Creamy Giant Puffball and White Wine Pasta

A couple of weeks ago, I had an absolutely amazing week, with multiple high points for all of my hobbies. First, my husband and I took a long weekend (Saturday-Monday) to central Texas, doing a lot of rock hounding at the famous Texas Slab in Kingsland, looking for material to keep the tumblers running. Along the way we visited one of our favorite distilleries, Flannigan's, and did some fossil hunting along the highway roadcuts outside of Gatesville. We ended up finding some nice (if incomplete) rudist fossils and blue chert in the Gatesville area and a whopping 61.8 lbs of rocks for tumbling, mostly a mix of cherts, iron-stained quarts, jaspagate (including a spectacular root-beer nodule) and--one of my favorites--hematoid quartz. We also found a few interesting rhyolites, mica-rich rocks, and others I couldn't identify.  

On our way back home we went hunting for Texas llanite, a rare porphyry stone that's only found on one ridge in central TX. The ridge (called the Llano uplift) represents the movements of the tectonic plates over a geothermic hotspot. Llanite is the result of volcanic activity creating rhyolite with bubbles in the stone that would later fill with blue quartz and feldspar--truly gorgeous. Most of the ridge is on private land, but there is just one public access point on TX state highway 16, pretty much exactly 10 miles north of the junction between 16 and 19 in the city of Llano. The rocks are hard, but after a few hours of grueling labor we had about 5lbs of llanite to bring home. All-in-all I achieved all my rock hunting goals, except we didn't find any petrified wood.  

Then on Tuesday, while raiding in World of Warcraft, I finally got the bow off of Prince Malchezaar in Karazhan, giving my hunter the best weapon she can use in this phase.
Then finally, on Thursday the 23, I got lost while trying to pick up Italian during my lunch break and ended up stumbling upon the absolute motherlode of Calvatia craniiformis, aka the skull-shaped giant puffball mushroom. 

When I say the motherlode, I'm talking an enormous fairy ring of the mushrooms with over a dozen full-sized specimens that covered an entire yard. Having received permission to harvest (and after confirming that no fertilizers had been used) I decided to take 4: The very largest, a nicely large one that seemed quite firm, and two youngish and very firm, softball-sized specimens. There we also a myriad of babies (roughly golfball-sized) that I left to grow up so I could harvest them the next week. 

Our First Puffballs in Texas

When my husband and I lived in NJ, puffballs were one of the most common mushrooms we'd encounter, though the giant puffballs (Calvatia genus) were rare. Mostly we would find the small gem-studded puffballs (Lycoperdon perlatum) or pear-shaped puffballs (Apioperdon pyriforme, formerly known as Lycoperdon pyriforme). We would frequently find dozens, nearly 100, in a single place. We found so many we rarely even photographed them, and--to be fair--this was before we owned smartphones. 

With regards to the giant puffballs, we'd only ever found a few. We found a cluster of 6 monstrously-sized Calvatia gigantea along NJ route 21. Since 21 is one of the most famously polluted areas in the Northeast USA, we didn't eat those. I found a fair number of Calvatia cyathiformis (purple-spored puffballs) over the years, but only ever felt a couple were in safe areas and received permission to harvest. 

However, since moving to Texas, puffballs, both small and large, have completely eluded us, though we did find several in while on Vacation in Puerto Rico. We had no way of cooking them or bringing them home and so let them be. 

About the Recipe

This dish is the evolution of one of my favorite meals I would cook while in college. In high school, one of my friends gave me a semi-gag gift, a lore-book called "Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home". The Inn of the Last Home was a tavern in the Dungeons and Dragons world of Krynn. Encompassing trivia, character backgrounds and, strangely, a cookbook section. The cookbook included recipes that--while not exactly world-class in terms of flavor--were generally very easy and quick to make, perfect for someone just starting out on their own. 

The recipe that inspired this dish was called "Shrimp Tarsis". The name was itself a joke, as in the lore of the books, Tarsis had once been a city on the sea, but a cataclysmic event sundered the world and left Tarsis inside a desert. The citizens adapted and converted their famous recipes to utilize fowl and game, rather than fish and shellfish. The original recipe called for turkey breast, but overtime, I adapted my own versions for mushrooms, particularly puffball mushrooms, though the change does make it take a lot longer to prepare. 

Creamy Giant Puffball & White Wine Pasta Recipe

Serves 4 as a main course | Approximately 45 minutes prep + cook time

• 1 lb pasta of your choice
• 6-8 cups of puffball mushrooms, cut or broken into rough shapes, approximately 3/4 of an inch by 1 inch by 1/4 inch
• 2 medium shallots, diced
• 1 cup semi-dry, drinkable white wine
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 tbs flour
• 1 stick butter, 8 tbs/8 pats
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tbs garlic powder
• 1 large lemon, zest and juice
• Salt to taste
• Olive oil

1. Start the pasta according to package directions. When you drain the pasta, reserve 2 cups of the cooking liquid. 
2. Mix the wine, lemon juice and lemon zest and set aside. 
3. Add 4 pats of butter and a glug of olive oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. 
4. Once the butter and oil are hot, add the mushrooms and increase the heat to high. Continue to sauté the mushrooms, moving constantly, until they have released their liquid and are toasted brown all over, around 20 minutes. Add additional oil if needed but be circumspect. The mushrooms should release liquid making extra butter not needed. 
   
   
   
   
   
5. Once fully browned (see above) remove the mushrooms from the pan and set aside in a large bowl.
6. Add the minced shallot minced garlic and 1 tbs of butter to sauté pan and reduce temp to medium. Sauté until translucent and fragrant, stirring constantly.  
7. Once the aromatics are cooked through, pour the wine/lemon mix over them and deglaze the pan by using your wooden spoon to scrape up all the browned mushroom bits from the bottom of the pan. 
8. Bring the mix to a boil and boil for 1 minute, then remove from heat, and pour the shallot mix over the mushrooms. 
9. Add the remaining 3 tbs of butter to the sauté pan and melt over low heat. 
10. Remove from heat and whisk in the flour, a sprinkle of salt and garlic powder until smooth. Taste for salt and seasoning and adjust as needed. 
11. Pour in the heavy cream and the reserved pasta liquid and return to stove over medium-low heat. Sauté--stirring constantly, and I mean constantly--until you have a perfectly smooth, creamy sauce. 
12. Mix together the pasta, the sauce and the mushroom shallot mix over low heat and heat through. Serve immediately with a sprinkle of parsley (optional). 

Elderberry clafoutis pie

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans! To our neighbors in the great white north, Happy Thanksgiving, 6 weeks late, and to our southern neighbors, feliz Día de la Revolución! Wherever you're from, I hope you're celebrating the harvest season with a sweet treat. 

Thanksgiving is one of the few occasions where I will attempt to bake. As a rule, I personally hate baking. It's more science than art--get something wrong and it generally won't work out at all, unlike cooking where almost any mistake can be mitigated, one way or another. Baking also generally involves a lot of steps, a lot of bowls, a lot of prep work, and significantly more time than cooking--all of these are things I hate. So, in our household, my husband generally does most of the baking, including all the Christmas baking of cookies, cherry coconut bars, and fudge. 

But my husband is a nurse and it's rare for him to get the entirety of Thanksgiving off.  And while Christmas baking can sort of be worked in in and around and throughout the holiday season, Thanksgiving dessert needs to be prepared on Thanksgiving Day, meaning it generally falls to me to make. I usually make a fruit cobbler or a fruit crisp, as they are easy, basically foolproof, and require some of the least prep work in the baking world. 

But for the past year, recipes for clafoutis have been popping up practically non-stop in my Pinterest feed, piquing my curiosity. 

Like a cobbler, a clafoutis involves basically 5 steps: grease a baking pan, layer in fruit, mix a bunch of things, spread on top, and bake. 

And, despite the town of McKinney clearing away much of the elderberry bushes in a part I frequent--why did they do this? They didn't replace it with anything--I still had several containers of the fruit in the freezer. So, I decided to try my hand at an elderberry clafoutis for this year's Thanksgiving. 

