 4 or 5 minutes at medium heat.


• Add in your tomato sauce, black pepper, and half of your fresh herbs. Stir and let bubble for 4 or 5 minutes.


• Wash up your garlic mustard tops.


• When the sauce is nice and warm, salt to taste, then lay the garlic mustard on top of the sauce and cover the whole thing with a lid and allow to steam for roughly 2 minutes.


• Once the garlic mustard turns a bright-ish green, toss the whole lot together, and add in 1/2 or 3/4 of the cheese. Toss again and let stand for a minute.


• Top with the remaining cheese, a drizzle of fresh oil, and serve with cooked pasta (I love rice or quinoa pasta), cooked rice, or as a side dish.

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Stinging Nettle Palak Paneer

Whilst picking nettle tops a few weeks ago, a friend and I mused about how delicious they would be if featured in the classic Indian dish Palak Paneer in place of spinach. Man, was that right on...

What You'll Need:

1 pound fresh stinging nettle tops
1 pound paneer, cubed (you can use any firm cheese such as haloumi or farmer's cheese)
1 medium onion finely sliced
1 head of garlic, peeled and finely minced
1 3 inch long piece of ginger, peeled and finely minced
1/4 cup milk (can use coconut milk)
1 cup tomato sauce or puree
4 tbsp ghee (can also use butter or coconut oil)
1 whole cayenne pepper (either dry or fresh—minced if fresh)
A 1 inch piece of cinnamon stick
4-6 whole cloves
4-6 whole cardamom pods
1 heaping tsp (or more to taste) coriander powder
1 heaping tsp (or more to taste) cumin powder
1 or 2 heaping tsp Garam Masala (or your favorite curry blend)
Salt to taste

• Put a pot of water on the stove at medium heat with a steamer basket.


• Wash the nettle tops and chop into rough 1 inch sections.


• When the steamer is at a rolling boil, add the nettle tops and steam for about 5 minutes, until they are very tender and bright green. Once  steamed, wash them in cold water, squeeze off the excess moisture, and set aside.


• In a medium to large pot (or dutch oven, which is ideal) heat the ghee on medium heat. Once melted, drop in your panner and fry on each side until a light golden brown. Set on a plate covered with brown paper or a paper towel once cooked.


• Drop in the onions and sweat them down until they just start to caramelize—around 5 minutes or so.


• Drop in the clove, cinnamon, and cardamom. Cook for 1 minute.


• Add all dry spices and cook for another 1 minute or so.


• Add the finely minced garlic and ginger. Cook this for around 2 minutes, until the sharpness of the garlic and ginger mellows out. Add around a 1/4 cup of water to keep the spice mixture from burning.


• While the spices cook down, either finely chop the steamed and rinsed nettles or pop them into a food processor and pulse them into a fine paste (I like to chop half and pulse the other, for a more textured end result).


• Put the tomato puree and nettles into the pan, add in the milk, and stir everything together. Cover and let cook down for 2 or 3 minutes.


• Remove the lid and stir. Add salt to taste.


• Drop in the dried paneer, stir together, and let the mixture heat on low for another 5 minutes.


• Serve over cooked rice and indulge.

read more "Stinging Nettle Palak Paneer"