Welcome Spring!

It may seem a little early, but with the birth of most of our kids, the onset of warm weather, and my first wild-foraged dinner, it surely feels like spring is here!

Mom as Theme Park

About a day or two after birth, the kids begin trying out their equipment; they leap, cavort, dance, and climb.  Mom's back becomes a playground.

Sleepy Twins

Which results in sleepy babies.  Naps are as frequent as play periods for the first week or so.

A Pile of Kids

And everyone cuddles together in a big, warm pile.  The moms enjoy these breaks in nursing.

Sleepy Babies

I never get tired of fuzzy, sleepy, well fed kids!

Spring kids and spring greens come at the same time.  Nature has it all figured out. In the wild, those babies and mommas would benefit from the natural goodness of the greens. They'll be outdoors enjoying spring soon!  In the mean time, I'm enjoying the bounty.

The Easy Gleanings

Today's short walk yielded garlic mustard, chickweed, stinging nettle, dead nettle, mint, wild onion, some oregano that returned to my garden from last year, and dandelion.

Salad Greens

The stinging nettle and some garlic mustard went into the saute pan, but the chickweed and other raw greens were reserved for the salad.

Sauteed Chicken and Nettles

I started by sautéing some clean bacon, which I removed once brown.  Next, I added half of a chicken breast, cut into chunks.  When it was almost done, I added the damp nettles, chopped wild onion, and some garlic mustard.  I cooked until tender, then finished with some slivered preserved lemons, salt and pepper, as well as the bacon pieces.  This made 2 generous servings.

Natural Chopped Salad

The rest of the greens were chopped, then tossed with preserved lemon, golden raisins and a little blue cheese, as well as two or three crumbled bacon pieces.  Dressing wasn't necessary.  This also made two generous servings (and I have leftover garlic mustard!).  

I could just feel the energy returning to my sleepy winter soul after dinner, and when I finally went to bed, I slept with the window open, and more soundly that I have in weeks.  

Nature is good for us.  Body AND soul.

Installation #4: Independence (Fri) Day

I've been busy.  In a good way. And Peter will be home for another week!  Bonus!

Plant something:

            This week, I took the time to start a few small pots of pea seeds.  I’ve been lusting after pea sprouts lately, as I often do this time of year, and decided to get a head start on the season.  The pots I planted them in were made from recycled newspaper tubes; there are lots of online tutorials, so I combined a few of them to achieve the results I wanted.  Basically, my tubes went like this:

1.      Tear a single side of newspaper in half.

2.      Fold it in half.

3.      Wrap the folded sheet around a piece of 2”pvc pipe with the raw edges extending below the opening of the pipe.

4.      Tuck the raw ends up into the pipe, then wiggle the opt off of the PVC pipe.

5.      Staple the top edge of the pot together

6.      Tamp down the bottom of the pot with something flat.

Peas, etc.

  

Harvest something:

            You know, it’s pretty tough to actually harvest from an urban yard in the winter (though I hope to harvest those pea sprouts soon!).  I have a garden plot at Flint Hill Farm, but that’s not available to me in cold weather, and my home garden is about the size of a Volkswagen.  I did harvest a gallon of yummy kombucha tea, and I made a new quart of elderberry tonic (which I’ll harvest in 6 weeks).  Otherwise, apart from the good vegetables I’ve been using from my freezer all week, and the good herbs I have dried and stored in my kitchen, it’s been more of a time of consuming than harvesting.  To everything, there is a season, right?

 

Preserve something:

            I’m still working on preserving my sanity.  Seriously.

 Waste not:

            Since Peter’s home, I‘ve had the help I needed to move some heavy pieces of furniture to the second floor in preparation for my mom’s arrival.  This has had the usual cascade effect; we’ve ended up with a rather large pile of homeless items.  Among those items were several things made of metal (a grill, a lamp, a few wire shelf sections).  I’m a member of our local Freecycle group, a Yahoo list serve that recycles usable objects among its members.  It’s a great idea; if you have something extra, you can give it away.  If you need something, you can request it. Some of the members recycle metal for money, so I posted the metal objects, and they were taken. YAY!

