Foraging Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving just seems like a great time to put all your foraging skills to work.  I am sure there were many a foraged foods on the first Thanksgiving table.  Thus, I challenged myself to come up with and produce a Thanksgiving using foraged foods both fresh and preserved throughout the year.  I hope you enjoy the recipes as much as I did producing them!

Menu

Wild Greens Salad with Za'atar Dressing
Black Russian Dock Bread
Autumn Berry Orange Jam

Cream of Watercress Soup

Roasted Duck with Crab Apple Onion Sage Glaze

Prune and Juniper Dressing

Mustard Greens with Onion and Bacon

Blackberry Crab Apple Sauce

Apple Cobbler with Acorn Crust

Black Locust Blossom Wine

Mint, Motherwort & Mulberry Leaf Tea

Wild Green Salad with Za'atar Dressing

Salad Ingredients:

Dandelion Leaves
Field Pennycress
Chickweed
Wood Sorrel
Cucumber
Dehydrated Red Bud Flowers


Dressing:

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons Za'atar seasoning


Black Russian Dock Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup and 1 tablespoon milk
3 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons oil
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 cup ground curly dock seeds
2 1/2 teaspoon dry yeast
egg white

Directions: 

In a medium bowl, mix the ground dock seeds and flour.  Premixing these ingredients before adding to the bread machine insures an even distribution.

In your bread maker, add all ingredients (except final egg white for coating) starting with the wet and finishing with the dry.  Set to dough cycle.

When the cycle is complete, briefly turn your oven on just to warm and then turn off. Remove dough from machine and roll flat.  Roll up flat dough from one side to the other so that it is a round.  Place in bread pan. Put plastic wrap loosely over loaf and place in slightly warmed oven.  Allow to rise for 30-40 minutes.

Remove from warmed oven.  Preheat oven to 340 degrees.  Paint loaf with egg white.  Place in oven and bake for 30 minutes 

Serve with Autumn Berry Orange Jam!

Cream of Watercress Soup

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 potatoes, peeled and cubed small
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 quart of chicken or turkey stock
2 cups of milk
1 cup of heavy whipping cream
4 cups of watercress, larges stems removed (about 1 gallon baggie loosely packed if picking)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
sour cream (optional topping)
dried parsley flakes (optional topping)

Directions:

Add potatoes, onions, garlic and oil to stock pot and stir to coat.  Cook, stirring frequently, at medium heat until onions are soft but not browned.

Add stock, milk, cream, salt, pepper and watercress to pot.  Bring to boil and reduce to simmer for 10 minutes.

Add nutmeg.  Using an immersion blender blend until desired smoothness.

Ladle into individual bowls and top with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of parsley flakes.


Roasted Duck with Crab Apple Onion Sage Glaze

My mother is Danish and she has told me stories about eating duck stuffed with prunes at her grandparents' table in Denmark as a child.  Apparently it has been a tradition in our family for a very long time!



Ingredients:

1 whole duckling
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 apples, cored and chopped
12 pitted prunes, cut in half
1 half pint of Crab Apple Onion Sage Jelly

Directions:

Heat oven to 325 degrees.  Rinse duck and pat dry with paper towel.

Cut apples and prunes and mix together.  Stuff into cavity.  Optionally, seal with a skewer.  Place duck into roasting pan.  Rub skin with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Cover with roasting top or aluminum foil.

After one hour of roasting, place jelly in a bowl and warm in the microwave for thirty seconds. Remove top and baste duck with jelly.  Return the top on the pan.  Bake for one more hour and repeat basting but do not return top to pan.  Bake for another half an hour and baste.  Set timer for another thirty minutes for completion.  Total cooking time is three hours.

Serves 4 to 6.


Prune and Juniper Dressing

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter
3 stalks celery, chopped
2 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons fresh juniper berries, crushed 

zest from one orange
3 apples, peeled, cored & chopped
20 prunes, chopped (less than half a normal bag)
3 tablespoons parsley, chopped
1 loaf of bread, cubed (crust is optional)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon milk

Directions:

Prepare vegetables and fruit.  Cube bread.  To crush junipers, place in plastic bag and use a rolling pin.

