Week 1's share. Absent from photo: cleavers.

Welcome to week 1 of the Community Supported Foraging!

I am posting the newsletter on the blog so that if you are following (or foraging) along you can read about the suggestions and recipes of what is current wild and available.

Also, we may be able to make more shares available at some point so this way you can follow along and see if you would like to join in.

We had a couple surprises in this week’s share: young dryad’s saddle mushroom, which turns out to be delicious when it is young and tender like the ones we found and creeping charlie or ground ivy, which we found in abundance at Wild Red’s Gardens, who have graciously offered to let us forage there.

I am so happy to be able to include edible wild mushrooms in this week’s share. To me that makes the share extra fun! An important note about wild mushrooms:

Dryad's saddle

WILD MUSHROOMS MUST BE COOKED BEFORE EATEN!

in other words:

DO NOT EAT WILD MUSHROOMS RAW

or:

ALWAYS COOK WILD MUSHROOMS

Ella serving dryad's saddle, sauteed in butter

I recommend when first trying a new mushroom to simply saute it in butter, making sure you like the flavor, before adding it to a dish. Dryad’s saddle is tender and delicious this early in the season, but later it will get tough and bitter. I’d never enjoyed its taste until finding these young ones in the woods. At this stage, they rival morels. They are in fact known in some circles as “The morel hunter’s consolation prize.”

In this week’s share:

• Dryad’s saddle mushroom(fresh)
• dried reishi mushrooms
• stinging nettles
• broad dock leaves
• cleavers
• Japanese knotweed stalks
• purple archangel (purple deadnettle)
• violet flowers
• onion grass
• creeping charlie/ground ivy
• garlic mustard

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Japanese knotweed juice with garlic mustard/nettle potato pancakes

Happy April!

I feel like spring is really here with the abundance of wild edibles around.

The juice above is Japanese knotweed stalks, cucumber and apple (juiced in a Jack Lalanne Juicer)

Japanese knotweed stalks, leaves stripped off

So delicious and super nutritious: Japanese knotweed has the highest natural concentration of resveratrol, an anti-oxidant which is good for the heart and brain, is anti-aging and anti-cancer. Supplement companies used to use grape skin to make resveratrol supplements…no more! Now they use Japanese knotweed (usually the root). What a great way to use this terribly invasive weed.

Japanese knotweed’s newest use is as prevention and treatment for the symptoms of Lyme disease, which is why I may drink this juice every day that the stalks are available. I am in the woods a lot and am often pulling ticks off me (yuck!) I’m also going to tincture the root soon (it’s best to do when the plant is not flowering, so early spring and fall): I will dig up the roots (which are orange/yellow in color), clean them, chop them and add them to a glass jar that I fill with 100 proof vodka, which is 50% alcohol. I will take pictures and post what I do step by step. For more information on treating Lyme disease with Japanese knotweed and other natural remedies, see Stephen Buhner’s book Healing Lyme: Natural Healing And Prevention of Lyme Borreliosis And Its Coinfections

By the way, the above juice is truly yummy: sweet and tart and incredibly thirst-quenching!

The potato pancakes are a bit more decadent:

1 large potato, peeled, grated
1/4 onion, grated
1 egg
1/4 cup flour (I use gluten free flour such as buckwheat or rice flour)
handful garlic mustard chopped - use more if you want!
large gloved handful of stinging nettles, blanched to remove sting and then chopped - use more if you want!
1/4 cup grated spicy Jack cheese (optional, yummy)
salt
pepper
olive oil for cooking

Mix all ingredients in large bowl.
Lightly coat frying pan with olive oil (rather than deep frying, you can also bake these at 375 til browned, 30+ minutes)
Spread a tablespoon of batter into pan (fits about 3 at a time in my cast iron pan).
Cook on medium high (turning down if oil begins to smoke) for about 3-4 minutes until browned, flip and cook another couple minutes.

Can serve with applesauce and sour cream or just enjoy as is…so tasty!

CSF-ers can look forward to all the wild ingredients in this weeks share, and others can find these ingredients in plentiful amounts these days…at least here in Western PA!

Love and nettle stings,

Melissa

nettles

We’re back!

As you probably noticed, we have not posted in a while…even though spring has come so early and wild edibles have been bursting forth from the ground! That’s because our computer broke (boo!) and then when we finally got a new one it would not let me do blog posts (I finally realized I had to upload and work through Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, though I have no idea why.)

So now we’re back and like spring we are bursting with excitement and lots of information!

First: our CSF (Community Supported Foraging) is about to get up and running! Our first pickup will be Thursday April 5, ONE WEEK FROM TODAY! How exciting! We realized if we waited until May to begin we would probably miss morels, fiddleheads and all sorts of early spring treats.

