Rhubarb Nectar

It's rhubarb time again. And once again it is time to wow the friends and family with my getting to be famous nectar. Simple as pie. Wait a minute,I never thought pie was simple.

Anyway, get yourself 12 cups of chopped up rhubarb and put it in a pot with 2 1/2 quarts of water. Heat it up and cook the rhubarb 'till soft. Strain it through a fine mesh strainer (as pictured) . To the strained juice add a cup of honey and 2 cups of unsweetened orange juice. Chill and serve.

Oh and don't forget to secure the vault you will have to store it in as it is much desired by most and to fight for.

Ah Spring. Time for that sweet little beauty that claims a good part of our property. Not only is it gorgeous, it is tasty and medicinal and a great ingredient for an eye cream I make.

First the edibleness of it.It goes well in salads. By "it" I mean the leaves and the flowers. The leaves are mild, sweet and slightly peppery (as stated in Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants by Steve Brill).

The flowers and leaves are blood purifiers and detoxifiers. They contain rutin and vitamin C.

The neat thing about their properties is that they are really beneficial in the eye cream I make.They strengthen the capillaries on that delicate skin.

So whether you eat the violet or put it on your skin....it goes in. How wonderfully poetic.

Foraging for Food by John

Many people want to live off the land or learn to be more self sufficient. In other words they want to be prosumers. As I have mentioned in my other writings very few can survive off the land and those who can don’t want to. They know it is very hard work just to maintain a subsistent level of living.

It’s fairly easy to pick out those people who have very little “survival” or self reliant skills. I know. I was one of them. They want to head for the wilderness and “live off the land”. Ha! Most of these people would starve if I dropped a dead deer at their feet. They would have no idea how to butcher or preserve it.(I learned this skill one very rainy cold night by lamp light with the how to book in my hand and a knife in the other). Vegetarians would have to wait for spring to eat.

No offense to vegetarians as when situations permitted I have gone vegetarian for years. But you can’t be a vegetarian in snow country without depending on Wal-Mart and diesel guzzling trucks to bring your fresh produce from down south. Not exactly my idea of a self reliant life style!

Because I am better than average on collecting wild food I know I can’t live free and abundantly just on that. So where do I forage for my food? In the woods, peoples yards, grocery stores, farmers markets, etc.

Here's how I foraged at a sausage company outlet store: For some reason the company had lots of turkey brats that were close to outdated and were selling for $4 for a 12 pound box. That’s 33 cents a pound. I can’t even process free venison for that price. The bags and freezer paper cost more than that. We’ve enjoyed countless turkey brat meals with friends who happen to drop by. Along with a pot of rice you can feed 5 people for the less than the price of a big mac.

So what do you do when the freezer fills and you still have 20 pounds of turkey brats left? Think like a Frugal Prosumer. Slice them up or take them out of their casing and run them through a jerky press (or cooky press) and dehydrate them. These got eaten so fast we didn’t even have to store them.

Mothers Day Dinner

Every Mothers Day several of us husbands and their children get together and but on a garden dinner for our wives/mothers. This year the 'garden' was inside as the weather was on the chilly side.

Around here we are so use to using wild edibles as a normal part of our meals that we sometimes forget that we are using them. Our belief is that wild foods should me just used when camping but as a everyday contribution to our regular food.

With this dinner you will see that we have a combination of both wild & domestic food. The shishkabobs have the whole wild leek (bulbs and the green leaves), venison, red peppers and potatoes

The highlight of the meal were morels served on a plate with a whole steamed wild leek.



We usually always have wild violets on top of the salad for color but this year in the rush of things we forgot them. Even though there were lots of them growing in our lawn.






Morels done with butter, soy sauce and a little spice in cast iron frying pan.

First Kohler-Andre Hike of the Year

Garlic Mustard- is quite good if prepared right and picked early enough in the season.

This is the first of a series of Edibile & Medicinal plant outings that will be held at Kohler-Andrea state park this year. We will be doing these about twice a month through fall. This is the peak of the season for some of the best spring greens

We had around 24 adults and kids show up. We tried something a little different this time by bringing some cooked leeks and rice for everyone to have a sample along with their nettle tea.

Even the little ones like sampling and harvesting

I have been taking people on these types of hikes for over 30 years now. My new emphasis isn't to just show a lot of different plants but to focus on and help people realize how gourmet the wild foods really are. It's to easy to always try to wow people with all the possibilities and forget about the 'ordinary' few that we personally use all the time

Nettles-- Nettle tea is what is in the teapot.



In order to eat gourmet food you have to have a lace table cloth to serve it on.

On the bench is a big bunch of garlic mustard.

Last week I quickly dipped the garlic mustard leaves into boiling water before I stir fried them. This seemed to cut some of the bitterness. As with many of the vegetables we eat I stir fry with soy sauce, olive oil or butter and sometimes some seasonings. I found the stems to have very little bitterness in them. Wonder if if would be worth the work to just fry up the stems?

Stuffed Garlic Mustard Leaves

20 medium garlic mustard leaves, washed and dried on paper towels
5 wooden spoonfuls of cooked sausage
4 wooden spoonfuls of cooked rice
2 Tbsp chopped garlic mustard leaves
1 Tbsp lemon juice

Mix rice and sausage and stir well. Add chopped leaves and lemon and toss. Put a teaspoon of this mix on a medium leaf of garlic mustard. Hold leaf together with a toothpick. Serve on a plate.

Haven't tried this recipe yet. Try it out and give me some feedback. Thanks John

Lunch Today

Wild leeks, venison marinating in the bowl, morels, home pressed wild apple juice and home made apple jack (it has quite a kick).

Cut up the leeks and stir fry them with the venison and chase it down with a nice drink.

Morels stir fried in butter.

Annual Wild Leek festival

Today was our annual Wild Leek Festival. We've been having these for 8 or 9 years now.

Every year people come up with more and more dishes that use wild leeks. This plate has stir fried wild leek bulbs and greens, wild onions, nettles, deviled egg with wild violets and 3 other dished that have wild leeks in the. We still haven’t made wild leek ice cream yet!

Getting the dirt and roots off.

Preparing for cooking

Going though the food line with different dishes of leeks.