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Week 5 of Community Supported Foraging

CSF Newsletters, General Posts
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This week’s share:

  • morels
  • garlic mustard
  • red clover flowers and leaves (new this week!)
  • violet leaves and flowers (violet leaves are new!)
  • black locust flowers (new this week!)
  • apple mint (new this week!)
  • lemon balm
  • burdock stalks
  • nettles
  • chickweed

Blooming Black Locust Tree

Blooming Black Locust Tree

Yeeehaaa!  The sweet smell of flowers is in the air. You may have noticed the black locust trees in bloom - either by sight or smell. These delicious flowers are the only part of the tree that is edible. They smell magnificent and taste like honey. I enjoy them as a snack as is (raw) and added to a smoothie. One Food Under Foot follower emailed to tell me she enjoys them tempura style! My favorite fermented soda ever was made with black locust flowers! See newsletter 3 for info on making the ginger bug starter. Then pour boiling water over the locust flowers, add some sugar, when it cools to room temperature strain and add some of the ginger bug starter. Cover and let sit a couple days for a fizzy fermented healthy beverage.

Black Locust Flowers

Black Locust Flowers

Red Clover flowers and leaves are also new this week! I never realized how amazing red clover flowers smell until I had them all the table dividing them into shares this week. Wow - yum!

Dividing Red Clover Flowers into 9 Shares

Dividing Red Clover Flowers into 9 Shares

These are gorgeous large blooms! One thing you’ll notice about these flowers are the oval leaves underneath the flower in sets of three. There is a look-alike to clover (which is not yet blooming, but it will be soon) called Crown Vetch and you definitely do not want to eat it! Crown Vetch contains high amounts of nitro-compounds that can cause heart attacks. Not only is it unsafe for humans but for horses as well (ruminants such as cows can safely eat it). Crown Vetch was planted all along Pennsylvania highways and is extremely common and invasive. Vetch leaves are very different from clover, however. Clover leaves occur in sets of three, vetch leaves are in pairs: 15 to 25 pairs of oblong leaflets. The picture below shows white crown vetch, which could be mistaken for white clover, but there is also purple, which is similar in color to red clover.

White Crown Vetch (Poison)

White Crown Vetch (Poison)

Ideas for Red Clover include:

  • Raw in Salads
  • Saute in stir fry
  • tempura style!
  • pull petals out and add to cookie or pancake batter
  • smoothies (of course)
  • soup
  • dried - blossoms can be dried and used to make a tea which balances hormones (mainly women)
  • dried - blossoms can be dried and ground into flour (mix with regular flour in recipes…adds protein!)
  • fermented soda - see week 3 newsletter for information on making a ginger bug starter. Then add the starter to sweetened red clover tea to make a naturally fermented soda.

Violet Leaves are new also, though you have gotten the flowers before. This little mix is great in salads or smoothies. Violet leaves and flowers are both very high in vitamin C.

violet flowers and leaves - high in vitamin C

violet flowers and leaves - high in vitamin C

I believe apple mint is new to your share as well. Doesn’t it smell just like apples? Mmmmm. You can dry this mint to save and have later as tea, or make tea with it now or add to salads or dishes which call for mint. It’s great in smoothies! I love adding apple mint to smoothies almost as much as I love adding lemon balm (also in your share) along with other greens such as chickweed.

This may be the last week for morels! We have been out there looking high and low for you, every chance we get! Phew! Many people have reported this is a slow year for morels but we have done ok. Just multiply what you have gotten in your share ten times - not too bad! I hope you have enjoyed them! And who knows…maybe it’s been “slow” because they are not even fully out yet - it’s only the beginning of May! We will still be out there scoping the forests and hills for morels until at least mid-May, so hope is not lost for a banner amount in your share! *Remember to always cook wild mushrooms before eating!*

We found this awesome morel today...it is in the shares!

We found this awesome morel today...it is in the shares!

Some tips for this week’s share:

  • try using garlic mustard leaves in place of lettuce on sandwiches and burgers
  • if garlic mustard or any green gets wilty, soaking in ice water revives (thanks Rhonda!)
  • If you find yourself with too many greens, remember you can dry them or freeze them
  • a great way to save garlic mustard is turning it to pesto and freezing the pesto in ice cube trays
  • you don’t need to peel the burdock stalks if you cook them: just boil them and they will get soft and the bitterness goes away
  • remember to always cook wild mushrooms before eating!

