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As stipulated in the 5th annual Morel Recipe Challenge, this recipe had to be baked. And what better way to bake than with muffin tins?

These Morel Muffins came out AMAZING. I have never baked anything in muffin tins, not even muffins. We only have the tins around to sort buttons and mix paint. But after today I may actually use them for savory recipes! I’m definitely making these again!

I used the wonderful dried morels sent to me by Marx Foods. To reconstitute them I simply poured boiling water over them, covered the bowl with a dish and let stand about 20 minutes. I then used that morel soak water to cook the potatoes, so make sure to save it! (You could also cook the quinoa in it…just make sure to use it, yum!) You could also use fresh morels in this recipe.

4 medium potatoes, peeled, cubed and boiled/steamed in the morel soak water. Then mashed. Add extra water when cooking if necessary and mash the potatoes and the cook water together at the end. You will need 1 1/2 cups mashed potatoes for this recipe.

And I added garlic mustard because, well, it’s that time of year and I love using wild ingredients! But you can either omit this altogether or substitute arugula or chives. I picked some garlic mustard leaves, washed and dried them then chopped them very fine and small.

Yum-mazing Morel and Mashed Potato Muffins

An original gluten-free dairy-free vegetarian recipe by Melissa Sokulski for the 5th Annual Morel Recipe Challenge

You will need a muffin tin for this recipe.

• 2 oz dried morels, reconstituted as above and chopped. You could also use one cup of chopped fresh morels.
• 1 medium onion, chopped (it will be about 1 cup chopped onions)
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed
• 2 Tbsp olive oil or butter, to saute morels, onions and garlic, plus a bit more to oil muffin tins
• 1 1/2 cups mashed potatoes (see above)
• 1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa
• 1/2 cup flour, plus a bit more to flour muffin tins (I used a mix of almond meal and buckwheat flour to keep the recipe gluten free, but you can use whatever flour you like.)
• 2 eggs
• 2 Tbsp chopped garlic mustard (you can also use arugula, or chives, or omit, see note above)
• 1 Tbsp brown mustard
• salt
• pepper
• nutmeg

Tip: I made this recipe gluten-free and dairy-free so my family could eat it. However, I KNOW it would be DIVINE with your favorite cheese grated and mixed into the batter!

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Oil muffin tin with olive oil and sprinkle with flour to make it easier to remove “muffins” after cooking.
3. Reconstitute dried morels (if using dried) by covering dried morels with boiled water. Cover bowl and let sit at least 20 minutes, until mushrooms are soft and able to cut. SAVE soak water to cook potatoes or quinoa.
4. Boil (in morel soak water) and mash potatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Boil 1/2 cup quinoa in 1 cup water (or morel soak water) for 15 minutes until quinoa is soft and water has been absorbed.
6. Saute chopped morels, onions, and garlic in olive oil (or butter) for at least 10 minutes, until onions are translucent. Add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Mix sauteed morel mixture with mashed potatoes, quinoa, and all other ingredients.
8. Divide mixture evenly into the 12 muffin cups.
9. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and let cool at least 5 minutes to help it set and make the muffins easier to remove.

Enjoy!!!

Festive foraging,

~ Melissa Sokulski

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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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!*

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!)

• Garlic Mustard Pesto
• Potato Pancakes with nettles and garlic mustard
• Burdock stalks in gravy
• Morel Frittata
• Nettles and Broccoli Quiche
• Morel Potato Kugel
• Leah’s Chickweed Crepes
• Homemade Nettle Pasta
• Nettle Potato Soup
• Making Fermented Sodas (including the ginger bug starter)

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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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!

We found and discussed:

Dandelion

Plantain

Chickweed

Japanese knotweed

Dryad’s Saddle

Purple Archangel (Purple deadnettle)

Violet

Broad Leaf Dock
Burdock

Nettles

Cleavers
Garlic Mustard

May Apple

We discussed making:

• Dandelion Wine
• Plantain Oil and Salve - to soothe the skin and ease itching, rashes, stings, poison ivy/oak, bug bites, etc
• Latkes (potato pancakes) with nettles and garlic mustard
• Garlic Mustard Pesto
• Garlic Mustard “Horseradish”
• Steamed Deadnettles
• Roasted Dandelion and Burdock root for coffee substitute
• Drying plants and roots
• Making tinctures

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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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:

WILD MUSHROOMS MUST BE COOKED BEFORE EATEN!

in other words:

DO NOT EAT WILD MUSHROOMS RAW

or:

ALWAYS COOK WILD MUSHROOMS

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

Read The Rest of This Post »

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The groundhog saw her shadow today and scurried back under ground for 6 more weeks of winter, but truthfully, here in Western PA winter has barely begun.

