Fabulous Time at the Foraging and Feasting Workshop at Frick Park

Yesterday at Frick Park we had a fabulous time at our Fall  Foraging and Feasting Workshop! Fourteen lovely people plus one adorable baby joined us as we took a walk around the park discussing edible and medicinal uses of common plants, then foraged wild greens, flowers, and herbs to add to our lunch. We made our own wild herbal butters (we used vegan butter) by mixing plants like wood sorrel, goldenrod flowers, smartweed flowers, ground ivy, Asiatic dayflowers, and herbs growing at the center: basil, chives, rosemary, thyme, mint (each participant got to choose their own combination!)

Then they cooked their own bread over a fire:

 

...while I added the wild greens and herbs to our delicious vegan White Bean Potato Lentil Soup:

I added goldenrod leaves, dayflower leaves, wood sorrel leaves, chives, rosemary, and the rest of the goldenrod flowers that we harvested for the butter. The beauty of a soup like this (or any soup which has "spinach" as an ingredient) is that instead of the spinach, you can add any wild greens that are in season. I'll include the recipe below.

It was such a fantastic day! Some of the plants (and mushrooms) we saw and discussed were:

Edible/Herbal Plants:

• Wild Carrot/Queen Anne's Lace (Use caution! has poison look alikes including Poison Hemlock, Water Hemlock, and White Snakeroot)
• Boneset (Use with the utmost of caution! Poison look-alike is White Snakeroot)
• Goldenrod
• Wood sorrel
• Plantain (Plantago major)
• Lambs Quarters
• Purslane
• Ground Ivy/Creeping Charlie
• Broad-leaf dock leaves and seeds
• Mugwort
• Asiatic Dayflower
• Smartweed
• Deadnettle
• Acorns
• Black Walnut

Edible/Herbal Mushrooms included:

• Turkey tail
• Various boletes
• Various polypores
• Aborted entoloma

Poisonous/Non-edible/Allergen Plants Included:

• White snakeroot (poison)
• Pokeweed/Pokeberries (poison, though earliest shoots are edible in spring, properly prepared)
• Ragweed (common allergen)

We identified and discussed various trees:

• Black Walnut
• Oaks, distinguishing white oaks from red/black
• Tulip poplar

Herbs growing at center:

• Thyme
• Basil
• Chocolate Mint
• Rosemary
• Chives

As you can see we had a busy day of discovery, fun, learning, and feasting!

Recipe for White Bean Potato Soup: (gluten-free, oil-free, vegan)

I will tell you the ingredients I used, but I was cooking for 20 people, so I won't share the amounts! You'll have to use your judgment when making the soup. It is a thick creamy soup though, so don't skimp on the beans and potatoes!

I used an instantpot and dried beans for this recipe, cooking the (unsoaked) beans first for about 45 minutes, then adding the rest of the ingredients and cooking for 15 more. I added the red lentils with the vegetables for the second cooking, since they do not take as long to cook as white beans and chickpeas. You can use canned beans, in any combination, even choosing to use all white beans. I'll share a secret: I only added the chickpeas and red lentils because I ran out of white beans. But the red lentils really added a lot to the soup, and took the flavor to the next level, so if you have them, I would recommend using them.

Ingredients:

• white beans, I used dry, you can use canned
• chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans), I used dry, you can use canned
• red lentils (dry)
• onion (I used red onion because it's what I had)
• garlic
• celery
• carrot
• Better Than Bouillon, seasoned vegetable base
• Potatoes (I used yellow because it's what I had, you can use any kind)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Seasonal wild greens, herbs, and flowers of your choosing! We used: goldenrod leaves and flowers, smartweed greens, Asiatic dayflower greens, wood sorrel, deadnettle, lambsquarters

Directions:

1. In an instant pot/pressure cooker: cook white beans and chickpeas for 45 minutes on high pressure. If you don't have an instant pot, you can use canned beans or soak the beans overnight and cook on stove for half an hour before adding other ingredients.
2. Add all other ingredients except wild greens with just enough water to cover. Cook 15 more minutes. If you don't have a pressure cooker, cook until potatoes and carrots are soft.
3. When finished cooking, use a potato masher to mash enough of the beans and potatoes to make the soup nice and creamy.
4. Add the wild greens, herbs, and flowers while soup is still hot. Cook at least 5 more minutes until greens are wilted.
5. Season to taste.
6. ENJOY!

Please join me on patreon where I will be adding slides and information of all the wild plants we saw over the next few weeks.

Hope you are enjoying the fall!

~ Melissa

Wait, Are Those The Little Yellow Balls That Stink? (Eating Gingko Nuts)

 

(image from pixabay.com)

This was the year that I actually ate gingko nuts. I posted about it on my facebook page, and also the food under foot facebook page, and immediately one of my friends asked, "Wait, are those the little yellow balls that stink?"

Indeed, they are.

And that is why I have always avoided trying them. But this year, a couple things changed. First, for some reason, when I looked down among all the fruit on the ground, there were some nuts that had already naturally separated from their stinky fruit covering. Second, while wearing a mask, the stink was substantially lessened.

I scooped a handful of the nuts up, put them in my pocket, and headed home to watch videos on how to prepare, cook, and eat gingko nuts.

I brought them home and rinsed them as best as I could. It had been a few days until I got to them....and I learned that the nuts should actually have been kept in the refrigerator in the interim. They had not, but our house is quite chilly and it was only a couple days, so I think it was ok.

I decided I would prepare them three different ways, to try three methods of cooking and seeing which worked best, and which tasted best in the end. So first, I cracked a few of the shells and put those nuts on a baking tray, to bake at 350 F for 12 minutes. Then I cracked some and completely took them out of their shells. These I would saute in oil. Finally the ones still in the basket: those I would saute in oil right in their shells, which would cause the shell to burst open and the nut to explode forth, bright and green.

I cracked the shells of these nuts, and put them in the oven at 350 for 12 minutes:

 

These nuts were being sauteed in oil, in uncracked shells:

They exploded just as they were supposed to!

Here are the uncooked shelled nuts, ready to be sauteed:

When they are cooked they turn bright green: 

The three piles of cooked nuts: First: sauteed in their shell, second: sauteed without their shell, third: cracked and baked (then removed from shell after being baked):

 They were all non-stinky, and incredibly delicious. I enjoyed the baked nuts best, but it was close, they all tasted very good.

CAUTION: Gingko nuts should not be consumed in large quantities. Even cooked, they contain toxic compounds that can lead to headaches, dizziness, even seizures. It is recommended adults eat no more than 10 at one time, children should not have more than 5.

See gingko nuts prepared in South Korea where they are a common street food:

If you are interested, check out yesterday's post on tincturing the golden gingko leaves.