Here are links to some recipes we’ve posted previously using things that are in your share. (All recipes are vegetarian and gluten-free!)

And remember you can search our blog (search box upper left) or  check back to previous newsletters for ideas.

Enjoy this week’s share!!

~ Melissa Sokulski

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CSF Week 4 - Burdock Leaf Stalks and Morels

CSF Newsletters, General Posts, Recipes
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This morel is in someone's share this week!

This morel is in someone's share this week!

Welcome to Week 4 of the CSF!

New this week: Burdock leaf stalks, onion grass bulbs, catnip and lemon balm.

In your share this week:

  • Burdock Leaf Stalks
  • Catnip
  • Lemon Balm
  • Purple Dead Nettle
  • Onion Grass with Bulbs
  • Garlic Mustard
  • Chickweed
  • Japanese Knotweed
  • Nettles
  • Morels

What a fun share we have for you this week!

We’ve been out hiking the hills and forests of Western PA and we do indeed have more morel mushrooms for you this week! Remember to always cook morels and all wild mushrooms before you eat them! I have been enjoying morels sauteed in butter with onions and eaten with eggs, or in fried rice. In fact, I made some wonderful fried rice with morels, nettles and cat tails the other day - yum!

The Burdock Leaf Stalks are new this week. (They look like huge stalks of celery.) They taste very bitter if you eat them raw due to their outer skin. However, I found by boiling them in water (I added salt to the water) for 20 minutes (then throw away that water), they are no longer bitter and they are no longer stringy. (If not cooked enough they are pretty tough.) You don’t even need to peel them! If you’d like to try them raw I recommend peeling them - it is just the outer skin that is bitter.

I made a delicious dish with a good sauce by cooking the stalks:

  1. Wash stalks
  2. chop them into small pieces, about 1 -2 inches (smaller than in the picture below…I made it a couple times and I liked it better when the stalks were a little smaller than shown.)
  3. put them in a pan and cover with water
  4. simmer with lid 20 minutes
  5. save stalks, throw out water

Then:

  1. Melt butter into that same pan (you can use olive oil to make vegan)
  2. Added 2 Tbsp of buckwheat flour (I used buckwheat so it’s gluten free, you can use whatever flour you like)
  3. Mix over medium heat
  4. Add a little water and mix the flour in evenly, keep adding water slowly and mixing until it becomes a thick sauce
  5. Add salt and pepper (and Parmesan cheese if you want, optional.)
  6. Once sauce is done add burdock stalks back in and stir until coated.
  7. Serve with the sauce.

Burdock Stalks with Sauce

Burdock Stalks with Sauce

This week we also finally made homemade nettle pasta again! We had run out of eggs so we just omitted them and made vegan pasta instead. I added a little water to the steamed nettles while blending them, and then mixed (by kneading) the nettle/water mixture into buckwheat flour (again so it was gluten free, you can use regular flour if you wish.) It came out great!

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Catnip is an herb which is beloved by cats as well as people! You will find this soft-to-the-touch mint in your share this week. As a tea (you can boil it fresh or dry it first, then steep) it acts as a muscle relaxant and induces relaxation and sleep. I have mine hanging to dry in my doorway and my cats are going CRAZY today!

catnip (far right) hanging to dry nest to 3 bundles of already dried thyme

catnip (far right) hanging to dry nest to 3 bundles of already dried thyme

The Lemon Balm is also a mint, this one very lemony. I like to add the leaves to tea (fresh leaves or dried) and salads. I think lemon balm also makes a delicious pesto. Try slicing the leaves and floating on top of a lemongrass soup after it’s done cooking. Very delicious.

This week we found a gorgeous field of onion grass (at Wild Red’s Gardens in Morningside.) You’ll find we harvested the whole plant this time: bulb as well as green.  You can cook the bulbs as you would any onion bulb or shallot. Use the greens as you would chives. They can also be dried if you find yourself with an abundance!

You’ve seen all the other wild edibles before…check back to previous newsletters for ideas. I have been using garlic mustard leaves on sandwiches (in place of lettuce) and I love it!

Please remember to send me any pictures and recipes that you make with your wild edibles…I’d love to pass them along to the rest of the share!

Enjoy your share this week!

~ Melissa

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In The Media

General Posts, Herb, Medicinal
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Frick Park Walk

Frick Park Walk

In case you want to follow Food Under Foot in the news, there have been 2 amazing articles about us recently:

  • Pittsburgh Magazine columnist Leah Lizarondo mentions us in her awesome article Girl Gone Wild

Great recipes for wild foods can be found in both places!