Don’t fret if you missed the boat on the CSF for this year (we only offered 10 shares for our flagship year)…we are still offering wild produce locally through Green Circle Farm’s weekly produce list. (And we may even offer our very own “list” soon, we’ll see how it goes with the CSF and Green Circle Farm.)

Our friend Erika at Green Circle Farm offers a weekly abundance of all sorts of things: raw milk, raw butter, grass fed beef and other sustainably raised animals, free range eggs, produce from the Pittsburgh Public Market, she even had wild ramps this week available (and not even from us!) Visit her website to be added to her list (you get a weekly email, place your order by a certain date and then pick up at one of various locations around Pittsburgh.)

Also, we will have a weekly newsletter for the CSF-ers with info about the wild plants and recipes, and we will post those newsletters here on our blog. So you’ll get lots of yummy recipes and tidbits of info of what to do with all the amazing food and medicine popping up right under your feet all season long.

Second: WALKS!

We have heard you loud and clear: you want walks and more walks this year. We are working on our schedule, and it even includes a MOREL HUNTING WALK this year!! Oh yes we did! I hope you will all join us. The full schedule will be up soon but I will let you know this: we will be offering two walks again at Frick Park’s Earth Day celebration this year. The date is Saturday, April 21, 2012 and our walks are at 1 pm and 2 pm. Be there!! This is a super fun, free, family-friendly celebration of nature at the Frick Environmental Center on Beechwood Blvd in Squirrel Hill (Pittsburgh) PA. The festival itself is from 11:30 to 4. You will be overwhelmed (in a good way) with fun and music and arts and crafts and food and walks and more!

Third, now is the best time of year to get started on a Wild Ally!!! Did you do one last year? Pick another one for this year! An ally is a wild edible plant that you study, learn from and enjoy intensely over the course of the season. I have created a workbook of exercises for you to do with your ally. I really find this is the best way to get to know (and love) wild edible plants (and medicines!) Our workbook is STILL pay-what-you-choose, so make sure you grab one today!

As you have probably noticed, wild plants are up early and in great abundance this year! I was out yesterday and in addition to all the nettles, deadnettle, garlic mustard, onion grass, wintercress, chickweed, and dandelion that are out, I saw fiddleheads, Japanese knotweed shoots, burdock and have heard the murmurs of early morel mushrooms in the wind.

Let’s get this party started!

Coming up in this blog (I have so much for you…trying to get caught up!)

• What to do with all this (yummy) Japanese Knotweed

• CSF Newsletter “0″: making a Ginger Bug starter for wild sodas

• Walk schedule, including our all new Morel Hunting Walk

• “I smelled ‘em before I saw ‘em….Nettles”

• And so much more!! So stay tuned my friends!

Walk with care and don’t forget to look up sometimes; there are some amazing birds out there!

Love and nettle stings,

Melissa Sokulski of Food Under Foot

I’ve been reading a lot of wild edible foraging and recipe books lately, and I figured I’d share them with you.

Most recently I have been reading The Wild Table: Seasonal Foraged Food and Recipes by Connie Green and Sarah Scott. Although some of the recipes in this book aren’t a gluten-free vegan’s cup of tea (Stir fried dandelion greens with duck fat and garlic), the descriptions of the wild edibles and the stories she tells about them are fabulous.

In fact, just her introduction alone is worth the read: how Ms. Green got into foraging foods for restaurants. Ms. Green explains that in the 1980s it was hard to sell anything foraged to any restaurants: the only two chefs who acknowledged her chanterelles were French - one denied they could even be chanterelles because he felt they didn’t grow in this country, the other preferred his tinned chanterelles from France, feeling they were superior to fresh American chanterelles.

I love Ms. Green’s and Ms. Scott’s out of the box thinking when it comes to using the wild edibles such infusing vodka with evergreen needles and the incredible sounding: “Connie’s Favorite Persimmon Pudding with Brandy Hard Sauce.”

Many of the recipes are certainly from and for gourmet kitchens…and I have a few friends who I know would love to get their hands on these recipes and work their culinary magic!

For me - who loves simple plant-based cooking and wild edibles foraging - there is plenty for me in this book. I can’t wait to try the basket-grilled morels over a fire this spring - a simple recipe of butter, garlic, salt and pepper which Ms. Green describes as “simply the best way to cook morels” and the Fresh Mulberry Ice Cream, though I will adapt the recipe replacing the sugar with a natural sweetener like agave or maple syrup, and the half and half with home-made cashew milk, though I have no doubt her original recipe is divine.

The pictures in the book, both of the wild edibles and the recipes, are gorgeous. Full page spreads of morels roasting over a fire, freshly picked lobster mushrooms, huckleberries flowing out of the bag and onto a plate.

I can’t get enough of this book: reading about her experiences and what she has to say about the plants, drinking in the color pictures, ruminating over the recipes.

