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Walking around some Pittsburgh parks today after a beautiful stretch of warm days…and we indeed see signs of spring!

We saw some garlic mustard rosettes bursting from the ground:

Garlic Mustard is an invasive plant, brought to America as a culinary herb in the 1860’s. In Pittsburgh, many parks have volunteer days spent pulling this invasive herb out. By all means pull it up from your garden…but don’t be so quick to throw it in the compost! This is a delicious plant and early spring is when its flavor is at its best.

The leaves become bitter as the weather gets hot, so they are best collected in early spring and summer. Leaves can be collected either from the ground rosettes (pictured above) or from the stalk. Garlic Mustard leaves become more triangular when the plant bolts, and the leaves come up the flower stalk of this small four-petaled flower (unlike dandelion, whose leaves stay on the ground as the flower stalk is sent up).

Flowers and chopped leaves can be added to salads for a nice pungent garlic flavor.

Now is the time to collect the roots, when no flower stalks are present. These are very spicy and taste like horseradish. The root can be chopped and steeped in apple cider vinegar for a spicy condiment.

In the fall the seeds, which have a mustard flavor, can be collected and eaten.

I love to make pesto using the garlic mustard leaves:

Raw Garlic Mustard Pesto

1 1/2 cups garlic mustard leaves
1 1/2 cups spinach leaves
juice of 1/2 - 1 lemon (to taste)
1 clove garlic (or more to taste)
1/2 cup pine nuts or walnuts
1/4 cup olive oil
salt or tamari to taste

Blend above ingredients in food processor or blender and enjoy.

Here is a copy of my article on Garlic Mustard, published last year in Natural News.

Enjoy the spring!!

Melissa Sokulski, herbalist, acupuncturist
Food Under Foot
Birch Center

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If you’re hiking in the woods, and you come upon what looks, at first, like a tennis ball, look more closely, because you may have found one of my favorite wild edibles: black walnuts!

Black Walnuts are a delicious relative of the English Walnut, which is the kind we buy in the store. The Black Walnut has a distinctive taste, however, that sets it apart.

Collect them when they are on the ground, still green, and hull them immediately. We take the green hull off by stepping on it, and pressing our foot down. The hull is easy to remove, but it’s best to be wearing gloves because the yellow stain you see will turn black and will stain your fingers!

Then let the nut dry - I just lay them out, but inside the house so the squirrels don’t get them! They will turn black because of the dye, but once it dries it won’t stain your fingers anymore.

The green hulls can be collected, too. They are used as a remedy against parasites. You can tincture them by covering them in a jar with alcohol such as 100 proof vodka for 6 weeks. The liquid will turn black. It is usually taken with wormwood tincture and cloves tincture to destroy parasites. (Wormwood can be dangerous taken internally, so be careful and follow the suggested dosages on the bottle.) Please talk to a health care practitioner or visit a local health food store for more info!

Below is a picture taken looking up at a Black Walnut Tree. You can still see some walnuts growing in the branches, and can get a good look at the leaves.

In this recent post, you can watch a video I made last year about how to crack open the walnuts once they are dry. We use a hammer or a rock, with the nut on concrete. They are not easy to get into!

Enjoy!

~ Melissa Sokulski, L.Ac.

Food Under Foot
(and Birch Center for Health)

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The picture above of this beautiful oak tree (in Schenley Park, Pittsburgh, PA) was taken a few weeks ago. Now this tree is brightly colored in yellows, oranges and browns. It’s a beautiful time of year here in the Northeast! Acorns are all over the place, and most people don’t know that they are edible (and sometimes quite delicious!)

There are two families of oak trees: white oaks (those pictured here, they will have rounded leaves) and red (or black) oaks (which have pointed leaves - I can’t believe I didn’t get a good picture! I’ll have to go out tomorrow and see what I can do…most oaks around here seem to be the pointy leafed kind.)

The acorns from the white oak form at the end of the first growning season (while the reds oaks mature at the end of the second year on the previous year’s twigs, and are quite bitter - they contain more tanins.) The bitter properties can be easily removed, however.

Below you’ll find acorns growing on a white oak tree:

Below are some acorns without the cap. These acorns were actually fairly bitter as well. To remove the bitterness from any acorn, crack the shell and remove the nutmeat. Place whole or chopped nut meats in a cloth and tie closed. Boil in water until the water turns brown. Drain and repeat until the water no longer becomes brown.

If you are in the wilderness or do not want to cook the nutmeats, you can tie them up in a cloth and place them in a stream or other running water. This removes the bitter tanins as well, but may take longer, possibly even a day or two depending on the type of acorn.

Once the bitterness is removed, dry the nuts in the sun, oven or dehydrator. You can then eat as is, or grind into flour, or use in any number of recipes.

It’s fun to taste acorns you find. Some are so incredibly bitter, but every once in a while, we’ll stumble across a tree with incredibly tasty acorns!

Make sure you check the base of old oak trees, especially this time of year. We’re on the lookout for a mushroom called Hen of the Woods (aka Maitake), an edible and medicinal mushroom that is supposed to be having a banner year. We haven’t found ours yet…let us know if you’ve found yours!

Also, let us know if you’ve collected acorns, and how you’ve prepared them!

Enjoy!

~ Melissa Sokulski, L.Ac.

Food Under Foot

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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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As promised in the previous post, here is how I made my own burdock root tincture.

Look for a first year burdock plant. This time of year it will still be green, large leaves in a basal rosette on the ground. You’ll likely find them next to the dead second year plants, which are brown and covered with burrs.