            There was a box of decorative items and pillows too.  I took that to the local VIA thrift store, where it will be sold inexpensively and the proceeds will benefit children with disabilities.  Win/win!  I buy lots of my clothes there as well.

Want Not:

            I think this is the best place to comment on the now-slightly dwindling supply of frozen natural goodies that I put aside last fall. I have had a successful winter of wholesome food, thanks to my garden and my foraging in warmer times, which truly floats my boat.  I can literally “shop the freezer”, and create a gourmet meal with just a few added pantry items.  It’s an awesome feeling.  As the frozen vegetables are getting used, I’m replacing them with local, humanely raised meats and individually portioned meals for my school lunches.  I sense the beginning of a seasonal rhythm, which is a great feeling to me.

          I did manage a quick look at a few of my old-faithful oyster mushroom trees during the past few days, but the nights have been too cold to promote growth. In a week or two, if we're lucky, they'll be bursting with sumptuous spring oysters. Yum!

 

Eat the Food:

            A day or two before Peter returned home from his cross-country trek (he was returning to Pennsylvania from Los Angeles, CA), I thawed out a chicken that had been deep in the freezer.  I had a nice, comforting roast chicken dinner in mind.  Circumstances being what they were, that dinner never happened, though I did roast the bird in order to preserve the now-thawed meat.  From it, we had chicken breast with ginger and scallion dipping sauce, chicken noodle soup with local veggies, hot open-faced chicken and mushroom sandwiches with cranberry sauce, and chicken salad (still to be made).  That’s a lot of mileage for one little chicken!

Soup...

Build community food systems:

            I’ll be attending a board meeting at Flint Hill Farm tomorrow evening, where we will discuss fund-raisers to support the farm.  As a non-profit organization, fundraising is a never-ending process.  I thoroughly believe in the mission of the place as both an agricultural education center and a working artisanal dairy.  The goats are nearly ready to kid (I’ll be on call to help with the deliveries, which should be starting in March), and we’ll be in milk again soon.  In the past, I was a regular milker, though I’m not sure that I’m up to that anymore, since my hand surgery last November, but I’m sure there will be plenty of work for me once the kids arrive.  Last year, we had four bottle babies in my living room at one point; it was WONDERFUL!

Diapers

Skill up:  

            I’ve been on the lookout for the lightly colored, skeletal  remains of wild asparagus plants, which I explored online during the week.    I’ve been adding lots of wild things to my foraging arsenal in the last year or two.  Some wild foods have been a part of my repertoire since I was a child, but others are new finds that I’ve made thanks to the resources on the web.  How did we ever survive without it!

             

Independence Days #2 (February 9th, 2012)

Please head on over to The Chatelaine's Keys to see a full description of this project! 

Here's my weekly update!

Plant something:

      Well, I didn't ACTUALLY plant anything, but I did buy some carrot seeds and seed starter.  I've been fighting a cold this week, and although I didn't miss any work days, I slept a great deal more than usual because that's what my body needed.  I'm learning to listen to those subtle internal signals more clearly these days, and I believe my health is benefitting from it.

She Carrot

Harvest something:

      I have a non-gardening harvest story for this week.  Here goes:

      Do you remember your first steps?  The strong hands helping you, and the clumsy placement of your soft little feet in those big, clumsy shoes; first lift, then lurch forward, plant the foot and find your balance. Arms up, your hand firmly planted in a bigger, stronger one.  Always safe in your mother’s care, the first few steps were a celebration!  An occasion!  Smile inducing, worthy of kisses!

Cute Pictures

       I thought about those steps yesterday as I helped my mother down the porch stairs; place a foot, hold on tight, move the other foot and release the knee, take a breath and drop…all while holding on tight, safe in her daughter’s care.

       We plant hope, and harvest compassion.  As young children, we have no understanding of the eventual peak and inevitable decline of our physical abilities; just hope and joy, one of the many gifts our mothers give us.  I’m grateful for that gift, and grateful I can begin to balance those scales right now, late in my mother’s life; perhaps one day, my daughter will do the same for me. 

