Well that’s my basic recipe in the title. I also added dried cranberries and will add nuts before serving. It’s a cold day and we will store this in the fridge for eating the next week as the temperature is supposed to dip down into the 30s and 20s, I just the idea of warm oatmeal makes me happy the first thing in the morning
It’s drizzling a cold rain outside, but those curly dock leaves that were once so abundant are now considered very precious as the winter looms over us. I decided to dodge the sprinkles and grab up some fresh, tender, curly dock leaves. I ran across some sweet potato leaves on my journey and some Traveling onion tops. It’s all going in the soup. I usually take out the spines of the curly dock, although I don’t think it’s necessary as I’m chopping it finely anyway.
I know this doesn’t quite fit the definition of wild, foraged food, but it kind of does. Most people plant, sweet potatoes only for the underground potato. But as summer Wayne’s and fall has begun, there are only a few greens left for eating as new greens haven’t quite gotten their full growth yet. This is when I look to sweet potatoes to provide a nutrient rich green. You can eat plenty of the green leaves without damaging the production of the fruit beneath the soil. I take out the stem and use them and soups, stews, and chopped finally can be used in a salad.
When I find this, I gather it and save it for my herbal mixtures that usually include garlic tops, basil, and mostly oregano. This is a great addition to those herbs for a general use Italian-ish herbal mixture. All of this is dehydrated and ground or at least broken into minute pieces with a couple of presses on the Chopper button
I’m cutting back my stand of lambs quarters and freezing them. They’re great in Thai soup and other soups and stews.
Scott and I were taking the dogs to out of our favorite walking spots out in the middle of nowhere so that they can ram around and run through the little stream and up and down the hills. Right along side one of the kind of dried up streambeds we found these wild beans growing. I looked them up on my plant, identifier thing, and sure enough what looked like beans is actually beans! we picked quite a few and we’re going to cook them up tomorrow.
Well, we have left the last of the elderberries for the birds, but my husband makes kombucha out of just about everything he can get his hands on, and to this date those who have tasted all of his kombucha, always say that his is better than they’ve ever had Well. Apparently this one is the best of the best. He’s been working for several weeks now gathering and cleaning and creating kombucha from our elderberry bush. Elderberries by themselves are not very tasty. I remember growing up having elderberry pie but it seems to me like that there were other fruits in that pie as well as elderberries. It’s also my recollection that it had to be sweetened a lot in order to be tasty. At any rate, if you’ve got elderberries, he might try making kombucha.
I keep a nice stand of lambs quarters growing in the back side of my garden. The tender leaves just keep coming. I use them all summer and spring and it’s getting close to fall now but I use them in casseroles, soups and salads pictured here are both Lambsquarters and sweet potato leaves. Did you know that you can also eat the leaves of sweet potatoes? They’re highly nutritious.