Add butter, celery, onions and garlic to frying pan and and fry until soft and beginning to brown.  Add junipers, stir and remove from heat. 

Mix in orange zest, apples, prunes, parsley and bread cubes.  In a separate bowl, beat eggs with milk.  Pour equally over dressing and mix with a spoon.  Spoon loosely into 9 X 13 pan. 

Bake at 325 for 30 minutes.


Mustard Greens with Onion and Bacon

This is one of my husband's favorite dishes of the day!  But who doesn't love bacon?!


Ingredients:

3 gallon size bags of mustard greens, washed and chopped
2 onions, chopped

1/2 to 1 package bacon or hog jowl bacon (depending on how much you like bacon!)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Set a large pot of salted water to boil.  Wash and chop mustard greens and chop onions. 

Cut bacon into smaller pieces and add to cast iron skillet on medium high heat.

Meanwhile, add mustard greens to boiling water (in two parts) and boil for 5 minutes.  Strain and press out liquid.  Set aside.

When bacon is beginning to brown, add onions.  Continue to cook until bacon is brown and onions are soft.

Add mustard to bacon mixture and continue to cook for 5 minutes more.  Add soy sauce and salt and pepper to taste.  Serve hot.


Blackberry Crab Apple Sauce

This tastes just like it did on the hot summer day I canned it! It is one of my favorites.  I can't tell you how nice it is to just open a jar of home cooked food and serve.

Go HERE to see the recipe.


Apple Cobbler with Acorn Crust

Next year I am picking up every acorn that I can find!  This is fantastic.  The nutty flavor really comes out.

Ingredients:

2 pints apples in cinnamon sauce or apple pie filling
1 1/2 sticks of salted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups of sugar
3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup of ground acorn flour
3/4 cup of old fashioned oats
sugar for sprinkling on topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a 13X9 inch baking pan. Pour apples into pan.  In a separate bowl, combine butter, flour, acorn flour and oats.  Mix until well moistened.

Using your hands, flatten out small pats of the dough and place overlapping on the apples. Sprinkle lightly with sugar.

Bake 35 minutes.  Topping will become crunchy as it cools.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.


Black Locust Blossom Wine

The blossom of the Black Locust is one of my favorite edibles.  The scent of the flower will make you stop in your tracks.  They make the best fritters I have ever had.  This year I turned them into wine and was not disappointed!  It tastes floral like the scent, sweet and very strong.  Check out this post about Black Locust Blossom Wine for the recipe!

Mint, Motherwort & Mulberry Leaf Tea

I love this tea pot.  It holds two large or three small cups of tea.  The nice thing about it is that the filter holding your tea leaves is in the center and pulls out easily.

Mint is good for digestion, Motherwort is good for staying calm during the busy holiday, especially if your mother-in-law is coming, and Mulberry is particularly good for blood sugar which is something you will need when your holiday focuses on food!

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon dried mint
1 tablespoon dried Motherwort leaf
1 tablespoon dried Mulberry leaf

Directions:

Add ingredients to your tea pot and bring to a boil.  Turn off burner and let sit for ten minutes.  Serve with honey to taste.

Autumn Olive Orange Jam Canning Recipe

If you have many bushes of Autumn Olives, this is a great recipe to use!  This is for a larger batch.  It took me about four hours to pick a large quantity and this recipe uses half of what I picked (6 quarts or 24 cups).  Considering that it is highly nutritious, tasty and free fruit, I would say that it was worth it!