Also, we had 2 excellent wild edibles walks yesterday at the Frick Park Earth Day celebration. Thanks to everyone who came! I will get a blog post up soon with everything we saw and discussed. Unfortunately, the rain erased most of the emails I collected from participants so if you don’t get the email from me that’s why. I hope you find us anyway. Make sure to sign up for our newsletter in the green box in the right margin!

Yesterday I finished the book 29 Gifts by Cami Walker. I’ve taken the challenge: give 29 gifts in 29 days. I also joined the community.

Day 1 of giving was today and so far my gifts were “wild”:

  • showing columnist Leah Lizarondo a wonderful nettle patch in Frick Park (for her upcoming NPR interview!!)
  • Harvesting nettles for my daughter Ella so we can make Nettle Pasta together (she’s been asking me since the nettles have come up.)

Happy happy Earth Day!

~ Melissa

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Walking Trillium Trail with the Girl Scouts

General Posts
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We had a beautiful walk today with a wonderful girl scout troop. We walked on the Trillium Trail outside Pittsburgh, PA, where hundreds of native trilliums were in bloom. (Trillium is not an edible plant that I know of…but it is gorgeous!)

Trillium (not an edible)

Trillium (not an edible)

We did identify native edible and medicinal plants such as bloodroot, May apple, fiddleheads, wild ginger, spring beauty and trout lily.

Wild Ginger

Wild Ginger

We also saw some of our “weed” edibles such as the invasive garlic mustard and Japanese knotweed, chickweed, cleavers, ground ivy/creeping Charlie.

Also seen: violets (purple, yellow and white), stinging nettles, wood nettles (stings!), cleavers, broad leaf dock and jewelweed.

And one of the girls spotted this robin’s nest, complete with tiny hatchlings.

Baby Birds (I think robins)

Baby Robins

What an amazing day in Western PA!

Make sure to join us on our walks this Saturday, April 21, 2012 at 1 and 2 pm at the Frick Park Earth Day Celebration! It’s at Frick Environmental Center on Beechwood Blvd…the festival runs from 11:30 to 4. Hope to see you there!

~ Melissa

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CSF Week 3: Ramps

CSF Newsletters, General Posts, Recipes
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ramps

ramps

This week your share contains 3 new items: ramps, trout lily leaves and wild mint.

I want to take this time to stress to you how carefully and sustainably we harvest your produce, especially foods like ramps and trout lily, which are native and not invasives (such as knotweed and garlic mustard.)

Ramps take time to become established. We pick with permission, extremely carefully and leave the bulbs so the plants can continue their life cycles. Our intention is to disturb the ramps as little as possible. That being said, they are quite a celebrated plant with ramp festivals happening all over West Virginia in the upcoming weeks (end of April beginning of May.) Last Thursday’s Post-Gazette (the one in which we were featured) had a bunch of recipes using ramps, be sure to check them out.  Here are a couple ramp and morel festivals which were listed in the Post Gazette.

Trout lilies are also a native plant and were harvested carefully and with permission. We picked the leaves for your share this week (the little root tubers are also edible.) We recommend adding them to salads.

trout lily

trout lily

Wild mint is extremely flavorful. I made a gluten-free tabouli (using rice, you could also use quinoa or wheat products such as bulgar, cous cous or cracked wheat) and it was delicious. Instead of parsely I used chickweed. Instead of scallions I used the onion grass. You could even add garlic mustard (I would have but didn’t have any on hand.) Truly a delicious wild dish! (Recipe below.)

Wild, Gluten-free Tabouli

Wild, Gluten-free Tabouli

This week your share includes:

  • ramps
  • trout lily
  • wild mint
  • chickweed
  • garlic mustard
  • onion grass
  • dryad’s saddle - make sure to cook before eating!
  • Japanese knotweed
  • stinging nettle
  • deadnettle

We’re almost done with the Japanese knotweed season! To have knotweed on hand once the season ends you can:

  1. freeze it: cut it into thin rings and freeze it (you can blanch them first or not)
  2. tincture them: chop and fill a jar with knotweed stalks, then cover with 80 or 100 proof vodka. After 6 weeks the resulting tincture will be a more medicinal way to get the benefits of knotweed (resveratrol among other compounds).
  3. pickle them! If you’ve made pickles before do it the same way,  using knotweed stalks in place of cucumber spears. Or follow the wild fermentation recipe below.
  4. make a soda! (see info below.)
  5. Add to homemade sauerkraut

Fermenting food is a healthy way to preserve it. You do not cook the food, thereby preserving all the vitamins, minerals and enzymes, and fermentation causes healthy microbes to colonize the food and is very healthy for your gut.