This is definitely a great one to have on the bookshelf!

Happy Foraging!

~ Melissa

Late fall nettles growing around our compost container

There’s still lots of wild food out there (well, depending on where you live)…here are some ideas on how to incorporate it into your holiday meals.

In Western Pennsylvania, you can still find oyster mushrooms, perhaps hen of the woods (though it’s a bit late…but maybe you still have some around you recently harvested), nettles, dandelion greens, burdock root, chickweed, recently harvested black walnuts and hickory nuts and more. There are lots of ways to incorporate some of these yummy foods.

These days our meals tend to be vegan or vegetarian and gluten-free. So here are some ideas:

• Add burdock root to lentil sweet potato stew.

• Make candied black walnuts to top this raw cranberry sauce, you can find the recipe for this dish here.

Raw Cranberry Sauce in Orange Halves, topped with Candied Nuts

Wild Mushroom Stuffing (gluten-free, vegan)

• 1 chopped onion
• 2 cloves chopped garlic
• 2 cups wild mushrooms (oysters or maitake/hen of the woods)
• 2 stalks chopped celery
• 1 cup chopped nettles (sure, why not! If you don’t have it you can omit or add spinach or parsley instead.)
• 2 cups cooked rice, quinoa, or cut-in-little-pieces gluten-free bread
• salt, pepper
• dried sage
• dried thyme
• olive oil
• optional: nutritional yeast or parmesan cheese (not vegan)
• optional: grated cheddar cheese (not vegan) or grated vegan cheese like Daiya brand, which usually melts.

1. Saute onions, garlic, mushrooms and salt in olive oil until soft, at least 5 minutes.
2. Add chopped celery and saute a few minutes more.
3. Add nettles until wilted.
4. Add pepper, sage and thyme and rice (or quinoa or bread. If adding bread you may need some water.)
5. Stir all together over heat, adjusting seasonings, adding nutritional yeast or Parmesan cheese if you prefer.

My favorite way to eat this stuffing this fall is in baked squash: either delicata or acorn squash.

To bake squash: Cut in half (lengthwise for delicata) scrape out seeds (and save seeds to roast: we are foragers! we do not throw away the seeds! We may save some to plant next year…but the rest we roast!) Rub squash with olive oil and place face down on oiled baking pan, baking at 350 for 20 - 40 minutes until soft.

• Put stuffing in squash, top with cheese (optional) and reheat in oven until cheese melts.

To roast squash or pumpkin seeds: wash off squash debris, coat with olive oil or melted butter, add salt, spread on baking tray and bake while squash is baking 10 -15 minutes, stir up, spread again and bake 5 to 10 more minutes, until dry and crispy.

Enjoy your holidays!

Stay safe, stay wild.

~ Melissa and the folks at Food Under Foot

We are in the process of making dandelion wine! Or should I say…the wine is made, it just needs to ferment some more before we cork it and let it rest until winter solstice.

I read quite a few recipes for how to make dandelion wine, and solicited your favorites on our facebook page (please join us on facebook!) I combined them together to do what I did. Unfortunately I do not have the ability to let you know whether this is the most amazing dandelion wine ever or not….I did take a sip as we were pouring it into bottles and I will tell you it is still very SWEET! Maybe that will mellow in time.

Here is the recipe:

• 1 gallon dandelion flower heads (I kept the greens on, I read to do it both ways (pulling the yellow petals off of the green necks and just using the petals…I used the whole thing.)
• 1 gallon water (I was going to use more but it turned out both my largest pot and largest crock could only hold a gallon, so that’s what I used.)
• 3 lbs sugar (organic sugar cane is what I used.)
• 1 packet yeast (photo below)
• 2 organic oranges, with rinds peeled and saved, the orange sliced (photos below)
• 1 organic lemon, with rinds peeled and saved, lemon sliced (photo below)
• handful of organic raisins
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 Tbsp whole cloves

a gallon of dandelion blossoms

2. Boil a gallon of water and pour over the dandelion blossoms. Cover loosely and let tea steep for 2 days.

3. Strain tea (reserving liquid of course! You can compost the flowers at this point) and return to the stove. Add 3 lbs of sugar, lemon and orange rinds, cinnamon and cloves. Bring to boil and simmer for about an hour.

rinds of two organic oranges and an organic lemon

boiling the tea with sugar, rinds, cinnamon stick and cloves

4. Pour from pot into crock and add the sliced oranges, lemons and raisins.

steeping the fruit in the boiled tea/sugar/spices

5. Once it has cooled to body temperature, sprinkle a packet of yeast on top.

yeast packet

yeast sprinkled on top

6. Cover with a cloth and let sit 3 days to a week (I did 3 days). When you put your ear close to it you can hear it fizzing (crackling.)

covering with cloth for a few days (you can hear it fizzzzz)

7. Strain (reserving liquid!!!!). I first strained it through a colander to get the big stuff out, then strained it through two jelly bags.

