Wild Edible Walk

We had our wild edible walk today! The weather held beautifully and we had a great turnout of interested, interesting people. Thanks so much to everyone who came.

We saw edible and medicinal:

• plantain (plantago major and minor)
  
• red clover
  
• dandelion
  
• mugwort
  
• burdock
  
• lambsquarters
  
• garlic mustard
  
• sumac
  
• evening primrose
  
• mulberry tree
  

and we saw poison:

• white snake root
  
• crown vetch
  

we brought along to show:

• quickweed
  
• amaranth
  
• black walnuts
  
• paw paw
  

we talked about making:

• pesto
  
• vinegar
  
• oils
  
• tinctures
  
• dream pillows with mugwort
  
• green smoothies
  
• salads
  

I hope everyone takes advantage the list of resources that we gave out! Here are some highlights:

Wildman Steve Brill: pictures, illustrations, stories, recipes
Prodigal Gardens - lots of great pics, info and recipes
Harmony Hikes Wild Edible Page - videos and information

The book we use (that we had with us today) is: Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide

And don't forget this blog! You can sign up for email updates (upper right margin).

Also, please sign up for our free monthly e-newsletter, which has information about local wild edibles as well as information on our upcoming events. We'll definitely do more wild edible walks next year, starting early in the spring.

Thanks again!

~ Melissa

Foraging Friday: Staghorn Sumac

Today we went out and gathered staghorn sumac, to make a lemonade-type of drink for people to sample at the Wild Edibles Walk tomorrow. (We forgot the camera when harvesting, but the above link takes you to Wikipedia...great pics and info.)



Above are the sumac clusters on the table, and below I've put them in a jar.



I'm filling the jar with cold water (cold water preserves the vitamin C). I'll fill the jar to the top and let it sit overnight. Tomorrow morning I'll strain and add sweetener like honey, agave nectar or maple syrup to taste.



The Wild Edible Walk is tomorrow (Saturday, September 27)! We will have the walk rain or shine, unless it is a total downpour or there is thunder and lightning. We're meeting at 10 am on the south side riverfront park...the upper trail. If you have a question about the weather and the walk, call our office after 9 am Saturday, and we'll have a message on the machine letting you know whether the walk is on or not.

We hope to see you soon!

~ Melissa

Raw Dinner and other news

Last night we had our raw demo and dinner at the Birch Center! I had so much fun -- what an amazing group of lovely people! Thank you so much for everyone who came, it was so much fun to get to spend time together like that.

I really enjoyed the Squash Soup. Here is the recipe for that:

3 cups peeled and chopped butternut squash
2 apples (peeled, chopped)
2 cups apple juice
2 cups water
6-ish dates
1+Tbsp cinnamon
nutmeg
some ice to keep cool while blending

Blend all ingredients in high speed blender until smooth. It was really good!

And someone earlier asked for the final recipe to the chocolate sauce. Here it is:

Equal parts:

hemp oil
honey or agave nectar (maybe slightly more sweetener if you want to hide the nutty taste of the hemp oil)
raw cacao powder

also: 1 tsp vanilla extract and sprinkle of salt

Mix.

We had it on top of an apple crumble: sliced apples topped with chopped pecans and dates.

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In other news:

There is an upcoming potluck (and lecture about the food/cancer conncection) with the Pittsburgh Raw Food Meet-Up Group. This will be October 5 in Allison Park. It's free...just join the meetup and you can keep up to date with raw food potlucks and events.

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Also: our Wild Edible Walk is scheduled for this Saturday, Sept 27 at 10 am. The weather forecast is showing possible rain. We plan to walk if it is overcast, drizzling or light rain. If it is a downpour or has thunder or lightening we won't walk. We'll have a message on our answering machine by 9 am Saturday morning, so if you're in doubt, just call (412) 381-0116. If you haven't joined our mailing list, please click here and join...then we can keep you up-to-date with all the latest.

Thanks so much!

~ Melissa

Way down yonder in the paw paw patch...

We found paw paws today! We were in the patch yesterday, but didn't see any. We double checked that the trees were paw paws, then went back today with our good friends Wendi and KDCat from purejeevan.com, and we struck gold!



Here are three paw paws - all were soft and ripe and delicious! Most others we found weren't ripe yet, still too early. The ripe ones were sweet and soft and tasted like cardamom with a hint of lemon.



Yesterday I found some interesting information on paw paws on line, in this blog.

I do still have one unripe paw paw that Dave knocked off the tree (thinking it was ripe) that I will bring with me to the Wild Edible Walk on Saturday, Sept. 27. They look like green mangoes, but are actually native to this part of the world. It's so nice to eat delicious, seasonal, local, native, WILD fruit!!

...It is curious that I've never seen paw paws, mulberries, or black walnuts - all local - at any farmers markets or even the coop. Yet bananas, of course, are everywhere, all the time. Hmmmmmm...

Black Walnuts

Wow, a whole week went by since the last post? How did that happen?

This past week we foraged for Black Walnuts, which are in season right now! They are falling off their trees and they look like tennis balls on the ground (same color, shape and approximate size.) Unfortunately I didn't take pictures (I will next time!) but you can find out more about harvesting black walnuts from wildman Steve Brill's website (pictures, description, recipes - click plants, then black walnut.) There is also good info with pictures on black walnuts here.

You can actually make a little money gathering these and selling them to hulling stations: about $10 - $13 per one hundred pounds (hulled). However, if you take the time and energy to shell them, you can actually sell them at markets and such for $10/pound. (We just plan on eating ours.)

We found them in our neighborhood around the South Side Slopes, and today we went to Schenley park and found a great tree there (on a little out of the way path by a creek, so beautiful!)

We step on the green shells to get the walnut out, then we gathered them into a bag (wearing gloves, and even so, my fingers got stained.) We'll dry them and then get a nutcracker and nutmeat pick to open them and extract the meat.

We'll have some to demonstrate at our Wild Edible Walk this coming Saturday, September 27! Unfortunately we didn't see any Black Walnut trees down on the southside riverfront trail, but we'll bring the green walnuts and once you see them you'll be able to find them yourselves...they are very easy to spot once you know what you are looking for!

And there a still a few spots left in our Raw Foods Dinner and Demo, coming up this Wednesday, Sept 24. Please give us a call if you want to come: (412) 381-0116. I really feel it will be a very fun evening! The menu is:

• green smoothie
  
• butternut squash soup
  
• raw burritos with spiced nutmeat, corn salsa, and guacamole
  
• tomato basil salad
  
• nutmilk chai
  
• fruit with chocolate sauce
  

Finally, a woman contacted me who REVERSED her diabetes at the Tree of Life Refuvenation Center in Patagonia, AZ. Her acupuncturist has some reservations about staying on an all raw diet through a cold winter, and she wanted input from me (as an acupuncturist familiar with raw foods.) You can read about her and my response here.

Til next time ~ (which will hopefully be sooner than this last time, and include pictures!)

~ Melissa