I went out foraging and found gorgeous flowering Lamium purpureum (purple deadnettle) and delicious garlic mustard, which I made into pesto. It is divine. (I plan to steam the deadnettle later.)


garlic mustard pesto

I feel we could almost start our CSF (Community Supported Foraging) shares now! But we’ll wait until end of April, when the bounty is really overflowing and we can add delicacies such as morel mushrooms, young spruce tips and violet flowers to the mix!

Recipe for Garlic Mustard Pesto



garlic mustard

* 2 cups garlic mustard leaves, washed and patted dry
* 1 small garlic clove, peeled
* 1/4 cup olive oil
* 2 Tbsp pine nuts, lightly roasted on stove top (can roast walnuts in place of pine nuts)
* 3 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
* 1 Tbsp lemon juice
* sea salt to taste

In a food processor, blend garlic and garlic mustard while drizzling in olive oil.

Stop and add pine nuts, cheese, lemon juice and a little salt and blend again.

Taste and add salt if you feel it needs it.

I mixed some into gluten-free pasta with more roasted pine nut and a chopped tomato. It was excellent!

Here’s to wild foods!

Melissa Sokulski
Food Under Foot

Melissa@FoodUnderFoot.com

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It was December 26 when I took these pictures around my neighborhood here in Pittsburgh PA. The ground is still not frozen and plants like dandelion, chickweed and purple dead nettle are actually flowering! Goldenrod, too…you’ll see the pictures below.

It would be easy to make green salads from all these edibles…a survivalist certainly would not starve! Greens are loaded with vitamins and minerals, and even have good amounts of protein.

Here are some of the edibles we found walking around today:

Deliciously mustardy bitter cress. This was all around the neighborhood. It is great in salads or even in stir-fries, and there is plenty.

Below is purple dead nettle, Lamium purpureum. An edible plant not related to nettle, it gets its common name because the leaves look a bit like nettle but the plant does not sting (hence “dead”.)

Here you will find a flowering dandelion! There were a bunch around the neighborhood, along with lots of gorgeous green leaves. This one next to another basal rosette of bittercress.

Garlic mustard…you’ll find this throughout winter, along with the onion grass, below.

Looking for something heartier? You can still dig burdock root as long as the ground isn’t frozen and you can find basal rosettes of burdock leaves:

Add the flowers of these goldenrod - along with the yellow dandelion flowers, purple red clover and dead nettle flowers, white chickweed and bitter cress flowers that we saw today - to your salad and your family will think you’ve traveled to spring and back!

There was more…should I overwhelm you or save it for tomorrow’s post? Mallow, clover, plantain, chickweed…

‘Til tomorrow…happy foraging!

Melissa Sokulski from Food Under Foot

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In my small urban backyard which is only twenty feet by sixty feet, I am able to identify and collect over 80 edible plants, especially if I walk down my street and make use of other plants in the neighborhood.

Most of these plants are literally wild and grow there by chance. Others I have transplanted to the yard, and they now return year after year. Some, like Japanese Knotweed, are quite invasive and I am happy they are not in my yard, but I can easily harvest them around the neighborhood. And some food, fruit bushes and trees like peach, fig, blueberry and blackberry, I have planted.

The following is a list of wild plants, separated into categories, of what grows in my tiny yard (and these are only the things I identify and use! There are plenty of other plants which I don’t know or do not know how to use hanging out as well.)

Totally Wild in My Yard

1. Dandelion
2. Yellow Dock
3. Chickweed
4. Lambs Quarters
5. Amaranth
6. Quickweed
7. Lady’s Thumbprint
8. Garlic Mustard
9. Broad Leaved Plantain
10. Narrow Leaved Plantain
11. Red Clover
12. White Clover
13. Sorrel
14. Wood Sorrel
15. Shephard’s Purse
16. Cress (Peppercress)
17. Purslane
18. Wild Carrot/Queen Anne’s Lace (though we don’t use this as a rule, because of its resemblance to hemlock)

Transplanted to my yard, but considered a wild plant

1. Nettles
2. Comfrey
3. Blackberries
4. Black Raspberry
5. Oyster Mushrooms
6. Lemon Balm
7. Violets

In my neighborhood, an easy walk from my front door

1. Burdock
2. Black Walnut
3. Acorns
4. Japanese Knotweed
5. Chicory
6. Mulberries
7. Wild Cherries, Tart and Sweet
8. Maple (Maple Syrup, if I were to tap them)
9. Cleavers
10. Thistles
11. Sumac
12. Wild Grapes

Plants I use only as medicine (most of the plants above are medicinal as well as edible, but the following I use only as medicine or herbs)