Autumn Olive Orange Jam

Ingredients:

6 quarts Autumn Olives (24 cups)
4 oranges, zest and juice (choose organic if you can as you will be using the skin)
~10 cups sugar (will depend on amount of liquid after straining)
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons pectin (optional, depending on how firm you want your jam.  These berries have a lot of natural pectin already)

Directions:

Rinse berries and add to a large pot.  Zest and juice your oranges.  Set aside zest and add juice to berries.  Simmer for 30-45 minutes with top until berries begin to release juice.

Blend berry mixture with an immersion blender (stick blender) until seeds can be seen floating.

Strain mixture through a fine mesh strainer.  You will probably have to do this in sections.  This will reduce your volume significantly as the seed generally takes up to a third of the berry.  Discard seeds and skin (makes great compost).

Measure liquid.  For me, it produced 10 cups of liquid.  Add one cup of sugar to each cup of liquid.  Add zest, ground cloves and lemon juice.

Boil for 30-45 minutes, stirring frequently.  Jam should begin to gel.  It will also become more firm as it cools.  If you want really firm jam, add 2 tablespoons of pectin.

Prepare jars and lids.  Ladle into the jars.  Water bath 20 minutes.

Makes about 7 pints.

Autumn Olive Ketchup - A Great Recipe!

Autumn Olive Ketchup

We love ketchup in our house, and I mean L-O-V-E! So being able to make ketchup out of a wild edible is a real treat.  It's hard to believe that a berry can taste like a tomato once cooked, but it does! Autumn Olives have 17 times the lycopene, an antioxidant, than tomatoes which I suspect adds to that tomato flavor. The berry is a disease fighting powerhouse.

You might wonder how the flavor compares to common ketchup? We (my thirteen year old son and I) did a taste test. Autumn Olive ketchup has more flavor, a little tarter, and a little sweeter.  However, it definitely tastes and looks like ketchup.  Autumn Olive Ketchup on the left and regular ketchup on the right:

Autumn Olive Ketchup

Ingredients:

3 quarts Autumn Olives, rinsed but you do not have to take the little stem off
1/2 cup vinegar
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon allspice
1 head garlic, crushed

Directions:

Add ingredients to a large pot.  Simmer for half an hour, berries should be releasing their juices.

Use an immersion blender and blend. Seeds will separate.

Strain mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a smaller sauce pan to remove seeds and skin.  Straining will significantly reduce volume.

Return to stove and simmer for half an hour, stirring frequently.  Ketchup will darken and thicken.

Prepare three half pint jars and ladle ketchup into them, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Water bath 15 minutes.

Makes three half pints.

August Foraging in Tennessee!

Several of my favorite wild foods are coming into season this month!  Blackberries are nearly done which means Elderberries are nearly ready. The best time to hunt Elderberries is the second week in August.  They will be ripening over the next few weeks so if you pick this week you can go back next week for more.  Elderberries are really awful raw but wonderful made into jelly and syrup.  They are also a popular folk remedy for colds and flues due to their antiviral properties.

Another favorite beginning to ripen is the Autumn Olive. It is a small berry about the size of a pea. It's red with silver flicks on the skin.  The leaves are an olive green on one side and a silver green on the inside. When the wind blows you can see these trees from a distance because they are a different shade of green than surrounding vegetation.  It's a tree but usually ends up being a bush.  It's considered a noxious weed as it is not native and crowds out local vegetation.  However, I love it because the berries taste like sweet tarts and best of all they have the antioxidant Lycopene in them. It's the same antioxidant that's in tomatoes, only these berries have 17 times more! Tasty and super healthy!

Another great wild edible beginning to ripen now is the fruit from the Kousa Dogwood.  It is beginning to turn red with an orange flesh.  The skin is sour but the flesh tastes like a tropical drink!

The Passionflower fruit, the Maypop, is getting bigger but not ready yet. It needs to yellow and wrinkle before it is ripe.  However, you can pick the flowers and leaves now to dehydrate for a soothing tea. The leaves and flowers are some of the primary folk remedy ingredients in Europe for sleep aid.

As always, always be 100% sure of what you are eating from nature. Confirm from several sources.  Imagine a banana.  You know what it looks like.  You need to be that sure.

Mid-South June Foraging

This month is like the "Get ready, set..." because next month will be the "Go!"  Fruit and berries on the trees are growing and ripening!  Starting in July, blackberries and crab apples will be ready for picking and it will be a month of canning!  This goes all the way to August and September with different things ripening every week.

Here's what you can see right now:

Elderberry blooms!  The flowers can be used for jellies, syrups, wine and for making sodas (my son is doing this now!).  Scout these out now so you can pick the berries in August.

Sassafras leaves.  These have a citrus smell to them and can be eaten in salads or dehydrated for tea or as an herb called File which is used in gumbo.

Grapes are forming.  Now is the time to locate them for picking in late summer.  You can use the leaves now.  They are great to can for dolmas all year long! If you are local, you can find wild grapes everywhere!

Red clover.  It shows up a little later than white clover.  It's great in salads, dried for teas, or made into flour.  It has numerous health benefits.  I rarely find this in large quantities so when you find a large patch, remember where they are!

Black walnuts are forming.  They are still small and green, perfect for gathering to make a tincture.  Traditionally this tincture has been used to remove parasites.  You can make it yourself by soaking premature black walnuts in vodka or you can buy it on Amazon for an arm and a leg!

Common Plantain.  Can be cooked like greens or made into an excellent salve.  I made a salve using plantain last year and it seems to fix everything on us and our pets! Great stuff!

Smartweed.  See Green Deane's great article on this lovely plant!

Kousa Dogwood.  These are forming now and a great time to locate these trees.  The balls will turn into a fruit.  It will turn red with an orange/yellow interior.  The texture is similar to parsimmons with a tropical flavor.

This was may favorite find this month!  Autumn Olive Bushes loaded with future berries.  I have passed this church for ten years.  I finally stopped and walked the enormous grounds and discovered that it is surrounded with just a ton of Autumn Olives!  Many would call these interloping noxious weeds because they were brought here, escaped and thrived, but I think they are fantastic.  The berries are like sweet tarts and super nutritious with 17 times the lycopene of tomatoes!  I can't wait until these are ripe!  The leaves are green on the outside and silver on the inside.  This makes it easy to spot these bushes from a distance because they appear green grey, a different color than surrounding vegetation.  The berries will be red with silver flecks on them.

Hackberries.  Eventually these will turn red, but look around now for accessible branches.  This one was found locally at my son's scout camp.  Indians used to grind these up and use as a seasoning for meat or for making pemmican.  You can also make a type of almond milk with the berries.  Check out this website with instructions.

View of the Harpeth River after several days of rain and just before another storm.  One of the best things about foraging often is the view!

Found Autumn Olive!!

 

Autumn Olive, Elaeagnus umbellata, is considered an invasive plant (from Asia) and subsequently banned in Tennessee.  Since I first learned of it, I have wanted it and looked everywhere for it.  I am sure it does not play nice with native species and perhaps crowds them out, but, the benefits to this plant are amazing.  It grows extremely well and the antioxidants (17 times higher in lycopene than tomatoes) are a cancer researcher's dream.  The berries also contain high levels of vitamins A, C and E, and flavonoids and essential fatty acids. The plants are drought tolerant and can fix nitrogen in the soil.  I have ordered seeds for this plant twice on Amazon, but I think they are sending me dead seeds because they never germinate. 

I had all but given up ever coming across the plant in the nature or of being able to grow it in a pot at home from seeds.  So it was to my astonishment that while picking wild blackberries today that I came across groves of these berries!  I took pictures and samples and came home to confirm my finding.  It was definitely Autumn Olive, and I can not wait to go back and pick them when they are fully ripe. 

Autumn Olive plants are rather easy to recognize.  The oval pointed leaves are green on the top and silver colored underneath.  The berries look like they have been speckled with tiny dots of silver.  They taste like sweet tarts.  They have one seed in the center.  I will share recipes as I am able to use the berries.