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Another way I like to prepare burdock is to add it to delicious homemade sauerkraut! Fermented vegetables are an incredibly healthful way to prepare and keep your fall harvest into the winter. Because the vegetables are kept raw, all the vitamins, minerals and enzymes are kept intact. The live cultures that naturally live on cabbage and other vegetables breakdown the vegetables, making them easy to digest and also stocking them with probiotics which are beneficial to the body, especially the gut and immune system! (For more information about the health benefits of fermented vegetables, and health in general, check out our sister blog over at Birch Center for Health.)

First, I find the burdock plant that looks like this:

Notice it is still green and leafy and alive! Burdock is a two year plant, so this is a first year. The second year plants turn brown in the fall as they die, and you’ll notice they are covered with burrs, which is where their seeds are. (They stick to you as a way of spreading their seeds far and wide!)

Dig up the long tap roots (get as much as you can, they are difficult to eradicate!) Here is one that is already washed, but not yet peeled:

Once peeled with a regular vegetable peeler, I grate the burdock along with cabbage, cucumbers and apples. I also added sea salt and small pieces of wakame, which is a sea vegetable. (You can grate the veggies by hand, but I used my food processor.) I added them all to a bowl and massaged the salt into them. Add plenty of salt, taste it once it’s mixed and make sure you like how it tastes.

Finally, stuff the mixture (and all the juices it released when you were mixing it!) into a canning jar. You can top with larger pieces of cabbage leaf, rolled and pressed down to keep the kraut below the juices so it can ferment properly and not mold. You can also use burdock leaves or grape leaves for this purpose.

Cap the jar and label with your ingredients and the date. Leave your vegetables to ferment at room temperature. Uncap daily to make sure the veggies are pressed under the juice, and taste everyday. After 4 to 7 days, they kraut should reach a taste you like. (You can even keep them out longer if you like more sour flavored sauerkraut.) Put it in the fridge to stop (or slow greatly) the fermentation. It will keep practically indefinitely!

One book we love about making your own natural cultured veggies is called Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods, by Sandor Ellix Katz.  (You can browse our recommended books Here at Amazon).

Also, in Book 1 of our 5 eBook series (which you can get for free by signing up in the green box to the right!), has a recipe for fermented veggies with Burdock which you don’t want to miss, so make sure you sign up today! The book also has great pictures and information about identifying and harvesting burdock, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Thanks so much!

~ Melissa Sokulski, L.Ac.

Food Under Foot

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If you are in the Pittsburgh area and interested in raw foods as well as wild edible plants, please join us in Schenely park this Sunday, October 4 at noon (the Steeler game is not until 8:20 pm this Sunday, so you won’t miss a thing!)

This event is sponsored by the Pittsburgh Raw Food Meetup Group, so if you’d like to attend (it’s a free event), please join the meetup group (there is no charge to join) and RSVP on the meetup invitation page. This way you will be contacted if there are any last minute changes (weather!), and given the full information about the whereabouts and who to contact with questions. We hope to see you there!!!

If you are new to raw foods: this is a potluck, so please bring a dish containing only raw (uncooked) fruits and veggies…a simple fruit salad is always welcome (no canned fruit, though, only fresh.) If you are feeling adventurous, check out some of the many raw recipes on sites like www.goneraw.com or the wonderful recipe page of the All Raw Directory. If you are really inspired, you may want to check out some of the raw “cook” books we recommend in the raw food section of our bookstore.

Here is a simple recipe I am preparing tonight:

Garden Fresh Tomato Salad

5 Garden Tomatoes, chopped
1 clove garlic, pressed (or finely chopped)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil (or you can use fresh thyme or oregano)

Mix all ingredients together well and serve…delicious!

Hope to see you soon!

~ Melissa

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As promised, here is the recipe for the delicious paw paw slushie I made with the amazing stash of paw paws harvested from the trees I found in our neighborhood (with the owner’s permission, I should add!)

