Looking to add a unique twist to your culinary repertoire? Try this unexpectedly delicious appetizer or side dish – batter fried hosta shoots – that will surprise your taste buds!
Continue ReadingCrispy Goodness: Batter Fried Hosta Shoots
Chickweed Salve for Itchy Skin (and tips for foraging)
Chickweed is a wonderful herbal “weed” to forage, and is both edible and medicinal. Be sure to try this chickweed salve recipe – it’s easy to make and is great for itchy skin and all types of skin irritation.
Continue ReadingLow-Carb Zuppa Toscana (Tuscan Soup) with Stinging Nettle (or other wild greens)
Zuppa Toscana – Tuscan Soup with Stinging Nettle
Low Carb Zuppa Toscana is an amazingly delicious soup. Since I love all things foraged, I created this soup with stinging nettle instead of spinach or kale. But yes, you can use either of those if you can’t find nettle.
I highly recommend using sausage from pastured pork, grass-fed butter, and organic vegetables in the recipe. With the wild foraged stinging nettle, it will certainly be a nutrient dense meal.
How to Make Wintergreen (Teaberry) Extract (and tips for foraging)
Growing up, my family spent every summer at a spring-fed lake on the top of a Pennsylvania mountain. The elevation was high enough that the plant life was much different than what we saw in town. The soil was acidic and all clay. Trees did not grow as tall, and moss was a lot easier to grow than grass. But that mountain was covered in wild blueberry and wintergreen. To this day, the scent of a crushed wintergreen leaf brings me straight back to my childhood.Continue Reading
Dock Seed Brownies: Amazingly Delicious Foraged Fare
Dock, a common plant often found along roadsides and fields, is most often foraged for its tart leaves in the early spring. Its stalk and root are edible as well. Most commonly harvested are Rumex crispus (Curly dock), and R. obtusifolius (Bitter or broadleaf dock). Curly dock is biennial, while broadleaf dock is a perennial.
The seed is edible, and easy to harvest, but many people avoid collecting it because it can be difficult to process. I thought that too, until I learned a trick which makes it super easy. More about that later.Continue Reading
Rich and Creamy Homemade Poppy Seed Cake
How do you celebrate your birthday? For me, it varies from year to year, but there’s never been a year without dessert. I’ve always been a pie over cake kinda’ girl and have often asked for pie for my birthday. But when I was a child, first my grandmother and then my mom would make the most amazing cake I’ve ever had – Poppy Seed Cake.Continue Reading