“We are a circle within a circle, with no beginning, and never ending.”

                                                                                               -Rick Hamouris

Preserve something:
      Four weeks ago, I harvested a vinegar mother from a bottle of apple cider vinegar that I bought from a health food store.  I was able to buy a gallon of flash pasteurized apple cider from Frecon's Orchard in Boyertown; this method still allows the cider to ferment; I used similarly pasteurized cider for my hard cider last fall.  This time, I added the mother, and let it turn to a lovely, mild vinegar over the course of the month.  The vinegar mother, a mixture of cellulose and beneficial bacteria, digests the natural sugars first, then the resulting alcohol, creating that nice, astringent vinegar flavor; this mother is very similar to the SCOBY used to make my kombucha.  I removed the vinegar mother then pasteurized this new, live vinegar myself (140-160 degrees).  It's waiting for me to cook with it now!  I put the mother into a jar of old red wine; not sure if it will work to make red wine vinegar, but I'm willing to experiment!

Waste not:

      My fridge is a nightmare.  I occasionally have an attack of conscience and try to catch up with the many culinary experiments festering in there.  It's not pretty.  With this weekly blog entry as incentive, I took a brave look, and found some still-viable organic yogurt, some home made beef broth, a shriveled but edible stalk of celery and the remnants of last week's mushroom bounty.  What to do?

Yogurt Cheese and Vegetable Beef Soup

      
     I hung the yogurt in a cheesecloth for yogurt-cheese (very tasty, with a consistency like cream cheese), made a strata from the mushrooms and celery (along with a quarter loaf of stale multi-grain bread, a sauteed onion, 4 fresh eggs, raw milk and some shredded cheese) which will be my breakfast this week, and made soup from the beef broth.  I added a handfull of sliced brussel sprouts, some frozen local corn, some dehydrated maitake mushrooms and some herbs.  Yum.  Good bye, convenience food!  Momma's got a healthier (and more frugal) plan!

Mushroom Strata

 Want Not:

     Last summer I inoculated two areas of my tiny yard with winecap mushroom spawn. I was able to harvest a few mushrooms from the sites last year, but I'm looking forward to a better harvest this spring.  In anticipation, I covered one of the areas with straw.  And I had too much...so there's straw all over my teensy urban garden.  This week, I started cycling bunches of straw into my well-packed composter to diversify the organic load.  Perfect.

Eat the Food:
     Monday's meals: Mushroom strata for breakfast and fish chowder for lunch.  Both from the freezer. Home fermented and home canned sauerkraut and clean, local sausage for dinner.
     Tuesday: Strata again for breakfast; leftover kraut for lunch (the kraut is good for boosting immunity).
      Wednesday: I felt good for the first time in a week on Wednesday (was fighting a cold) so I made a nice one-woman date-night dinner. From the freezer: all local...corn, sauteed oyster mushrooms and onions, tomato confit, nasturtium pesto and half of a farm raised delmonico steak. Seasoned the steak with Cajun spices and grilled it in my Foreman grill; cubed one small potato and sauteed it with the mushrooms, tomatoes and a small red onion. Boiled some wonton noodles and tossed them with the confit, pesto, pepper and salt. And...corn. Ahhhh, yes; the pleasures of a garden, foraging, and a freezer. Thursday night is parents' night at school, so I won't be cooking.

Build community food systems:
    This is a vast diversion from my usual organic and local eating beliefs, but I gave it a try; I'm not sure if I will continue.  Our Elementary and Middle Schools use a fundraising technique known as "Market Day".  There is an online company from which you order various foods, and a portion of the proceeds go to the school needing the funds.  The food is delivered to the school, which is convenient for me, as I teach right on the campus.  While the various meats and breadings were suspect (at least to me), I did order some mini-omelets and some individual frozen lasagna rolls.  They tasted fine, and are convenient, but I'll have to research where this company sources its food before I order again.  I can't stand the idea of inhumanely treated chickens and cows.  I'll let you know what I find out.  I'm a little nervous about it.
    On the healthy side, I ordered a bin of local and organic vegetables and foods from my very favorite Buy Fresh, Buy Local food source, Pure Sprouts.  I love, love, love this service, and order from them whenever I need quality local foods that I haven't grown or foraged myself...although I do love to visit farmers' markets in fair weather!  

