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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 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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Welcome to week 2!

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

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 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

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.

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

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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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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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.

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

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It’s morel season in Western PA! We are fortunate to have found about 100 morels this year, mostly the half-free (also called “snakehead morel” or “peckerhead morel”) and some black morels.

Morels (Morchella species) are delicious edible mushrooms, though they must be cooked. They are absolutely, always 100% hollow inside, which is one way to make certain you have a morel and not a false morel. Another way is that the cap is attached to the stalk, either at the bottom (black and yellow morels) or mid-way, with a bit of a skirt (half-free.) In false morels such as verpas (which are inedible) the cap is attached to the top.

Look for morels under elm and dying elm trees. Tulip poplar is another tree under which morels can be found. Also ash, sycamore…I heard a saying recently, “You find them where you find them.” But we always look for elm or tulip poplar groves when seeking out morels. If you are not familiar with these trees, you can google images for them.

Here you will see how hollow morels look inside. There is no question that they are 100% hollow! If you are not sure, throw it out!

The picture below is NOT A MOREL! It is an inedible Gyromitria, or false morel. They typically come out a little before the true morels appear, but they remain out during morel season. They are NOT HOLLOW inside.

If you are in Western PA, the Western PA Mushroom Club is hosting Morel Madness this weekend! Check it out, it is a great program with slide shows and ranger-led hikes looking for morels.

We have made some truly delicious dishes this year with morels, pictures and recipes are coming up.

If you haven’t signed up for our free newsletter, please do! The sign up box is on the top right (green box with the feet inside). You’ll receive 5 free ebooks as well!

Happy Hunting!

Melissa Sokulski

**Did you know our new e-workbook is pay-what-you-choose? Author and herbalist Melissa Sokulski has put together a workbook of what she feels are the best ways to learn about wild edible plants. Check it out today!**

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I have been so lax about posting here…I am so sorry! If you haven’t joined us on Facebook, please do so! It’s a bit easier to be active in little blurbs, and there’s a lot of action over there.

But there’s actually a lot going on here as well, just behind the scenes. I’ll make a commitment to put it up in the forefront…I’ll try to get more posts up here!

We’ve been having a fun fall, gathering and cooking acorns, finding black walnuts, and today was glorious when we found a Chicken Mushroom! (Also known as Sulphur Shelf or Laetiporus sulphureus).

I didn’t have my camera on me at the time, but you’ll notice the unmistakable orange/yellow color. They grow on dead wood like old stumps of trees and the underside has very tiny pores (NOT gills.)

Like almost all wild mushrooms, these need to be cooked before eating, so I sliced some up and sauteed them in olive oil:

Then in a hot wok, I sauteed red onion, garlic, scallion, zucchini, and pumpkin seeds, adding the cooked chicken mushroom at the end. I seasoned with tamari and mirin.

Finally I served it over brown rice.

It was very good!

Do you have any favorite ways to prepare chicken mushroom? Any favorite recipes you’d be willing to share? I’d love to hear!

Thanks,

Melissa Sokulski
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