8. Let sit another day, covered with the cloth (will let extra “stuff” settle to the bottom.)

9. Pour into bottles, leaving some room at the top. Cover bottles with balloon which will indicated (by inflating) that quite a bit of fermentation is still taking place. You can poke a pin hole in each balloon so that it doesn’t get too full and pop or fly off the bottle.

10. Once the balloons stop inflating, you can cork the bottles and store in a cool dark place for at least six months.

Balloons inflating as the wine continues to ferment.

Dandelion was my original wild ally! And though I made dandelion wine back then, it was 20 years ago. If you make dandelion wine this year, be sure to let me know how it turns out!

Enjoy!!!

~ Melissa

stinging nettles

I have chosen nettles as my wild ally this year…have you chosen your ally yet? There are lots of plants popping up out there: dandelion, chickweed, violent, nettles, burdock, garlic mustard.

We relocated some nettles to our backyard last year, and this year an abundant crop has sprung up. Yesterday Ella and I harvested some young nettles, steamed them, blended them with egg and kneaded them into buckwheat flour to make our own gluten-free buckwheat nettle noodles!

Here is what we did:

1. Harvest young stinging nettles. You’ll need three cups of chopped fresh nettles (which will steam way down) for the pasta. *When harvesting and chopping fresh nettles, you may want to use gloves to avoid being stung.*
2. We are gluten free so we like to make our own flour, which we do easily in our Vitamix. Today we ground buckwheat groats into flour and used 2 cups, plus extra for kneading on.


buckwheat groats ground into flour using our vitamix

3. Place steamed nettles and two eggs into a blender and mix.
4. On a table or in a bowl, make a pile of flour with a well in the middle.
5. Put the nettle/egg mixture in the well and mix/knead into the flour
6. If too sticky, add more flour.
7. Place dough ball under wet cloth and let it “rest” for 15 minutes.
8. Cut about a fourth of the dough off and roll it out on a floured surfaced as thinly as possible. (If you have a pasta maker by all means use it!) Cover the dough you are not rolling with the wet cloth.


rolling out the pasta

9. Cut into strips and set aside as you continue to roll and cut all the pasta.
10. Place the pasta in boiling water and cook about 3 minutes (fresh pasta does not need much time to cook.)
11. Drain pasta. I returned it to the pot and added some butter, fresh chopped tomatoes and salt while I sauteed the rest of the veggies, which I then mixed in.
12. In a separate pan in butter, saute 1/2 large onion, 1 clove garlic, 1/2 cup chopped mushrooms and 1 cup chopped fresh nettles. (You may want to use gloves while chopping the nettles.)
13. Mix into noodles, add salt to taste and enjoy!

I hope you enjoy this recipe! This vegetarian recipe can easily be made vegan by substituting olive oil or earth’s best margarine for the butter. I’ll be sharing lots more things I do this year with my wild ally, nettles. If you haven’t gotten a chance to check out The Wild Ally Workbook, please do!

You’ll also find a video review of vitamix blenders here, along with a coupon code for free shipping!

Have a great day!

Melissa Sokulski
Food Under Foot

We love collecting wild foods in the city. One thing our little house with it’s 20 by 60 foot property does not afford us, though, are maple trees.

Fortunately we have friends with land that live nearby and this year they have invited us to tap their trees to collect maple sap and make syrup! We are so grateful and super excited!

We got up bright and early this morning and collected some sticks from staghorn sumac trees. The hole in the tree will be 1/2 inch diameter, so we tried to find sticks that were just a little bigger. Sumac trees have a soft pith inside which is easy to push out with metal coat hanger. Then we widdled one end down to less than 1/2 inch, this is the side we will hammer into the tree (after drilling a 1/2″ diameter hole about 2-3 inches into the tree, see our next post which tells exactly what we did.)

tapered ends

This is how a staghorn sumac looks during the summer, just in case you are wondering which tree I am talking about:

Sumac tree in bloom with foliage - not how it looks right now!

Now there are no leaves, but the old red berry clusters are still on them, which makes them very easy to identify. The staghorn sumac has velvety branches, but you can use any red berried sumac. Poisonous sumac has white berries, so as long as you see trees with clusters of these red berries (which may not be as vibrant red now, but they will still look red) you have the right tree to use. I believe elderberry trees also have a soft pith that can be pushed out, so if you happen to know of an elderberry tree you can use those instead.

We put 11 spiles into 8 trees and have been collecting sap and boiling it down into syrup for 3 days now! We’ve made delicious maple syrup and delectible maple candies. I’ll share more later…with pictures and maybe even a video or two!

Enjoy mud season! It’s also maple syrup season!
~ Melissa Sokulski
Food Under Foot