Sunday, April 11, 2010

Foraging Report 04/11/2010

OK, so spring is moving along nicely here in Connecticut. While out enjoying some lovely weather and hiding a letterbox, we have had many opportunities to spy some new edibles, and gather some favorites for recipes. This morning for breakfast, we had omelette with dandelion flowers and cheese, dandelion green tea, and Japanese knotweed coffee cake. For lunch we had a dandelion, split pea, ramps and potato soup. Just this evening I made a loaf of kalamata olive and dandelion greens bread. Coming up this week: dandelion flowers for wine, our first try.

On a walk around the Baltic-Hanover reservoir, I accidentally found some watercress in a fast moving stream, garlic mustard greens, and huge amounts of the biggest chickweed we have ever seen. Chickweed recipes and photos coming!

Violets are up, Gillian picks few while waiting for the bus and eats them. I tried a jelly recipe last year that never solidified, so we used the brilliantly colored purple juice as syrup. When more pop up, I'll try again with the jelly. We visited our favorite ramps patch for a bag of fresh greens, visited my hiding spot for my Foraging Dandelion letterbox to gather a bag full of greens and flowers, and visited a potential letterbox hiding spot to search for fresh nettles. Driving around, we spied plenty of Japanese knotweed, almost too big to gather already, mullien for tea, and orpine for salad.

Finally, while hiding a new letterbox, Foraging Huckleberry , I noticed the wild blueberries and huckleberry bushes were blooming and the autumn olive bushes are leafing out. Overall, a great week!

1 comment:

veganf said...

Oh I definitely need to find your boxes and bring along extra bags for food!