So last year I had a few leaves of Lamb’s Quarters in salads. Yesterday, I picked 2 quarts of tips and leaves, jammed them into a pot with a little water and butter, and cooked them for 10 minutes or so. They were delicious! Very much like spinach, except better. It just blows my mind that they’ve been under my nose practically my whole life (I’ve pulled up a thousand of them if I’ve pulled one), and I’m only now figuring out that they’re edible, and not only edible, but really good!
Archive for the ‘Foraging’ Category
Lamb’s Quarters
7 June 2010Grape Leaves, Rain, and Bears
5 June 2010So I’ve started reading Stalking the Wild Asparagus, which I’ve known about almost since its publication in 1962, but have never read. I resisted reading it because I didn’t know what it was and it quickly became a cliche. But better late than never.
Anyway, I read about eating grape leaves in STWA and decided to give it a try, especially since the season was right and I knew of a wild grape vine on our property putting out a lot of new leaves after I hacked it back. I stuffed them with a mix of beef, rice, sunflower seeds, onion, parsley, dill, and olive oil (recipe from Joy of Cooking), and they came out very good. G ate them but D did not. Grape leaves, dill, parsley from our yard, beef from across the street.
Meanwhile, we’re on the verge of having too much rain. It’s raining hard again right now. You watch, now that I have 250 gallons of rainwater stored, it will rain every 5 days all summer and the garden won’t need any of it.
We also apparently have some bears living in southern Wisconsin now, and a few at least visiting our town.
Dandelion Digging Day
2 April 2010The boys and I dug dandelions in the garden today. We got about a 5-gallon bucket packed full of them. Later, I cut off the leaves and ended up with about 2/3 of a bucket of leaves.
Rinsed them twice with water from the hose, then again inside, and had some for a salad for lunch — very good. M cooked some for dinner as well, but they were kind of bitter, don’t know why. The ones I had in my salad weren’t bitter. Put a bagfull in the fridge so I can eat them for a few days. This qualifies as the first fresh garden produce of the year.
It’s a great year for daffodils (which I think means that early last summer was great for daffodils).
We’re supposed to get some rain this evening through tomorrow am — sure hope we do, we had a very dry and warm March.
Also mixed up some potting soil for the garden vegetable seeds we’ll be planting this weekend. Mixed the commercial potting mix I bought a month or two ago with worm castings from the basement worm bin. It should be excellent stuff.
Siberian Elm
7 February 2010I learned today that those weedy elms we have in our yard are Siberian Elms (while browsing The Forager’s Harvest at Borders). What I’ve read so far confirms that they are a terrible pest — and that parts are edible! I always said to myself that it’s too bad those f^%#@* things aren’t edible, but it turns out they are! Unbelievable, and I can’t wait to try the seeds in a few months.
The wood is also not without uses: Wood – hard, heavy, tough, difficult to split. Used for agricultural implements, boat making etc. I knew about the hard-to-split part, the rest is good to know. And it does burn okay in the woodstove.
No Acorns Today
14 November 2009I took the boys down to MSF to collect more acorns today, but the ground was completely covered with oak leaves and it was impossible to see the acorns. If you’re going to collect them, you have to do it before the leaves fall.
Harvested more collards today and cooked them up with a few carrots, a small onion (both from the garden), and some turkey spam. It was divine.
Ending and Beginning 