First, I peeled about four or five paw paws with a regular vegetable peeler, and put them in a colander (yes, one of them does have a bite out of it! I couldn’t resist.):

These paw paws were so ripe and soft, I just began to mash them by hand (the ultimate aim is to separate the seeds (which you should not eat - they may be toxic) from the fruit:

Here’s how they look all mashed up:

I had the colander in a larger bowl (both the colander and bowl are actually part of a salad spinner…I did not use the top to spin it, just mashed the fruit through the holes by hand):

I put the mashed paw paw fruit in a blender (I used our vitamix) with a bit of water and a lot of ice. It was actually very rich, like an icy pudding, so I added more water to my taste…I was in the mood for something to drink. You can experiment and see what you like:

It made a lot…I saved the extra in a glass jar in the fridge, and then added it to my smoothie the next morning…I had a green smoothie with bananas, paw paws, frozen mangoes, collard greens, spirulina, water and ice. You can watch here as I make a similar green smoothie using wild lamb’s quarters from our garden.

I hope you enjoy! Please let us know your experience with paw paws by commenting to this post!

Also, if you enjoy these type of posts, please make sure you sign up for our free newsletter (you’ll find the sign up box in the right margin, it’s a green box with blue feet.) You’ll get five free ebooks, detailing five different wild edible plants, with great pictures and information on how to identify, harvest and use some very common plants, complete with recipes! Please sign up now…thank you!!

~ Melissa

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Another edible mushroom we found on our hike with the Western Pa Mushroom Club was a bolete called Old Man of the Woods.

Boletes are mushrooms that grow up from the ground, and the underside has pores instead of gills. The Old Man of the Woods has characteristic black bumps along the top and stalk and has white to gray pores underneath. When bruised or cut, the mushroom eventually turns black. (Beware of boletes which bruise blue quickly, these are often poisonous.)

This mushroom was positively identified for us by members of the club, and we carefully wrapped it in wax paper and placed it in our bag with our other edible mushrooms (the chanterelles).

We’d heard the Old Man is a tasty mushroom, as long as you don’t mind it turning everything black as it cooks. In the books, though, we found it was “edible” but not worth eating. We decided to try it.

We sliced the Old Man when we got home

and sauteed it in olive oil, red onions and salt.

It did turn black. It is a meaty mushroom, though had a bit of slimy-ness to it. All in all, it was very good, reminiscent of portebellos.

A couple good mushroom guide books are National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms (National Audubon Society Field Guides), and Mushrooms Demystified
), which is especially good for those on the west coast.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan has a wonderful chapter about mushrooms in it as well, be sure to check that out.

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On our first hike with the Western PA Mushroom Club we found many many mushrooms, including edible chanterelles!

Chanterelles are delicious mushrooms that in the east grow in the summertime (in the west,  they are a fall/winter mushroom.)

Chanterelles are trumpet-shaped and have ridges or folds instead of gills (a gilled look-alike is the Jack O’Lantern, which is indigestible to us and will make people very sick.) The smooth chanterelle barely have ridges at all and instead have smooth sides.

Chanterelle smell vaguely of apricots. They also grow alone or possibly in twos or threes, but never in a whole bunch, as the Jack O’Lanterns often do. The Jack O’Lanterns (which glow in the dark) grow from dead wood (however this can be tricky, as they could be growing from a dead root underground) whereas the chanterelles grow from the soil (but can be right next to dead wood). They both grow in the woods, look for the egg-yolk colored chanterelles under the dead leaves lying on the ground. Finally, according to the book Mushrooms Demystified (amazon link), Jack O’Lanterns will never have white flesh.

It is often recommended to dry-saute the chanterelle first to let it release the water, then adding butter and a small amount of shallot (so as not to overwhelm the delicate taste of the chanterelle.)

We dry-fried once, but the other time we sauteed it in olive oil (it released it’s water fine), added some salt and garlic, and added back a bit of water as it cooked so the pan did not dry out. Delicious!

