Very good article on Eating Milkweed

 Click here for a great article on How to Eat the Common Milkweed

Just came across this article on eating Milkweed. I too, first learned from Samuel Thayer’s book "The Forager’s Harvest", that Milkweed is good to eat.

I highly recommend both of Samuel's books as he actually eats a lot of wild foods frequently, is from Wisconsin, and has been doing this since he was a kid.

He has the most extensive information on each plant he talks about in his book that I've come across.

His newest book is Nature's Garden: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants.

Wood Sorrel

I was rather excited that on the last "walk" at the state park the wood sorrel was willing to be sampled. It's fun to watch the faces of people when they first taste it. The children usually label it the lemon plant.
We use it on an everyday basis as we check our garden. We nibble on the whole plant from its shamrock shaped leaves to its tender fuzzy stem.  It pops up everywhere and sometimes I need to send it packing so the other domesticated snobby vegetables can have a little breathing space.

Oh sure, you could mistake it for clover but clover leaves don't taste the same at all and the flower is different and the leaves are oval on a clover where the sorrel has heart shaped leaves and a yellow flower.
It grows in moist, partially shaded areas, disturbed areas, lawns and right smack dab in the middle of my vegetables (which by the way are not in the shade or a moist area).
I personally have used it in salads. It has a lot of vitamin C. Also oxalic acid but not enough to cause problems with normal usage. All in all, a refreshing little person.

Wild Greens Quiche

Nettle in among the Ferns

On our last wild edible walk at the state park I brought a sample for people to try of a wild greens quiche. I had stinging nettles, lambs quarters, wild leeks and a few violet leaves in it. The violet leaves are not listed in the recipe but if ya want, toss some in.
Pick your greens and unless they are lying face down in the mud (Or you just have to wash everything) just look them over and chop chop. Actually if you want to, you can put stems in too. We do, but hey it's your quiche.
The stinging nettles will sting ya if you aren't careful but once they are cooked there is non of that business going on. Your tongue will thank you.

Lamb's Quarter we let grow among our tomatoes.

Spinach-Lambs Quarter-Nettle leaf Quiche in a Rice Crust   
1 ½ cups cooked rice (brown or white)
3 eggs
1 cup shredded cheddar (sharpish) cheese
About 10oz. Combined lambs quarter and nettle leaves and spinach (or just half and half lambs quarter and nettle)
2 Tbsp olive or canola oil
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
Black pepper to taste
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
¾ cup wild leek bulbs chopped
1 Tbsp. butter
½ cup regular milk and ½ cup evaporated milk (or just all regular milk)

Mix rice with 1 beaten egg and ¼ cup of grated cheese. Press firmly into pie pan, forming a crust. Bake the crust for 5 minutes in a 425 degree oven. Remove.

Chop up your greens (you might want to wear rubber gloves if you don’t want to get stung by the nettles). Heat oil in pan and cook the greens for a few minutes. Add nutmeg, pepper and lemon juice. Continue cooking until all the watery stuff has evaporated. Remove from pan.
Saute onion in butter in that pan until slightly brown. Add to spinach mixture, sprinkle with remaining cheese. Pour into crust.

Mix 3 eggs with milk and pour over mixture. Bake for 10 minutes at 425 degrees. Lower oven temperature to 350 degrees, bake 30 minutes longer or until quiche is done with a firm center.

Remember nettles also make a great stir fry or green tea.

lambs quarter

Now is the time for Lambs quarter, alias wild spinach. I was harvesting my domesticated spinach for a wonderful salad and in among the city slickers was a wild child. This delicate leafy green has been used as a substitute for baby spinach. We eat it raw or cooked. As a matter of fact I also used it in a spinach quiche I made the other day.

Just one cup of cooked wild spinach provides an excellent source of vitamin A, folate, magnesium, potassium, vitamins E, B6, thiamine and vitamin C. Wild spinach actually contains substantially more nutrients than cultivated spinach.

