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.

Squash Blossoms; a Guilty Pleasure

Squash Season is Coming!!!

This is admittedly NOT the plant I took my male blossoms from; that plant had a huge headstart, being grown in the high tunnel, however I didn't plan ahead and neglected to photograph it.  Them.  They're taking over. (I'll insert a picture here at a later date!)

Squash blossoms are an early summer delicacy.  I only pick the male blossoms, the ones without the ovary attached (swollen base), because that's what will eventually become your squash.  And I only take a few; they're a guilty secret. For this recipe you'll need a simple egg batter (like the one you use for pancakes), a stuffing, some vegetable oil, and some salt.

Open the blossom, then remove the pistol.  Or is it the stamen?  I don't remember.  Remove the phallic polleny thing in the middle.  It will be bitter if you don't. Stuff the flower with something you love: crab, shrimp, mushrooms, cheese; I chose fresh mozzarella, because that's what I had. Wrap the blossom around the filling.  Really tuck it in.

Heat up your oil and get a plate ready with paper towels to catch the drips.  Dip the entire blossom in the batter, and make sure the petals stay around the filling as you rotate it for coverage.  I found it easiest to do by hand, but if you grip the open end of the blossom with a pair of tongs, you may be able to finesse it into compliance without messing up your manicure.  Having no such manicure, I wasn't terribly concerned about using my hands.  Place them in the hot (but not smoking) oil. The stuffed blossoms.  Not your hands.

Make sure to turn them as they get brown.  Don't fuss with them too much or you'll lose your stuffing.  Well, they will...not you. 

These are NOT chicken wings.  Meat-free goodness.

Drain on paper towels or whatever you use for lapping up oil, then salt to taste and enjoy.  If you have a favorite dipping sauce, now's the time to break it out.  I used harvard beet glaze, because that's what I had.  And that was just fine.

Enjoy!

Berry Berry Good.

Putting Food By...
It's become an obsession of mine.  With the imminent collapse of the fossil fuel system, combined with my "Buy Fresh, Buy Local" mindset, the natural course of things is to preserve foods that will be accessible sans power. Also, since I'm particularly sensitive to sugar for some reason, and have found through personal experience that freezing diminishes taste and texture, I've decided that dehydration is the way to go.

I bought this dehydrator about 20 years ago.  It's still kicking. Of course there are natural ways to dehydrate food; I'm currently dehydrating some elderflowers in my shed as we speak; but I digress.

Nearly Antique Plastic Dehydrator (I'm Getting Old. YAY!)

First, you clean and half the strawberries.  Mine were grown in Amish country (just a hop over the county line in Kutztown), and are natural and local.  Beautiful, aren't they?

You KNOW I Ate Some...

After you cut them, place them on the trays, seed side down.  NOT cut side down.  They'll stick.

Stack those trays up.  If you have multiple trays, you'll save energy, because it will take the same amount of time to do 6 as to do 2.  The trays weren't cheap, as I recall (it's been awhile), but they have more than paid for themselves.

Use the Proper Heat Setting

They shrink way down.  Down to 20% of their original volume, as I calculate...

I almost always dehydrate overnight, and that worked fine for these goodies.  I found that 5 quarts of fresh fruit equalled 1 quart of dried.  So I made 2 dried quarts for the winter.  That should hold us.

They taste wonderful: concentrated strawberry goodness.  I can just imagine them in oatmeal, on cereal, in cream-of wheat, or bread pudding...spring goodness in the deep winter. Yum.

Beauty is Only Skin Deep

 

By the way, the Farmer's Almanac has this tidbit to share about the aforementioned topic:

"The month of June's full Moon's name is the Full Strawberry Moon. June's Full Strawberry Moon got its name because the Algonquin tribes knew it as a signal to gather ripening fruit.

It was often known as the Full Rose Moon in Europe (where strawberries aren't native)."

Cool.

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!

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.

Ramps

The Stream

This is the day I wait for all year: my first ramp-hunt.  Now, I happen to have a tried-and-true, secret spot that I return to each year, but if you're looking for one of your own, try forested stream banks.  They seem to like a mixture of sandy soil and dark soil, but they definately like moisture.

A Ramp Riot

What's a ramp, you ask?  It's a wild growing allium, which you must recognize as a member of the onion or garlic family.  Also known as wild leeks, ramps offer a powerful blend of both the onion and garlic flavors.  A little goes a long way, so only pick what you'll use. They can be chopped and frozen, or pickled (though I haven't tried this).  Best of all, ramps are one of the first wild vegetables available in the spring, and the entire plant is usable. 

They look like Lily of the Valley.  DO NOT EAT LILY OF THE VALLEY!

When you begin to dig your ramps, you should notice that distinctive garlic-onion smell immediately.  I use a narrow gardening trowel to insert under the root, and lift it, as I use both the root and the leaf.  Smell those ramps; there's no mistaking them!  

Skunk Cabbage is Often Present at Ramp Sites

Turkey-Tail

Nature provides us with such beauty.  I'd wear this fungus like jewelry.  But I digress.

Ramps in a Basket

Take your ramps home, and give them a good bath to soak the remaining soil from their roots.

Each ramp root is covered with a thin membrane.  Simply push it forward...



To reveal your clean white ramp root.  Then snip it off.  A ramp bris.

That's all the preparation your ramps will need, initially.

Final Bath

When the ramps are all trimmed, give them a final rinse, then put them in a plastic bag or covered dish in the fridge.  When you've had enough fresh-ramp dining, chop the rest, and freeze in small portions for use over the winter.  There's nothing like the taste of ramps in the winter to remind you of spring!  They really liven up your winter root dishes!

Wash Water

Save all that rinse water for your garden.  The remaining soil can't hurt!  And since there's no soap or oil, it's perfectly fine for watering your cultivated veggies. 

Enjoy!