To make a soda you need to have a “ginger bug” starter on hand. This is good to make and then keep in the refrigerator…you may want to make a naturally fermented and fizzy soda out of one of the many plants you’ll receive this season!

To make the ginger bug:

  • 3 cups water
  • 2 Tbsp chopped fresh ginger (unpeeled)
  • 2 Tbsp sugar (organic is best)

To a glass jar add the above ingredients and stir well. Cover with a cloth and leave on the counter for 2 days.

After two days, add 2 tsp chopped unpeeled ginger and 2 tsp sugar each day for a week. Stir a couple times a day. Keep covered with a cloth on the counter (not refrigerated.) It should get fizzy and taste like gingerale. It is now ready to use. If you are not ready to use it simply cap and refrigerate until ready.

To make Japanese Knotweed Soda:

Chop and boil 2 quarts (or as much as you have, doesn’t need to be that much) knotweed into a strong tea for at least 10 minutes in a gallon of water. Add 1 1/2 cups sugar. Cool to body temperature (or room temperature). Strain plants out and add a cup of ginger starter. Mix and cover with cloth, leaving on the counter for a couple days. Once it becomes fizzy and less sweet, bottle and refrigerate. Corks are best to cap bottles with - the carbonation builds even in the fridge and it’s better for the cork to fly out than for the bottle to explode (which has happened to a friend of mine.) These sodas are delicious.

Replenish your ginger bug: add another cup of water, 2 tsp ginger and 2 tsp sugar, stir and refrigerate until ready to use again.

We’ve made sodas from: yellow dock, dandelion, black locust flowers, nettles/ginger, even cacao nibs! I will definitely be making Japanese knotweed soda soon.

Naturally fermented knotweed pickles:

  • fresh Japanese knotweed stalks to fill a quart jar
  • spring water, 1 quart
  • 2-3 Tbsp sea salt (between 1/2 and 1 Tbsp salt per cup water)
  • 2 peeled garlic cloves
  • 1-2 Tbsp dill seed (optional)

Mix salt and water until salt dissolves making a brine. Add garlic and dill to bottom of  jar. Fill with knotweed stalks and cover with brine. Cover jar with cloth or the top. Leave on counter 1 - 7 days, tasting every day after about 3 days to see how sour the pickles are. This is a no-cook natural fermentation method to make pickles and can be used for cucumbers as well.

Recipe for Wild Gluten-free Tabouli

  • 2 cups cooked rice or quinoa
  • 2 tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 cucumber, chopped
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 cup chopped chickweed (or 1/2 cup chopped chickweed and 1/2 cup chopped garlic mustard)
  • 2 - 3 Tbsp chopped fresh wild mint
  • 2 -3 Tbsp chopped onion grass

Mix all ingredients together. Enjoy!

Remember to cook your dryad’s saddle (and all wild mushrooms) first before enjoying.

And make sure to check out CSF member and Pittsburgh Magazine Columnist Leah Lizarondo’s recent column: Girl Gone Wild. You’ll find her delicious recipes for garlic mustard/nettle pesto and chickweed crepes.

Also, nettles season is coming to an end soon (once they flower they will not be great to use.) If you’re out of ideas or can’t get to all your nettles, consider drying them or even freezing them. Here’s an inspiring blog post I found when searching the web….lots of great ideas on how to store wild edibles!

Enjoy your share!

~ Melissa

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Frick Park Walk

General Posts, Herb, Identification, Poisonous or Toxic, Raw, Tincture
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Our first walk of the year was so much fun! We had great weather and lots of enthusiastic people. We identified at least 12 wild edibles (including Dryad’s Saddle, an edible mushroom that everyone got to take home.) Unfortunately we didn’t find morels…but join us on Saturday for our Earth Day walks and who knows what we’ll find!

discussing wild edibles at a wild edibles walk in Frick Park

discussing wild edibles at a wild edibles walk in Frick Park

We found and discussed:

Dandelion

dandelion flowers

dandelion flowers

Plantain

Plantain

Plantain

Chickweed

close up of chickweed

close up of chickweed

Japanese knotweed

Japanese Knotweed

Japanese Knotweed

Dryad’s Saddle

Dryad's Saddle

Dryad's Saddle

Purple Archangel (Purple deadnettle)