It has a more mild, less metallic flavor than mature spinach. Both the leaves and stem are edible. One of its characteristics is the powdery, grainy white coating on the back side of the leaves.

For the quiche I just went online and googled spinach quiche. Oh and if you are wheat intolerant you can type in rice crust quiche recipe. It tasted great.
This is a very common wild plant (notice we didn't say weed) in the garden and one of our favorites. It loves to grow in tilled soil.
When I lived in Japan I once saw a farmers field of it that was over three feet tall. I couldn't believe how gorgeous it was and that the Japanese actually grew it commercially. I later found out the farmer hadn't planted that year and had just let the "weeds" grow. So I had an unlimited supply. When it gets over a foot tall the older leaves can get a bit tough. Chop them up small or just harvest the upper more tender leaves.

Alaskan Tinfoil (skunk cabbage)

When strolling through the woods one day in spring and glancing off to the more swampy area you may notice these rather large leaves a foot or more wide. Your curiosity gets the best of you and upon closer examination when you get a whiff of this monster you will scratch your head and think, must be a skunk nearby. Well,,,literally under foot.
On the last rainy (really rainy) wild edible walk at the state park, one of the kids asked why we had them. John said they were his umbrellas. They did make cute hats that keep the rain off. Then he went on to say that the Alaskan call it "Alaskan tinfoil". They use it instead of tinfoil when cooking their "hobo dinners."* You would think it would burn up before the job was done or give it a bad taste?
Well, we had two industrious young men on the hike that decided to test out the theory and emailed us with their results.
He wrote: "It worked. We tried it on Sunday and I didn't taste anything weird but you have to make sure that you flip it so the whole outside of the cabbage is black and maybe put some water in the cabbage wrap so the fish gets cooked all the way."

* Potatoes, carrots, cabbage, meat/fish, seasoning, etc. wrapped in tinfoil and put on coals or grill to cook.

Chickweed

Talk about a tender green to add to your salad bowl in spring. This one takes the cake. We had it the other day along with our lettuce. Some of the properties and uses of chickweed are:

• Internal use
  • Internally, chickweed is used for rheumatism as well as chest infections.
  • When liquidized it is included with other herbs and vegetables as a tonic juice.
  • It is also used in salads and cooked as a vegetable.
• External use
  • It is a superb herb to use for itchy skin as well as eczema, acne, hemorrhoids, varicose veins, psoriasis, inflammation, ulcers, vaginitis, boils, abscesses, allergies and other skin problems.
  • It is useful in treating wounds. It speeds up the healing process.
  • It has an anti-itching effect.
  • Its excellent healing action makes it a must in any healing cream. (and it is one of the ingredients in the healing salve I make)
  Those little pods hanging from the plant on the right will bloom into tiny white flowers. 

Nettles

Okay, allergy season and its ugly side affects have hit. John is the target. I seem to have escaped the curse all my life. Anyway I thought I might check out some natural helps for him.

A few posts on the net came up with nettle tincture and echinacea tincture. I flew to my herb room to the tincture cabinet and what do ya know. I had the wherewithall to make those two tinctures last fall.

A tincture is an infusion of an herb in vodka or brandy or other high alcohol contents. This is a simplistic definition but it fits with how simple it is to do. I basically forgot about mine and didn't strain the herb out till now. And that is perfectly fine. And they last oodles of years.

You can take a dropper full of it under your tongue or in a little water. I need to see what the dose is more specifically so I can be a bit more scientific, but I do rely on intuition sometimes. Gasp!

I only used a small amount of the echinacea as that can work the opposite way. And today I am just using the nettle tincture.

In the picture on the left is the stinging nettles and on the right is the wood nettle. The difference? Stinging has opposite leaves right across from each other, and wood nettle has alternate leaves and less stinging hairs. Please have fun looking them up in books and on the web as there is so much to know about these wonderfully nutritious and medicinal plants.

After I took the picture I made a pot of hot nettle tea with a few other nettles I picked and will take my cleansing drink as soon as I am done here.