Salmon-Stuffed Daylily Blossoms

The daylilies are blooming like mad and I got to make one of my favorite wild dishes. These blooms always provoke a lot of questions when I take them to a dinner. They're a great first introduction to wild foods.



To make these simply remove the stamens from the center of the flower and stuff any kind of tasty filling into the hollow. I usually use long pieces of wild onions or chives to simulate the stamens, but this time I've used the flowers from some Lady's Thumb for decoration.

My salmon salad recipe is basically 1 can of pink salmon drained and with the bones removed. Chop up one apple and add it to the salmon, along with a couple of dollops of mayonnaise to taste.

That's it! You'll be surprised at how good this simple recipe tastes. You really don't need anything else. Use this salmon salad to stuff into the Daylily flowers or just on a sandwich.

Plantain Polenta

Remember when I said I was going to cook the plantain in some new and exciting way? The new way that I picked (not very exciting though) was to make plantain polenta. I'm talking about plantain the wild plant (plantago), NOT plantain the banana like fruit.

Here is the polenta recipe. I sautéed a diced onion and added it to 3 cups of boiling water along with about a cup of thinly sliced plantain. I mixed 1 cup of cornmeal with 1 cup of cold water, and about a teaspoon of salt. After the onion and plantain had boiled for a few minutes I added the cornmeal and water mixture.

Next, you stir constantly until it thickens up and begins to boil, then cover the pan and turn the heat to low. Let it simmer for about five minutes and remove from heat. After it's cooled a bit, pour it out onto a cookie sheet covered with waxed paper or parchment. Roll the polenta into a log and chill.

This made a huge log about a foot long and 4 inches in diameter. Well actually, I had let it cool a little too long before I formed the log, and it later became a polenta pile. Here's a picture of some polenta patties that I fried up when it was fresh.


Plantain Polenta

This turned out pretty good. It needed more salt but that was about it. It probably could have handled more plantain as well. Next time (if there is a next time) I'll use 2 cups instead of one. This morning I scrambled some with my eggs.

This recipe made a LOT of polenta. HB didn't think much of it, so it looks like I'll end up having it all myself. It helps that I'm avoiding wheat. That means no bread and no pasta. Potatoes, polenta and rice are my new carbs. I just might make it through that 3 pound polenta pile after all. Wish me luck!

Morel Mushrooms and Dandelion Greens

I've tried Morel mushrooms a lot of different ways. They're good scrambled with eggs or added to a casserole or any other way that you can think of. The thing is that they're never as good as when they're cooked by themselves. Everything else that you add just drags them down.

They're like nettles that way, every time I try nettles with anything, I figure it would have tasted better if I'd just cooked the nettles by themselves.

To some people, frying something this delicate (and expensive) is a sacrilege.

I found two morels today, and HB found one. Add the one from yesterday, and we have a perfect little mushroom snack.


Fresh Morel Mushroom


Day Old Morel Mushroom

We're having them tonight with a big bunch of dandelion greens that I picked on harvest day. These were dandelions that had already flowered and gone to seed, so I figured they'd be a little bit strong. I boiled them in two changes of water, then I added sautéed onion and garlic to the final boil (not a lot of water), along with a vegetable bouillon cube.

It was pretty good with vinegar. We tried balsamic vinegar and a vinegar flavored with red peppers. I think the sweet vinegar was better, but that's just me.


Soaked and Split Morels Ready for Cooking

To prepare the mushrooms, I split them and soaked them in salted water for about an hour to drive out the bugs. Then I rinsed and dried them all and wrapped them in paper towels. I put the bundle in a plastic bag (leaving an opening to breathe) in the refrigerator.

Here's my Morel mushroom recipe. Beat 1 egg with about a tablespoon of water and some salt and garlic. Pour a mound of flour onto a plate. Salt and pepper this and stir it up with a fork. Heat some oil in a skillet at medium heat. You want about a quarter inch depth. Dip the clean and dried mushroom halves into the egg wash then into the flour. Fry them until they're golden brown on both sides.

Enjoy it, because you only get these once a year. If you live in an area where you can get a lot of Morel mushrooms, you might like to try to preserve them by drying them. They likely won't end up tasting much like the fresh ones, but it's worth a try if you've just got too many to eat right away (yeah, like that's going to happen).

If you want to try them another way, here's a recipe for Cavatelli Pasta with Morel and Asparagus Cream Sauce. It looks and sounds fantastic, despite my earlier ranting.

Solving the Waybread Mystery

Some diligent Internet research by a friend has revealed an answer. Plantain may have been called "Way Broad" because the leaves were wide (broad), and it grew by the road (way or wayside). Over time, "Way Broad" became Waybread. This explanation was offered on several websites, most notably in the glossary on Beowulf Online.


Plantain with Dandelion Seed Heads

Plantain does often grow in rocky road side soil. It out competes fussier plants by being tough. This is one of the plants you will find growing up in cracks in the sidewalk. I'm actually going to transplant some to my garden to see just how big they'll get.

But for now, I'm taking advantage of the fact that our lawnmower is broken down. The wild foods are growing lush and tender with that threat removed for a couple of days, and I've got a magnificent crop of dandelions going to seed. Luckily, my neighbors have a natural lawn too, or they might holler!

Plantain, a Tasty Healing Herb

Plantain (plantago) carries the old label of waybread. This term usually refers to a hard bread that you can take traveling. It keeps for a long time and will sustain you on a journey.


Very Young Common Plantain

Now where plantain fits into this definition, I don't know. I did find mention of an herb that you could eat that would sustain you for 12 days. That begins to make some sense, because plantain is a very nutritious and medicinal herb.

Plantain is very edible, though a little strong. It is best before flowering since the leaves begin to get really tough after that. I still use it throughout the year; just slice the leaves across the fibers and cook well. It has an interesting and hearty taste, and it's very good for you, with lots of calcium and vitamin C and a good amount of vitamin A. The flower shoots can also be eaten when tender and provide you with some B1 (thiamine).


It is thought to have been a European herb originally, but nowadays, it can be found growing throughout the world. Plantain seeds have even been found in Egyptian tombs, so you know it's been around a LONG time.

Once, a friend of my daughter was bitten by a brown recluse spider. After several trips to the doctor and a referral to a surgeon, he put some macerated plantain (plantago majora) leaves on the bite. That night, a lot of black liquid came out. The plantain seemed to have drawn the poison.

The next morning the bite was much improved and he could actually walk. When he went back to the surgeon later that day, there was just a deep hole where the bite had been. There's something really gratifying about seeing the surprised look on a doctor's face when he doesn't understand what has happened.

Pliny the Elder once said that you could put plantain into a pot with pieces of flesh, and the pieces would join back together. This herb is well-known as a natural remedy for wounds and bites. See this post on the Herbal Healing blog for some usage tips.

Did you know that legislation is coming up in the United States and that would make the use of herbs illegal? So what, chewing some plantain leaves and putting the paste on an insect bite will be a criminal act? Who would this benefit? Not me or you for sure.

Sign the petition HERE. Comments are due April 30th, 2007.

Peace

Frosted Wild Veggies

We've had several hard freezes in a row, and tied a record low at 20° this Easter morning. Some wild plants were knocked down by the cold, while others did just fine.


Frosted Plantain, Dandelion and Clover

Two days before the temperature drop, a poke shoot came up next to the house where it was protected from the westerly winds. Here are some before and after pictures of the effect of freezing on the poke shoots.


Tender Young Poke Shoot


The Same Poke Shoot after Freezing Temperatures for Five Nights

The chickweed didn't handle the cold very courageously. Great masses of it lay down in surrender the first cold night. The strategy seemed to protect them from further damage by getting them down next to the ground heat. Some of them which were growing up against my garden bed didn't lie down because of the protection they were already getting from being next to the wood and earth.


Frost Effect on Chickweed, The Ones against the Board were Not Laid Over

The Daylily shoots were frozen badly, and the tops fell over to protect the heart of the shoot. I'm hoping to see new growth come from these old shoots, because right now it looks like someone dumped an entire bushel basket of wilted produce by the driveway.


Decimated Daylilies


Freeze Damage on Nettles

Most of the nettles were barely damaged by freezing,. Today I gratefully harvested some undamaged nettle tops (about the top three leaf joints) and cut off the leaves and very tops of the shoots (and threw away the stems). I cut the leaves up with scissors, and added snipped wild onion tops.

These were sautéed in butter (with a few drops of olive oil to prevent scorching) for a few minutes, and I added some salt and a sprinkle of granulated garlic. The nettles and onions were then steamed by adding a few tablespoons of water to the skillet and covering it. A couple more minutes, and they were ready to serve.

I'm happy to report that the nettles still taste really great, and this turned out to be a good recipe. I'll try harvesting quite a few of the nettle tops this way. It will be interesting to see if two new tender shoots sprout from each cut stem for another harvest.

Don't forget that nettles will sting you, so wear gloves to harvest and handle them.