Below you’ll find one of the burdock roots we were able to get from the ground. Burdock has a long thick tap root, it’s nearly impossible to get the whole thing out, but do as best as you can.

After I washed all the dirt off, I peeled and chopped the root, below:

I put some of the chopped roots on drying racks to dry (I actually used my dehydrator, but you can air dry them as well, in a dark, airy place), and the rest I put into a glass jar and covered with 100 proof vodka, to tincture:

I could have covered it and put it away for six weeks, but instead I made use of my Vitamix (a high speed blender), and blended it all together. This way, I’ll be able to use the tincture faster:

I labeled it with the date, what was inside (Burdock Root) and what the solvent was (100 proof vodka). Two weeks later I poured off some of it, filtering it through a paint straining bag purchased at Home Depot (2 bags for $3). You can also use cheese cloth or other cotton cloth napkin to filter. You save the liquid (that is your tincture) and compost the plant matter. I poured off enough to fill a 2 oz dropper bottle, the rest is still in the jar in a dark cabinet.

Let us know what you do with Burdock. I’ll soon post a pictorial of how I made the delicious fermented vegetables with cabbage and burdock root. Now is a great time of year to harvest the burdock root. If you’re unsure how to identify it or what to do with it, make sure you sign up for our 5 free ebooks (the green box in the margin to your right.) The first book is on Burdock, so you’ll receive a ton of information right away after signing up.

Have fun, stay safe!
~ Melissa Sokulski, L.Ac.
Food Under Foot

Also please visit our sister blog, full of information on general health and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

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Autumn is an excellent time of year to harvest burdock root.

If you haven’t received our eBook all about Burdock, including how to identify and harvest burdock, and recipes and projects using burdock, please sign up for our free newsletter on the right margin.

Aside from being an excellent vegetable (called Gobo in Japan), burdock root is used medicinally to cleanse the blood.

Some reasons that blood may need to be “cleansed” include:

• parasites
• toxins from cigarette smoke or pollution
• toxins from alcohol or junk food
• bacteria or viruses, including chronic viruses from things such as Lyme’s disease
• heavy metal exposure, like mercury, lead, or arsenic

This time of year you’ll find burdock, a biennial plant, in both phases: one being the brown dead plant covered with burrs that stick to your clothes (do not harvest these roots, they are dead - pictured below), and a plant with a rosette of green leaves, still close to the ground, with no flower or seed stalk. This is the first year plant, and it is from this plant you want to harvest the roots (shown above).

We harvested some burdock root the other day, and prepared it three ways:

• dried for use as a tea


Sliced Burdock Root Drying on a Dehydrator Tray

• tinctured in alcohol


Sliced Burdock Root Steeping in 100 Proof Vodka, Before Blending

• fermented with cabbage in cultured vegetables (also known as sauerkraut.)


Shredded Burdock Root, Cabbage, and Seaweed Fermenting on the Counter

Over the next few days, I’ll post step-by-step pictorials of how I made the above remedies. The sauerkraut is absolutely delicious! The recipe is in our free e-book, so please sign up (green box to the right) if you haven’t yet!

Happy Harvesting!

~ 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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Yesterday, I was walking home from a friend’s house in the South Side Flats, on the way up the hill Ella and I came across Paw Paws! (Asimina triloba)

We couldn’t believe it: just that morning we were hiking in Frick Park searching for some, to no avail.

Paw paws are a delicious, native, tropical fruit, that actually grow up into Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan…I think even in Toronto! Hardly anyone knows about them, because they have such a short shelf life that they can’t be sold in supermarkets (though if you’re lucky, you may find them at a Farmer’s Market, as we did recently in Charlottesville, VA.)

Now is the time of year, and when they have just fallen naturally from the tree (as above), you’ll find the fruit to be soft and delicious.

The inside of the fruit is bright yellow, with large hard dark seeds. Here is one that Dave cut open:

The taste is similar to a mix of a banana and mango, and very flowery (though there are many types, or cultivars, each tasting a bit different.) You actually need two trees of different cultivars together to get fruits. In this yard, there were three trees growing in a row (below are two.)

You don’t eat the skin or seeds, the seeds are big, round and black, and are quite easy to avoid. When you find them this ripe, you can just pull them open and eat the flesh right out, spitting the seeds (or eating around them.) Tomorrow, I’ll show you in detail how I made a delicious slushie with the paw paws.

Up close you’ll see the leaves are large and tropical-looking leaves (they are described as “alternate, deciduous, simple, 7-12 in long, 3-5.5 in wide, usually broadest near tip” by Elias and Dykeman in Edible Wild Plants.)

The fruits look a bit like mangoes, are light green and grow in clusters from the trees. They soften when they are ripe, and naturally fall off the tree. They then turn yellow and brown as they ripen further.

To propagate paw paw from seeds, keep the seeds moist, and they need a cold time (cold, wet stratification), at least 100 days in the refrigerator, before they’ll sprout. You can keep them packed in sphagnum moss or peat moss in a plastic bag in the fridge. (Or, you can plant them in the ground in the fall, and hope, and let the cold moist stratification happen naturally.)

Dave and I found some tiny seedlings at the foot of these trees, and they already had quite a long taproot. Paw paws are usually found in bottomlands, in rich deep soil along rivers. We transplanted these to our yard, but also put seeds in the ground nearby (and some in the fridge) in the hopes at least a few will take.

Tomorrow, I’ll show you how I made this delicious Paw Paw Slushie: