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.

Elderberry Syrup Canning Recipe!

Elderberries are producing like crazy during the middle of August.  Now is the best time to pick some and make your jelly, syrup, and tincture.  Elderberries are a popular herbal antiviral ingredient and are very pricey if you buy them dehydrated on Amazon.  Amazingly, I collect my Elderberries in view of a very populated road in the Cool Springs area of Franklin, TN.  There is a field of them!  Many people pass this area daily and have no clue of the value.  Did I mention I love to forage?  It's like finding buried treasure in plain view. 

This is a great recipe because it does not use additional water so the Elderberry juice is concentrated.  It also only takes about three hours to accomplish rather than having to wait for it to boil down all day.  You can use it on ice cream, on pancakes or as a daily dose of anti-viral medicine during flu season.

Elderberry Syrup

Ingredients:

3 quarts Elderberries, stems removed and rinsed (12 cups)

8 cups sugar

½ cup lemon juice

1 tablespoon cinnamon

½ tablespoon ground cloves

½ tablespoon ground ginger

Directions:

Mix first three ingredients in large pot. Cover and cook on medium low for 1 ½ hours (should just be a light simmer). Stir occasionally. Mixture should become soupy.

Remove top and turn up to medium for ½ hour. Using a stick blender, blend until seeds are floating at the top. Continue to simmer for another ½ hour.

Strain mixture to remove seeds/skin. Return syrup to clean pot. Add seasoning and bring to a boil.

Ladle into jars and water bath for 15 minutes at a full boil. 

 

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.

Enchilada Sauce Canning Recipe

It's tomato season around here! The garden is producing which has me busy and not running about looking at wild plants. While this is not a wild edible recipe, it is a recipe that can be served with wild edibles in the future. It's also fantastic so I thought I would share!

I like a little spice so that is what this Enchilada Sauce has. If you go to Taco Bell and order the hot sauce for your burrito and not the mild sauce you will have about the equivalent spiciness. There is some tingle in the mouth but not an all out burn.

Enchilada Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 bushel of tomatoes (about 25 lbs., it's the size of a case of paper)
2 heads of garlic
2 large onions
1 cup vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
3 T ground chipotle chili pepper
3 T chili powder (less for milder taste)
2 T cumin
2 T oregano
2 T salt
1 T cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Directions:

Wash and roughly cut up tomatoes and onions and place in four large baking pans (should fill up both racks in your oven).  Break up heads of garlic and add cloves to pan.  You do not need to take the skin off of the cloves. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours or until the tomatoes are all shriveled up and are floating in their own juices (will be clear).

Here is the important part and will keep you from having to wait all day while your sauce thickens! DRAIN your tomatoes in a colander.

You can either run your tomatoes through a food mill to extract the sauce and remove the skins and seeds or you can use the method I have which is actually very quick.  Take your tomatoes and blend in a blender. You will have to do this in sections. 

 

Pour sauce into a fine mesh strainer over a deep pot, agitate mixture (I also tap strainer on the top of the pot beneath) until the sauce falls below and the skins and seeds are left in the strainer. This really works. What you have left is a thick sauce ready for any final ingredients, and additional simmering to thicken further if you prefer.

 

Leftover tomato skin and seeds.  You can dehydrate this and grind to use as a thickener for soups and sauces or just add to compost!

Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.  Simmer 10 minutes or longer if you prefer an even thicker sauce.  Prepare your jars.  You will need approximately a dozen pint jars (varies depending on type of tomato, etc.).

Ladle hot liquid into jars, wipe edges with a damp paper towel and seal with lid and ring.  Water bath for 30 minutes.

Wild Blackberry Crab Apple Sauce

This is a very versatile recipe depending on the amount of ingredients that you have. You can use crab apples or green apples. I pick my crab apples before they are considered ripe because there is more pectin in them. I use this recipe to make both jelly and apple sauce. The juice that I drain will become jelly while the apple pulp becomes the apple sauce.