Violet Leaf Tea

[The following post was written yesterday, March 21, 2007]

The springtime air smells moist and fertile on this first full day of spring. The earth is like a damp sponge and more rains are forecast for the next five days. The spring rains and the sunshine that should follow next week are all that's needed to send the early plants on an uncontrolled growing spurt. This is great news for wild foods enthusiasts, but also means the grass will need mowing!

One of the early plants that have been making an appearance is the violet. Here's a picture of violets as they make their way out of the ground. I took this about a week ago and you can see how the leaves come up rolled into little tubes before they open. These are less then 1/2" tall.


Violets Emerging from the Rocky Soil

In the next picture the violets have begun to open up. You can see the heart-shaped leaf form of the mature plant. The leaves have doubled in height.


Violets One Week Later

You should make sure that violets are identified properly before you decide to try any. The most surefire way to do this is to identify them while they're flowering. That won't be going on for at least another month, so if in doubt, don't pick any of these until you can be positive that they are violets. There are both yellow and purple flowered varieties.

As they get older, violet leaves can be harvested and used in salads or cooked with other greens, but they may be at their best brewed into a tea. The leaves should be dried first to produce the proper flavor. It makes a nice hot drink for chilly spring evenings.

How are the rest of the greens coming along? Well, here's a picture taken beside a garden bed. It shows chickweed and goosegrass growing several inches tall. The goosegrass is the one with the star shaped leaf whorls radiating out from the stem. The chickweed has small teardrop shaped leaves. I've been having both of these plants regularly in salads, and whatever else I can throw them into.



Thanks for listening.

Stinging Nettles - Good Eating!

It sure seems like the nettles are up early this year. Usually you have to wait till around Easter to get a good pot of nettles. It has been unusually warm the last couple of weeks. Tonight is supposed to be around 30°, so I'm going to harvest a few of these in case they get knocked down by the cold.


Stinging nettles are one of the tastiest
of the spring greens.

Nettles do sting, so use gloves to harvest them. After you cook nettles they no longer sting. Then there's the technique of grabbing a nettle hard, breaking the tiny stinging hairs at their base instead of brushing the tips were they can sting you. What's that old rhyme?

Touch the nettle gently and it stings you for your pains;
but grasp it like a man of mettle and it soft as silk remains.

I have tried this and it works. The formic acid is at the tips of the hairs, and breaking them off at the base seems prevent the sting. But it's hard to grab the nettle without some errant leaf brushing the back of your hand and giving you a sting anyway, so I usually just use gloves.

Nettle stings aren't too bad if you know what to do about them. Just grab a dock leaf and rub it on vigorously. The sting will go away pretty quick (and no, it’s not just because you’re distracted!).

It was hard to believe, but the daylily shoot in front of the rock from my last post had just about doubled in size by the next day. The growth rate on these things is amazing. I'm going to have to post every day just to keep up.

For now, I'm just going to harvest some young nettles for supper tonight. I think I'll stir-fry them with some wild onions and garlic. I love these sweet and mild greens, which are also an excellent source of boron and vitamin A. Boron and calcium work together for bone strength. It's a neglected bone nutrient, and one of the richest sources is free in my backyard. Plus, it tastes great. Bonus!

You can see more nettle pictures on my Wild Foods Page.

Spring is Coming!

It's the first of March! Soon, little green plants will be poking their tiny heads up through the soil. Already, I see chickweed sprouts that didn't quite die back this winter. In another week or so, the fresh green growth will be ready to start harvesting. Chickweed has diuretic and astringent properties, and is great for clearing out those winter toxins. It's even used in some weight loss remedies.



Dandelions too will be coming up soon. These are a real spring tonic, also known as "poor man's ginseng". Filled with vitamins A and C, and with excellent cleansing properties, dandelion is especially good for your liver.

One way to get the benefits of dandelion for your liver, without eating a lot of dandelions, is to drink coffee with chicory in it. Chicory is related to the dandelion and its root is used as a coffee substitute. You may not get a medicinal dose of chicory, but if you're a drinker you may like the extra assurance of having a liver tonic the morning after.

Try Café du Monde coffee blend. There may be other brands available as well. Roasted chicory root has a nutty flavor. Since I love this smooth taste of Colombian coffee, I usually mix the coffee blends half-and-half with 100% Colombian. Of course this dilutes the chicory even further, but in my opinion, some is better than none!

Have a look at my Wild Edibles page to see some wild plants.
Wild Foods

I've added some other pages to my website, Milky Way Publishing. These are all free information pages. If it looks interesting, check it out.

Natural Skin Care has recipes to make your own, plus info on dangerous ingredients.
Emergency Preparedness focuses on nuclear preparedness.
Free Books and Software
Free online VCR cleaning book

Thanks for reading. Until next time...