Skill up:

Balsamic Vinegar, Nasturtium Vinegar, Juniper "Berries"
Rosemary Vinegar and Gin-Soaked Raisins

     Susun Weed sent a nice tutorial on using white pine needles and cider vinegar to create balsamic vinegar.  Since I have an abundance of both, I'll be giving that a try.  I love balsamic vinegar!  Here's the link.  This seems to be a year of tonics and fermentations for me; new territory to explore!  

Independence (Fri) Day (a Few Hours Early)

Please head on over to The Chatelaine's Keys to see a full description of this project! 

Here are our categories: 

Plant something:

Harvest something:

Preserve something:

Waste not:

Want Not:

Eat the Food:

Build community food systems:

Skill up:  

Plant something:

         I can honestly say that the only seeds I planted this week were the seeds of curiosity in my students’ minds.  Hopefully, they’ll flourish!  Our ground is frozen one day, then muddy the next right now, though I have been considering starting a cold frame of lettuce since it has been a mild winter here in Pennsylvania.  It’s been a busy week; the end of semester one coincided with the end of my new bathroom construction; the new semester started on the last day the workmen were in my home.  I look forward to this weekend to reorganize my first floor; my classes are nicely reorganized already!  First things first!

Color Theory

Bathroom Theory

Harvest something:

         I DID harvest something!  The miracle tree in front of my farmer-friend’s house put out a nice bloom of oyster mushrooms!  I even had enough to share with a friend or two!  Yummy fresh mushrooms in late January…awesome!  I was too excited to take a picture, so I pasted in one I took during the summer.

Oysters

Preserve something:  

         Last weekend, I made a batch of clean and humanely raised beef jerky.  I used a pepper flavor that I knew my husband would like (he tells a funny story about how his best experience with steak au poivre made his eardrums burn).  I also separated a new kombucha mother from my main one, and put it up in the fridge “in case”, and have set aside a smaller jar of the kombucha to grow a mini-mother.  Those gallon jars make too much for me!

Waste Not:            

         My picky indoor cats often leave a good portion of their expensive cat food uneaten.  I’ve been cycling this out to the poor alley cat who is very happy to clean it up for them!  He’s afraid to be petted or come too close, but I’ve made a warm straw bed for him under my glider, and he’s getting regular meals.  I’ve made some very good cat friends this way in the past.  If he gets friendly enough to handle, I'll do the cat world a favor and neuter him.  Maybe he knows that.  Maybe that's why he stays out of reach!

Hobie

Want Not:

         Two days ago, I felt myself coming down with the beginnings of a nasty winter cold. My previous summer stockpiling paid off nicely. I’ve always been interested in both herbs and foraging. Last summer I teamed up with a colleague of mine who is also an herbalist, and we collected a nice supply of both elder flowers and elder berries.  SCORE!  I made a tonic using the berries and some of the flowers plus equal parts of honey and gin.  The recipe called for brandy, but juniper, a key ingredient in gin, is an anti-inflammatory which helps my achy old joints.  Well, I took a tablespoonful yesterday morning, then a tablespoonful last evening, and slept with clear sinuses and woke up refreshed after a good, comfortable night…with no sore throat!  YAY nature!  YAY elderberries and juniper!

Elderberries

Eat the Food:

         Those aforementioned mushrooms have graced my dinner plate three times this week, in various incarnations.  The last one was a GREAT stir-fry, paired with some local frozen chicken mushrooms and maitakes from the fall, some frozen organic veggies from my garden, and some finely sliced organic pork strips from the farmer’s market, all seasoned with ginger, garlic, sesame oil and soy sauce.  Of course I made too much; the leftovers went into lunch-sized freezer containers so I could carry them to school for my mid-day meal.  Win-win!