Chanterelles (like many wild mushrooms) need to be cooked at least 15 minutes to detoxify the mushroom, making it safe and digestible.

We learned not to refrigerate extra chanterelles – keep them in paper bags outside of refrigeration and they should last a couple weeks. When refrigerated, they will turn dark and slimy, releasing water into the bag.

We dehydrated chanterelles for future use. We sliced them thinly and laid them on the dehydrator tray (or you can put them in the oven at a low temperature.) We were told they reconstitute nicely.

Finally, we’ve heard you can preserve them in whiskey or scotch, soaking them in a jar with the alcohol for a month or so, then get rid of the chanterelle and the whiskey will become chanterelle-flavored. You can do this in vodka or wine as well, and then can add to cooking to infuse the dish with a chanterelle flavor.

Here is a recipe for the chanterelle omelet we made for Ella (she ate the whole thing!)

• One egg – cracked into a bowl and beaten with a splash of water
• 1 Tbsp red onion
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• salt
• 2 Tbsp grated pepper jack cheese
• 2 Tbsp sauteed (as above) chanterelles

• In a small pan over medium high heat, saute the onion in olive oil with salt about 5 minutes.
• Pour egg so it spreads over the bottom of pan and let it cook through until bubbles appear and it is no longer runny.
• Add the cheese and mushrooms to one half the egg, and fold the egg over in half, omelet style.
• Enjoy immediately.

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Green Smoothies are all the rage.  And for good reason.   Full of Raw and often Wild Greens they are packed with healthy minerals, vitamins and medicinal compounds.   The embodiment of  the Raw Food and Whole Food ideals they are touted for providing enzymes and compounds found only in plants.   When Wild Edibles are used in the Green Smoothie, we are utilizing plants with which we co-evolved.  This co-evolution developing compounds in the plant that nourish us and heal us.

The taste of the Green Smoothie is earthy and tastes like spring, like Nature.  In a sense, it tastes Green.

Today, I mixed it up.  Into my Green Smoothie, containing the usual  suspects including Plantain, Dandelion, Clover and all, I added Wild Blackberries and Huckleberries picked this season, and frozen overnight.  It’s not necessary to freeze them, but it made the Smoothie ice cold and somewhat thicker.   I added to it some cold brewed Green Tea.

The taste was entirely transformed and quite interesting.  Not surprisingly the Berries took front stage, but the Green Tea made it taste lighter and refreshing and kept the Berries from dominating.   I could taste subtle notes of the Wild Edible Greens, like old friends that quitely and reliably stand behind you and “got your back”.

The Cold Brewed Green Tea addition was a nice transforming addition and stretched my smoothie out giving me another glass, which is always appreciated on a hot summer day.

• What ways do you Mix-it up with your Green Smoothies?
• Let us know by clicking the Comments below.
• To see Melissa make a Green Smoothie, check out her video here: Melissa Making Green  Smoothie.

Enjoy,

Jason

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And from the desert we head back east…

Yesterday we gathered staghorn sumac, to make a lemonade-type of drink for the kids from Pittsburgh’s Student Conservation Association (SCA) to sample on their walk today. (I’ll post more pictures and information about all we saw on the walk early next week.)

Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina) grows in bright red clusters on a shrub or small tree (which spreads “like a weed!”) The staghorn sumac has think, densely hairy branches and twigs (giving the appearance of a stag’s horn.) You can pick the fruit clusters in summer, fall, even into winter, as long as they are still vibrant red. They are high in Vitamin C (so we use cold water when making the lemonade, so as not to destroy the vitamin) and have a sour lemony taste. They can also be dried and used as a lemony spice, common in Middle Eastern recipes.

Poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix) has white fruit, please avoid all white fruited sumacs!

Here is how we made the lemonade. It’s very simple:

Above are the sumac clusters on the table, and below I’ve put them in a jar.