1. Mugwort
2. Mullein
3. St. John’s Wort
4. Motherwort
5. Catnip
6. Feverfew

Food Plants Which I Have Added To My Yard

1. Grapes/Grape Leaves
2. Fig
3. Strawberries
4. Peach Tree
5. Plum Tree
6. Cherry Tree
7. Kale (3 Varieties)
8. Beets
9. Carrots
10. Radishes
11. Tomatoes
12. Arugula
13. Spinach
14. Zucchini
15. Broccoli
16. Collard Greens
17. Chard
18. Fennel
19. Cucumbers
20. Pepper
21. Asian Pear Trees…3 trees/varieties
22. Blueberries

Edible Flowers

1. Calendula
2. Nasturtiums
3. Borage
4. Day Lily
5. Squash Flowers
6. Violets
7. Pansy
8. Sunflowers (Seeds)

Cultivated Herbs (if not mentioned above)

1. Basil
2. Rosemary
3. Thyme
4. Lemon Thyme
5. Peppermint
6. Spearmint
7. Apple Mint
8. Oregano
9. Sage
10. Cilantro
11. Dill
12. Parsley
13. Chives

What do you have in your yard?

Enjoy the harvest!

Melissa

Birch Center for Health
Food Under Foot

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Thanks so much to everyone who joined us on our wild edibles walk today on Pittsburgh’s south side! We couldn’t find the camera before we left for the walk (we have since found it and I put some great photos of the St. John’s Wort - which I knew I saw growing out of the rocks on the way to the walk - on facebook!) However, I will embellish this post with pictures of the plants we saw today that I have taken before. You’ll find the St. John’s Wort at the end…and also check it out on facebook if you’re on there.

We had a great time collecting mulberries! White ones, purple ones, red ones! I wish I had a picture of the girls sitting on the sheet filling their containers with berries and eating as many (or more!) than they dropped in their cups! Here’s an old picture of Dave and Ella collecting mulberries from a great tree on Polish Hill.

We also saw:

• Burdock (Arctium lappa) The root is known as Gobo in Japan. Eat the root raw, cooked or juiced. Can also eat the flower stalks and leaf stalks like celery. (See our Burdock page for picture and full description)
• Dandelion (Taraxacum officinalis) All parts of this plant are edible: roots, leaves, flower. Flower petals go nicely into batters (like pancake batter or cookie batter.) Roasted root makes a good coffee substitute, along with roasted chicory root and roasted burdock root. (See our Dandelion page for pictures and full description)
• White Clover (Trifolium repens) A mild but nutritious green, add to smoothies or salads. Can also use red clover (which is often dried and used as tea), we didn’t see red clover today.
• Thin Leafed Plantain (Plantago lanceolata) - Fairy bandaids! Chew and place on bee stings (and other stings/bites) to take the pain away. Can eat as a green, mild tasting can be blended into smoothies or juices. I recently made a salve which worked wonders on a poison oak rash.


Plantago Lanceolate (Thin Leaf Plantain)

• Broad Leafed Plantain (Plantago major) Same uses as above. This also has seeds in the fall which can be collected and used in oatmeal, breads, flours, and as a substitute for psyllium seeds, which are also a Plantago.
• Japanese Knotwood (Polygonum cuspidatum) Eaten in early spring when shoots are tender, but the stalks can probably still be juiced. Lemony. Very good source of Resveratrol (especially the roots) and has been used to treat Lyme Disease.
• Lambs quarters (Chenopodium alba) High in protein, high in calcium, one of my favorite edibles. “Wild Spinach”, is closely related to quinoa. I use it in smoothies and any place I would use spinach.
• Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) Garlicky tasting invasive weed, makes a great pesto!


Garlic Mustard

• Teasel (Dipsacus fullonum) Recently the root has been used as a cure for Lyme Disease
• Mugwort (Artemesia vulgaris) Used in Chinese Medicine, can make moxa from this dried herb. Also used in dream pillows to enhance dreams.



• Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina) When fruit turns red in fall, use dried as a lemon-tasting spice, or steep in cold water for a lemon-water or sweeten for a lemonade-like drink. High in vitamin C.
• Mulberries (Morus species)
• Wild Carrot/Queen Anne’s Lace(Daucus carota) Root smells like carrot, and there is a red petal in the middle of a lacy white flower, which distinguishes it from its deadly relatives Poison Hemlock and Water Hemlock. Still, we make it a rule not to eat wild carrots (though edible) to avoid a deadly mistake.

We also saw two poisonous plants and a common allergen:

• Crown vetch (Securigera varia, or Coronilla varia,) Contains nitroglycerides and is dangerous for horses and other non-ruminants, such as people
• A wild foxglove Also dangerous to the heart
• Ragweed - A common allergen

Don’t forget: if you sign up for our newsletter (right, green box) you’ll get FIVE FREE EBOOKS about 5 common wild edibles! They are full of color pictures and great recipes.

And now…here are the pics of St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum):

Thanks so much to everyone for coming!

Please make sure you sign up for our newsletter so we can let you know when our next walk will be.

~ Melissa Sokulski

Food Under Foot