Build community food systems:

         Since Peter has been traveling for work, and has had two long-term remote placements, my fall canning stockpile isn’t being used as quickly as I thought it might.  I recently connected with an old friend who is having some challenging times, so I sent her home with a box full of goodies, and will continue to stock her up until she’s tired of them or I run out.  She promised to save my jars for me for next year!  And she loved my pepper jerky and mushrooms, too!

            I have a new friend who supplied me with my kombucha mother a month or so ago.  I was lucky enough to find a dehydrator at a thrift store, and got it to her (she’s been looking for one), so I was able to return a foodie favor.  I also shared a bag of those nice fresh oyster mushrooms with another relatively new friend, my mushrooming buddy.  He was happy to have them, and kindly offered me a few shiitake logs in the coming spring.  SCORE!

            Have you ever noticed the cosmic law that goes something like this: The more you give, the more you’ll receive?  It’s true.  There is such abundance in our world, if only we all remembered how to pass it around.

Skill up:  

         I’m a little embarrassed to admit this one, but here goes: during the past two weeks, I had a new bathroom built on my first floor for my elderly mother, who will be coming to live with us.  Prior to the construction of the bathroom, I had absolutely no idea how the plumbing worked…I didn’t know which pipe took out the waste, or if the sink water, shower water and toilet water were sent to the same place or not.  One week before the contractor arrived, I had an emergency visit from the plumber, but not before I learned exactly where the upstairs toilet went.  Since then, I’ve seen the plumbing adapted to the new bathroom, and have figured it all out.  I can’t believe I never cared before.  It’s such a simple thing…

Plumbing...etc.

In June

In June ’tis good to lie beneath a tree

While the blithe season comforts every sense,

Steeps all the brain in rest, and heals the heart,

Brimming it o’er with sweetness unawares.

–James Russell Lowell (1819–91)

Elderberry Blossoms

I'm JUST THAT CLOSE to summer vacation...

One more day...

Pennsylvania Oysters

This same tree, and this same farmer shared their bounty with me last fall.  I recall that my hands were very cold when I pulled the mushrooms from the tree last fall; today, I was feeling springtime fresh.  We just had a week or so of hot, rainy weather, followed by two days of sunny heat.  TREASURE!!!

I saw them driving by...

 Though I admit that I stopped by his farm, Mr. Unnamed Farmer wasn't home yesterday, and I didn't trespass.  I went back this evening.

There they are.  Same tree, different season.

 They were a day or so past prime.   A small price to pay to maintain my integrity.  The farmer was still willing to give them up, despite my praise of last year's crop, though he did welcome my "payment" of milk and eggs, due on Sunday.  A fair price, at my insistence.  He was willing to just give them up.  Nice farmer.

After cleaning, a short soak; they were a bit dry on the edges.

Note the gills that travel right up the stem, which is minimal.  And they smell so good!

They typically grow on hardwood.  The tree these are on is WAY DEAD, but I'll ask Mr. Farmer
what it was when I see him on Sunday.

Recipes and storage tips to follow...

Life's good. Bb.

Abundance

Spring has suddenly morphed into summer, as it seems to do every Memorial Day. With the torrential rains, tornadoes, subsequent sunlight and heat has come the inevitable greening of Pennsylvania.

Trimming the Garden: Feverfew, Lemon Balm, Spearmint, Sage, Kale, Spinach, Lettuce, Strawberries...
and a Few Weeds.