Fill the jar with cold water (cold water preserves the vitamin C) and let it sit overnight. In the morning, strain and add sweetener like honey, agave nectar or maple syrup to taste. You could leave out the sweetener as well, it tastes refreshingly sour, like lemon water.

The walk today was so much fun! The kids (and adults) were great - a wonderful enthusiastic group. I’m excited to share with you all we saw!

~ Melissa Sokulski
Food Under Foot

**If you want more information about scheduling a wild edibles walk for your group, check our wild events page. Or you can call Melissa Sokulski at (412) 381-0116, or email to Melissa@FoodUnderFoot.com. Thanks!**

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Summer in the Sonoran Desert.   Hot.  Dry.  Everything that has spikes tries to spike.  And everything has spikes.

I just got back from the Tucson Arizona, right in the Sonoran Desert.  The Desert was in bloom, full of life.  But Wild Edibles?  You bet.  Wild Edibles and Medicinals Abound.

Except for scorpions and Snoopy’s brother Spike, the territory and wildlife was unknown to me.  The first thing I did was go to the Library and check out as many books as I could find.  One of these books, Herbal Medicine of the American Southwest was fantastic and I highly recommend it.

Armed with this book as a guide, I headed into the desert.

I found Jojoba, Mesquite, Saguaro Cacti, Agave, Aloe, and Prickly Pear Cacti amongst other desert edibles. The prickly pear cacti were everywhere.   Prickly pear fruit are edible in themselves, but I had another destination in mind.  A Sorbet!  With no sorbet machine, I made a Granita — which is an Italian type of sorbet. You need no machinery except a freezer, a pan and a fork.

The Prickly Pear Cacti were covered with the Edible Cactus Fruits, which in turn were covered with painful spikes. The cactus and fruit are covered with medium sized spines that are obvious. It is also covered with tiny spines called Glochids. Although inconspicuous visually, they don’t go unnoticed! These little glochids hurt. Alot. And they are everywhere.

Here’s is how I went from Glochid to Granita:

The ripe prickly pear cactus fruits come off the cactus easily. Definitely wear thick gloves or better yet use tongs (I wish I had thought of that at the time). At first I tried to scrape the spines and glochids off with my knife. This works well for the large spines, but takes a too long for the glochids, and you do not want to miss any.

Next I tried to skewer the prickly pear and burn off the glochids over a flame. This worked great, was fast, easy and effective. It also gave a very slight roasted flavor to the finished product which was a pleasant surprise.

Next extract the juice. I used a metal strainer lined with a coffee filter and a potato masher.

Water was sweetened with dissolved sugar (2 parts water to 1 part sugar) and this water was mixed equal parts with the juice. This was quite sweet and the sugar could certainly be cut back. Or try it with honey or Agave syrup (made from the agave plant also indigenous to the desert). The juice of 1/2 lemon was added.

That’s it. Experiment with the ratios to get the taste you want.

To make a granita, pour this mixture in flat pan and put into the freezer. Once it starts to form ice crystals, stir with a large fork to break up the ice crystals. Do this every 20-30 minutes.

To serve scrape the frozen treat with a spoon and serve.

This is a basic sorbet or granita recipe.  Any juice or edible extract can be used.

Recommendations:

• Try using tools so as not to handle the fruits until the glochids are burned off.  Tongs, skewers.
• Put the whole fruit or peeled fruit in a blender and strain that to get the juice.  This would be quicker than what I did.
• Use less sugar or use other natural sweeteners — Agave Syrup, Honey, or add Juice from a sweeter wild edible
• **Freeze the prickly pear fruits (after burning off the glochids).  Then put the whole fruit with some honey and lime juice into a Vitamix blender for an instant and easy Wild Edible Sorbet!

Anyone desert folks with tips?  Please comment below now.

• What’s the best way to handle the prickly pears?
• Any other Prickly Pear Recipes?
• Has anyone had this or other Cactus Fruits?  How about the Saguaro?

Share your knowledge with us by commenting below.

Jason