Lamium purpureum, purple deadnettle

Lamium purpureum, purple deadnettle

Violet

violet

violet

Broad Leaf Dock
Burdock

Burdock

Burdock

Nettles

stinging nettles

stinging nettles

Cleavers
Garlic Mustard

Garlic Mustard

Garlic Mustard

May Apple

We discussed making:

Our next walks are this Saturday at the Frick Park Environmental Center for their family-friendly, free, Earth Day Celebration! The festival is Saturday April 21, 2012  from 11:30 to 4, and we will lead two walks at 1 pm and 2 pm.

Hope to see you there!

~ Melissa

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Walks Scheduled…Including Our First Walk This Sunday!

General Posts
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Welcome to Food Under Foot!

Many of you are finding us today from the wonderful article published in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. If you are new to the site, make sure you sign up for our free newsletter (which includes five free ebooks) in the green box on the right hand margin.

Also, you may have noticed a May 28 walk listed in the newspaper. Unfortunately that was last year’s walk. The good news is: there are walks scheduled even sooner, including our first walk this Sunday! Many more walks will be scheduled this year as well (hopefully including one with Leah!)

Wild Edibles Walks

This Sunday, April 15, 2012. 11 am

Join us for our first walk of the season! We’ll be hunting for morel mushrooms as well as identifying all sorts of wild edibles, so come with a basket or paper bag in case we find some morels!

Where: Parking lot by Frick Park Clay Tennis Courts (Braddock Ave.) See Map

800 South Braddock Ave, 15221

When: Sunday April 15, 2012, 11 am

Fee: $10/person, $15/couple or family (kids under 10 are free), checks or cash only please

Questions: (412) 381-0116

Earth Day Walks in Frick Park

Saturday, April 21, 2012. 1 pm and 2 pm

Join Melissa Sokulski of Food Under Foot at Frick Park’s 2012 Earth Day Celebration! This free celebration takes place at Frick Environmental Center on Beechwood Blvd Pittsburgh, PA from 11:30 to 4 pm. Our free walks will be at 1 pm and 2 pm. Hope to see you there!

Where: Frick Park Nature Center

2005 Beechwood Blvd. Pittsburgh, PA 15217

When: Saturday April 21, 2012, 1 pm, 2 pm

Fee: Free

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Enjoy the site! There is lots of great information here. If you are on facebook make sure to follow us over there. And please sign up for our newsletter (right margin, green box) so we can stay in touch.

Thanks!

~ Melissa Sokulski

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CSF Newsletter 2

CSF Newsletters, General Posts
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Welcome to week 2!

New this week: Morel mushrooms, Cattail shoots, curly dock and chickweed.

morels

morels

In this week’s share you will find:

  • morel mushrooms
  • cattail shoots
  • Japanese knotweed shoots
  • nettles
  • curly dock
  • deadnettles
  • garlic mustard
  • chickweed
  • cleavers
  • mint

Morels

As with all wild mushrooms, you must cook morels before eating. They can be sauteed, grilled, boiled in soup or sauces, or cooked just about any way you can imagine!

Morels are a prized mushroom: they can not be cultivated and are only found for a few weeks in the spring. They can be dried and eaten throughout the year (they reconstitute beautifully.) I love sauteing the morels in butter with onions, and eating them over rice or with eggs (or tofu.) I like to top (gluten free) toast and/or pizza with sauteed morels and onions. I have made quiche with morels. The more complex the dish the more you may lose the flavor of morels, especially if you are unfamiliar, so I recommend starting simply and getting to know the wonderful flavor of these mushrooms.

Chickweed

chickweed

chickweed

Chickweed is a wonderful green: fresh and delicious. I love to use it as the base for my salads, but it can be simply added to lettuce-based salads as well. Whatever kind of dressing you love will go wonderfully on chickweed. It also tastes divine as is…not bitter in the least.

Chickweed can also be cooked (similar to spinach) and can be added to soups or served alongside a main dish as a cooked green.

Chickweed can be found year round even up north, even in the snow. If you know where your patch is just check under snow in December and you’ll find it. In the hot summer months it keeps its fresh non-bitter taste. This is truly one of my favorite wild greens.