I'll discuss my vegetable garden in a later post, as I'm way behind on taking the appropriate pictures.  What I want to discuss today is the natural bounty I've experienced so far this spring.  Wild harvests have been possible for months already, with the first garlic mustard, ramps, morels, dryads' saddles, watercress, nettle, etc.  On Sunday afternoon, as I was waiting for the shuttle to arrive for our post-paddle trip home (we had a wonderful 17 mile paddle trip on the Pine Creek, near Williamsport, with a most-excellent group of new friends), I spent a few endorphin fueled moments gazing at the "weed" bank by the water.  It occurred to me that I could actually create a fairly decent meal from the abundant plants growing there.  There was stinging nettle (par-boiled and sauteed, a better-than-spinach green), burdock (the root is a prized vegetable in Asian cultures, though I've personally never tried it because it's a huge taproot, a long, deep dig...and I'm lazy), garlic mustard (spicy greens and root), upland cress (peppery), and some wild carrot.  We need never go hungry in the summer, if we know what we're looking at. 

Feverfew

Back at home, the herb garden in my tiny back yard is in full swing.  I harvested the comfrey because it was threatening to move into the kitchen, and I've begun harvesting the feverfew flowers.  The valerian is about to burst into bloom, and the tansy and pennyroyal are looking promising.  I have enough mint and lemon balm for the entire block.  My more traditional culinary herbs are holding their own; I've been topping the basil, parsley, rosemary and oregano for a few weeks as I need them for my cooking; the thyme is a little slower to get started, and my new chives are lagging behind. The perennial strawberries are enjoying a renaissance this year, after last year's hiatus, and the snow peas I put in after a glass of wine sometime a few weeks ago are doing surprisingly well considering their inappropriate position.

Strawberries

It's amazing to me how much you can harvest from a tiny spit of land, if you simply adjust your expectations about what a backyard should look like, and use your culinary and medicinal herbs and vegetables for greenery and flowers instead.  I have more than enough for my husband and myself, on a piece of land smaller than most people's living room; of course, my more expansive vegetable garden is off-site, and I'd dearly love to have that right at hand, but I'm happy to have it, regardless.

Gratuitous Snow Peas

More pictures to follow!

P.S.:  On the way home from the farm this afternoon, I saw two tiny spotted fawns.  What a blessing!  AND: a beautiful bloom of oyster mushrooms on the famous farmer's tree from last fall.  I stopped by to ask if he was still disinterested in them (!), but he wasn't home.  I sure hope no one spots them before tomorrow!

Watermelon Juice with Plum Vodka, a Watermelon Ball and a Backyard Mint Sprig. 
YUM!  When the Watermelon is Local, it'll REALLY Rock!

Spring Dinner!

Although I spent the majority of the day writing (with a brief goaty interlude and a quick morel run), our dinner tonight was appropriate for today's earthy holiday!  May Day, aka Beltane, a traditional celebration of spring is my favorite time of year!

Breaded morels and dryad's saddles, roasted asparagus with Parmesan/Romano cheese, and home fried sweet potato chips with mineral salt.  Local onion-horseradish sauce for dipping.  And fresh goat milk. Yum!

Unfortunately, I'm all out of words today, and almost out of eyes as well, so I'll just leave you with this thought: we are blessed by our tenure on this planet; we have a sacred responsibility to know that, and to respond respectfully.  We are stewards.  We need to remember that.

Dryad's Saddles

Are pretty good utility mushrooms.  And plentiful...just when we're searching for morels (the Holy Grail of culinary mushrooms). According to the many bits of research I've uncovered, these polypores which grow on wood, were imagined to be saddles for the wood-sprites.  If you find young ones, you'll see why.  Or, in my case, great big COMFY ones, like those shown below.

I first noticed these ubiquitous mushrooms last spring when searching for morels with my good friends Stephanie and Mike.  The one I brought home last year was past prime, but gave me a taste (literally) of what they had to offer.

During my walk yesterday, I found scads of them, from tiny buds to HUGE specimens, like this (a generous "saddle" indeed!):



That's Mike.  Outdoorsman-extraordinaire.

DISCLAIMER: Always be absolutely sure before you eat ANY mushroom.  Check.  Check again.  And again.  If in doubt, throw it out.  Don't rely on me to clear them for you.

And that's the bottom Dryad's Saddle of the two Mike was posing with.  Looks more like a tractor seat to me! Note: don't bother harvesting if they're this large. My mistake.

