Berries, berries, berries!

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep as Robert Frost said, but they are also filled with berries.  Black raspberries (black caps) and raspberries edge the woods in abundance and thanks to the rainy spring, they are fantastic!  They are big and juicy and sweet--just the way berries should be.

My neighbor and his friends love their monster trucks, so there are trails running through his woods.  At the edge of these trails are the biggest berries I've seen in years.  They get the moisture from the woods, but there is just enough dappled sun to allow them to grow and flourish.  I was able to pick enough to put some away in the freezer for future use. Several pounds of berries are in the freezer now and I could probably go pick that many more in the next few days.

Smoothies will definitely be on the menu this month!  A cup of berries, a cup of spinach, 1/2 cup of yogurt, and a tablespoon of flax seed meal.  It's a great start to a summer day, and I can freeze any that I don't drink as freezer pops.  Nothing wasted that can't be used.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked my mother how she raised us without having to go on assistance.  We were a family of nine...seven young growing children.  Mom's advice is to have a big garden and preserve as much as you can for winter, bake your own bread, and eat a lot of hotdish (casseroles to many of you) and soup to stretch the meat.  We also raised our own meat, but SNAP doesn't allow for purchase of live animals, so let's not even consider that part of her advice.

So, what am I doing right so far?  Garden...check!  Stretching the meat in hotdish and soups...check!  Baking my own bread...as of yesterday...check!  I have a bread machine, so for me it is just a matter of measuring in the right ingredients, turning on the machine, and ignoring it until the timer goes off.  I made an oatmeal bread and a 50% whole wheat bread with Italian herbs.  The oatmeal bread makes fantastic toast, and the Italian herb bread will make great croutons for salad if I don't eat the whole thing.  The bread machine recipes call for bread flour, but all-purpose flour works just fine.  It just doesn't have as much protein in it.

I've made almost everything from scratch so far.  The food tastes better and is more nutritious, but the time spent on prepping and cooking is amazing.  My Saturdays have become a day where I make the week's meals so they are ready during the week.  Instead of buying frozen meals at 2-3 dollars apiece, I'm making my own for half that and freezing them for weekly meals.  It's a lot of work, but it is the only way to make the meals stretch far enough to last.

I'm glad I've done this for more than the initial week.  A week is easier to do than a whole month or two or more.  When this is an actual lifestyle someone is forced into because of poverty, it isn't fun--it is work.

Free weed salad...yum!

We've all seen the summer lettuce selection:  leaf lettuce, mescalin mix, arugula, etc.  But what did our ancestors eat before there were such lovely cultivars available?  Look around you the next time you go for a walk and you may find yourself in a living salad bar.

In the dappled shade of the weeping willow where the mosquito and gnat thrive, I found some lovely greens that often get overlooked.  I picked small delicate dandelion leaves that have the slightest bite.  Grown in the shade, they are tender leaves with a milder flavor.  If you gather the ones in the sunny spots, they can be like leather and taste bitter.

Chickweed was next with its flavor similar to watercress.  Today, this will be salad, but I can almost taste it on top of an egg salad sandwich.  I gave a bit of it to my husband to taste and he said, "Yep, tastes like pasture."  Okay, so it isn't for everyone.

Near the garden plot, growing among the weeds was a patch of lambs quarters.  To some, this wonderful plant is known by the name pigweed.  Such a rude name for such a nutritious plant.  This relative of spinach can be used as a replacement in many Florentine recipes.  It is excellent in egg and cheese dishes or in a salad to add a crisp, strong leaf.  I'll be harvesting more later to add to my pasta sauce to add vitamins and flavor.

Add in a couple of leaves of catmint for a little something different.  I'll go back for more leaves later to make a nice summer mint tea.  If I don't like the leaves in the salad, I can always feed them to the cats or chew them after the meal to freshen my breath.

Finally, a bit of sheep sorrel to add a lemony zip.  This little distinctive plant with its Fleur De Lis shaped leaves contains oxalic acid, like rhubarb; and stimulates the same taste buds.  Wood sorrel does the same; it looks like a clover with yellow blossoms and has a wonderful flavor and color.

Tossed together with a mustard vinaigrette and you have a gourmet salad that comes from the yard.  If you are going to try this, DO NOT harvest these plants from a yard that is treated with chemical fertilizers or weed controls.  The whole point of it is to eat something nutritious and delicious on a budget.  I have several foragers guides and I've always loved gardening, so I am familiar with the plants that I eat.  DO NOT eat any plants that you aren't familiar with because some plants actually are poisonous and look similar to edibles.

Wildman Steve Brill has been foraging for years and has great information on his website.  I highly recommend it if you are curious about some of the free edibles that surround you.  It's worth a read even if you aren't planning to forage--his humor is evident in his writing.  Step outside the box and into the yard and add a few new nutritious, delicious plants to your salad and cooking that don't cost a thing.

http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/