Curly Dock, or Yellow Dock

Similar to broad dock which you had last week, curly dock can be used topically as an antidote to nettle stings (crush and apply fresh leaves). Curly dock is also a tasty green itself. Slightly sour and a bit bitter, it can be eaten raw but it is more often used as a cooked green.

This green - along with other docks and sour wild greens such as sorrel and wood sorrel, and greens such as spinach, lambs quarters and amaranth (wild and cultivated) - have a bit more oxalic acid in them than others so they should not be eaten in excess by people prone to kidney stones (in the same way spinach should not be eaten in excess in that situation.)

Cattail shoots

cat tails

cattails

In this field of cattails the main thing you can see are last years cattails, the heads covered with fluff (which can be used as excellent insulation in survival situations, as well as stuffing for pillows, etc.) But when you get up close and look down, you’ll see new shoots coming up. These shoots are referred to by some as “Cossack asparagus.” Peel back the tough green outer leaves until the white inside remains. This can eaten raw or steamed or sauteed.

steaming cattail shoots

steaming cattail shoots

Nettles

I posted the recipe for Nettle Broccoli Quinoa Quiche, and I also made a delicious Cream of Nettle Potato Soup, based on CSF-er Michelle’s description of her “Cat Pee Soup.”

Cream of Nettle Potato Soup

  • 2 potatoes, peeled, chopped (they don’t have to be peeled if organic, but my potatoes were sprouting, so…)
  • 1/2 onion chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, chopped
  • Nettles, chopped
  • 6 cups water or vegetable (or mushroom) stock
  • olive oil
  • salt
  • pepper
  • dash of organic whole milk or cream (for vegan cream soup, simply remove and blend some potatoes and soup, this will give the soup a white creamy texture.)
  1. Saute onion and garlic with salt in oil until onion is translucent, 5 minutes.
  2. Add water or broth and chopped potatoes.
  3. Cook until potatoes are soft, about 20 minutes.
  4. Add nettles, salt and pepper to taste.
  5. Cook 10 minutes more until nettles are wilted.
  6. Turn off heat and add a dash of cream or milk. To keep soup vegan, remove about half of the potatoes and some stock and blend until creamy, return to soup.

Enjoy!

Deadnettles/Purple Archangel

I’m still loving deadnettles (purple archangel) in smoothies and as a steamed green. How have you been enjoying it? Another week of fun and creativity with purple archangel!

Japanese Knotweed

Ticks love me. It is not pleasant. Being out in the woods a lot I’ve found many crawling on me and have already had to pull a couple off. I am hoping that Japanese knotweed is as good for you and effective against Lyme disease as I hear it is. My favorite drink this spring is my Japanese knotweed, cucumber, apple juice. If you have a juicer I urge you to try it.

Raw, steamed or sauteed, this shoot is edible, tart and juicy. Add it to stir-fries or salads, made a sweet sauce with it or add it to baked goods. And send me your wonderful recipes and I’ll pass them along!

Garlic Mustard

Did you make pesto last week? Maybe a vinegar? If you tried one then try the other this week! Or add it to salads (it is so good in salads). The leaves and flowers are edible and taste like garlic/mustard. And though they are not as durable cooked as other greens, they can still be cooked lightly and enjoyed. I added them to potato pancakes last week (with nettles) and it was a true treat.

Cleavers

Melissa making green smoothies at a workshop in Chalk Hill, PA

Melissa making green smoothies at a workshop in Chalk Hill, PA

What did you do with your cleavers last week? I had mine in smoothies and I loved it! That’s why I’m including it again…I just can’t get enough of it in smoothies! It totally kicked out nettles for top green in smoothies (as much as I love nettles, I can’t take them in my smoothies lately…especially not after having the clean green taste of the cleavers.) Just add cleavers to your favorite fruit smoothie. Start with just a little, this green is hardly detectable (except for its color) and you’ll soon find yourself adding more and more. Here is a smoothie I’ve been making lately:

Cleavers Smoothie

Blend together:

  • 2 bananas
  • 1 orange
  • 1 cup frozen mango
  • handful (or two) cleavers
  • ice
  • water (you can add juice or sweetener such as dates, agave or maple syrup as well, but I find it unnecessary, especially with ripe bananas.)

Mint

I’m not sure if your mint this week will be Creeping Charlie again, or peppermint, catnip or lemon balm! It depends where I forage tomorrow. But I love to include something herby and flavorful in the share. I will update this section as soon as I know.

Have fun and enjoy your wonderful, flavorful, nutritious and lovingly foraged food!!!

Love,

Melissa

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