Though I did harvest this large mushroom, I was only able to use the outside 3" of it.  Those below, also large, were equally disappointing.  They're simply too tough when they're large.

Here are some little sweethearts!  Small and fresh.

Bottom View

When they're small and tender, Dryad's saddles are good utility mushrooms.  I follow Steve Brill's (literal) rule of thumb: If you can dig into the flesh with your thumbnail, it's good to harvest.  I also follow his method of preparation.  I marinated mine for 24 hours, and had a lovely dinner tonight.  Thanks, Steve! 

Mikey with morels.

Semi-foraged Dinner: Nettle, Shrimp (!) and Ramp Frittata with Goat-Milk and Farm Egg Custard

A Keeper

So, you already have most of the ingredients, but here's the official list:

Bacon (browned)

       Start with the bacon. I used about 1/6 of a pound, cut in 1"chunks.  Fry it up, pull out the bacon, reserve the fat.  Saute the following in the bacon fat:
Nettles (blanched then sauteed in bacon fat)
Shrimp (~1/2 cup sauteed in bacon fat)
Ramps (small amount, sauteed, et al)
Sweet Peppers (small amount, sauteed, et al)

        When all is tender, transfer to a colander and press out the liquid.  Transfer the mixture to a well-buttered glass pie pan, then add the mixture that follows:

Eggs (2-3)
Goat Milk, 1 cup (or cow milk, if that's the way you roll!)
      Beat these together, and set aside.

Cheese (I used a rather salty farmer's cheese sparingly, and a Lancaster cheddar), approx. 1 cup, to taste.
seasoning (I used pepper only, because the cheese was salty and I wanted to taste the veggies.): Sprinkle evenly over the shrimp/veggie mix, then soak with the egg and milk mixture.

Bake at 350 for ~ 45 minutes, or until the custard is firm and rises.  Remove from oven and let set for 15 minutes before cutting.

As my students would type: OMG!

As I would type: YUM!

Try It!

Two-WordsThursday: Morels!

YUM!

Watercress

No, it's not just a topping for crustless toast, served at highbrow teas.  Watercress is a fresh, wild vegetable that makes a hearty addition to a foraged spring meal.

Swamps = Fountains of Life

Spring-Fed Goodness

The Cress

 When I was a little girl, my father used to come to the stream opposite this little swamp to catch minnows.  I remember how he'd set up his big kick net, then send me upstream to chase them down to him.  I've been visiting this spring-fed swamp for almost 50 years.

At one point, in my early childhood, someone kept a fenced area on the hill above it, where they held some white deer.  Those deer are long gone, but the spring remains.

In the green run-off, the watercress faithfully grows wild every spring.  Someone kindly brings palettes for the pickers, and lays them out strategically.

I gather a few bags each time I visit.  It rapidly replenishes itself if you just twist off the top few inches.

Rinsing the cress

My friend David tells the story of enjoying his first watercress salad of the season, only to find a snail attached, so I make sure to give the watercress a good rinse before storing.  Those of us who forage our wild foods know that we share them with all sorts of living creatures.  I try not to eat those critters in the process.

My first watercress meal of the season will be a potato, ramp and watercress soup, made with organic chicken broth and raw milk, and garnished with local bacon.  I'd call that a hearty spring meal!

-----------------------

UPDATE*****

Cream of Potato, Ramp and Watercress Soup. 

Oh, Yeah!

4 cups of chopped ramps

4 cups of cubed red potatoes

4 slices of bacon

4 cups of chopped watercress

4 cups chicken stock

1 cup of heavy cream

salt

yogurt

In a Dutch Oven, cook the bacon intil crisp.  Remove it and hold until later.  Add potatoes, ramps and cress to the pot, then saute until the greens are cooked.  Add the chicken broth, and simmer until the potatoes are soft. (I used a stick blender at this point to make the pieces smaller). Reduce temperature and add cream, them heat through.  Season with salt, as needed. Pour into bowls, and garnish with bacon and yogurt. Yummmmmmmmmm.  Welcome spring.