Wild Blackberry Crab Apple Sauce
 
Ingredients:

2 plastic grocery bags filled with crab apples or green apples 
1 gallon bag of wild blackberries (can be frozen) 
Sugar 
Lemon juice 

Directions: 

Clean the crab apples by removing the stem and the flower at the other end. If you let them sit on your counter for at least a day, the stems dry out and are easier to just pull off. If you get a stubborn one, when you cut the apple in half and it comes right out. You can also scrape the end flower bud off easily with your finger nail. (Just fyi, this can be done while hanging out with the kids watching television!) 

Remove any blemishes on the apples and cut in half. As you cut in half, put the halves into a bowl of water to prevent turning brown. If using regular size green apples, just cut into chunks. Add apples and blackberries into a large pot. Fill with water to just below the level of fruit. Simmer until apples are soft and berries have popped (I simmered 45 minutes to an hour). Lightly mash to help release pectin. 

Drain apple mixture saving liquid to make jelly (this may require several more drains to clear the liquid for jelly). For apple sauce: using a food mill (I use a hand crank Foley), process the apple pulp to remove the skin and seeds. Measure the raw apple sauce. For every cup, add 1/4 cup of sugar. More if you prefer sweeter. For every six cups, add a tablespoon of lemon juice. Bring mixture to a boil. Fill your sterilized jars and water bath for twenty minutes.

Blackberry Crab Apple Jelly 

Ingredients:

Liquid from above processing
Sugar

Directions:

Drain the liquid in the colander again only this time line with coffee filters or use a jelly bag or even a clean pillow case.

Put liquid into a clean pot. For every cup of liquid add a cup of sugar. Boil for about 25 minutes and occasionally stirring and removing film. Test with a spoon from the freezer. You will begin to see the cooled liquid on the spoons gelling. 

Can jelly using a hot water bath for ten minutes.

Raw Packed Wild Blackberries in Blackberry Sauce Canning Recipe!

Since blackberry season is in full swing, its time for canning!  We love fruit cobblers in our house so one of the blackberry recipes that I wanted to complete is raw packed blackberries in a blackberry sauce.  I like to raw pack them in the jar so that the berry still looks like a berry when I open the can.  A sauce made of blackberries is not absolutely necessary to raw pack them.  You can also use a heated sugar and water syrup.  However, since I have an abundance of blackberries, I want that added punch of blackberry flavor.  This recipe does not use a thickener since the final recipe will not need additional thickness, plus it is such a pain to order clear gel since no one carries it.

Also, if you like a blackberry syrup, you can stop before you add the raw berries and just can the syrup.  It's great as well.

Raw Packed Wild Blackberries in Blackberry Sauce

Ingredients:

8 quarts of blackberries (separated into 3 qts and 5 qts)
8 cups of sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice

Directions:

Rinse and place 3 quarts (12 cups) of blackberries in a crockpot.

Add sugar and lemon juice.  Mix.

Cook on low for 1 1/2 hours covered, mixing about every half hour.

Remove top and cook on high 3-4 hours mixing every half hour.

Using a blender or stick blender, blend berry mixture.

Strain in a fine mesh strainer to remove seeds.  Save syrup.

Meanwhile, prepare 20 half pints or 10 pint jars.

Rinse remaining 5 quarts (20 cups) of blackberries. Place blackberries in jars, filling snugly without crushing.

Pour syrup over berries leaving 1/2 inch for headspace.

Add lids and rings.

Waterbath 15 minutes at a full boil. Final quantity results may vary depending on the size of blackberries.

Final result is whole berries in a dark syrup!

For an easy Cobbler recipe:

Ingredients:

1 vanilla boxed cake mix
1 large can of crushed pineapple, undrained
2 half pints or 1 pint of blackberries in syrup
1 - 2 sticks of butter (enough to cover cake mix)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray 9X13 pan.  Pour crushed pineapple and blackberries into pan and mix. 

Sprinkle cake mix evenly over fruit mixture.  Cut butter into small pats and place evenly around the cake mix.  Pats of butter should not be next to each other but close.

Bake 25 - 30 minutes until top is golden brown. Serve with vanilla ice cream!

Blackberry Season Has Arrived!

Last week the wild blackberries were sporadically ripe.  This week they are ripening faster than I can pick them! So if you live in the South, go find some blackberries! These were growing near my post office.

Wild blackberries and a few wild plums!