This recipe requires some special equipment:

• Blender
• Deep pie pan; my pan was around 1.5" deep and was barely enough. A 2" pan would be much better. 

Elderberry Clafoutis Pie 

• 2 cups fresh or frozen elderberries | If frozen, defrost and reserve the liquid
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup plain white flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar, divided into 3/4 and 1/4 portions* 
• 2/3 cup heavy cream or whole milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Butter to grease the pan

1. Preheat the oven to 325
2. Grease a deep pie pan with butter.
3. Spread your elderberries out in the greased pan. 
4. Add any reserved elderberry liquid, the eggs, the flour, the 3/4 cup of sugar, the cream or milk, vanilla, almond and salt to the blender and liquify. 
5. Pour the mixture over the top of the elderberries--slowly, if you can. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar over everything evenly.
6. Put the pan in the oven and bake for around 45 minutes until it puffs up and turns golden brown on top.

* This makes a lightly sweet clafoutis. Next time I would probably increase the sugar a little to offset the tartness of the elderberries more. I would also sprinkle the elderberries themselves with sugar in the pan. 

Right out of the oven

The result and what I would do differently next time

Elderberries float, which doesn't provide the intended 
layer effect

The elderberry clafoutis was tasty, but it did have the regular issues that any elderberry dish has, primarily being the crunchy elderberry seeds. There's no real way to work around these, unless you have a juicer and want to juice the berries first, so just be aware, your topping is going to be textural. 

The bigger issue is that I don't think that elderberries are right for a clafoutis because they are too small and too light. This means they float when you pour the liquid mixture over them. 

A clafoutis is supposed to come out as layers: crust on top, moist cake in the middle, and fruit on the bottom. But because of the floating, the finished product didn't have that layer effect. Instead, my fruit rose to the top (see pic) and became part of the crust. Still tasty, but not the intended result. 

Other than that, a great, lightly sweet dessert made with the kind of wild ingredients that would have been eaten by both the Native Americans and the early European settlers, though they likely would have been dried to make it into November. 

Healthy green marinara with sow thistle

Those of you who follow me on Instagram might remember seeing the image I shared of my green marinara sauce last March, when I promised a recipe to follow on my blog soon. 

And then I did not do that. 

But better late than never, as they say. A warmer than usual February has triggered the earliest spring plants to sprout, including one of my annual favorites, prickly sow thistle. 

Early spring prickly sow thistle, picked last Friday

That vivid green color is all natural

I really, really love this recipe. Unlike a pesto, this is completely vegan (unless you add cheese on top). It's also low in fat, since oil isn't a key ingredient. And each serving is also a full serving of leafy vegetables! That last point is especially important since sow thistle is incredibly nutritious, rich in potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, selenium and a number of important vitamins. 

It's really surprising how creamy this sauce is, considering that it has no cream, milk, coconut milk or cheese. 

Pasta fagioli with foraged horseweed, edible wild weedy plant

Pasta fagioli, pronounced pasta fazool by my Italian American in-laws, is a traditional Italian peasant meal whose name means "pasta and beans."

Like most peasant fare, pasta fagioli was derived of simple, affordable ingredients and cooked as a soup or a stew to make those ingredients go farther. It's warm, filling and nutrient-dense, with lots of protein, packing a ton of flavor in every bite. It's one of my all-time favorite soups!

The version I make is vegetarian, though you can add bacon, pancetta or prosciutto if you aren't tied to a vegetarian diet. Honestly though, I've never found that meat adds anything of value. Using chicken stock instead of veggie can be quite nice though. 

You certainly have this plant near
you somewhere

Horseweed is an incredibly common and abundant plant in the aster family. It can be found in all 50 states (introduced into Alaska and Hawaii), every Canadian Provence except Nunavut and the Yukon, throughout Mexico and in most of the non-island nations of Central America. It has been introduced into Eurasia and North Africa.

Horseweed is somewhat related to the herb tarragon, though not especially closely; I only mention it because they have a similar flavor profile, though horseweed tastes more like oregano and less like anise. I also think horseweed is less versatile, though certainly a flavorful, enjoyable herb in its own right. It has a mild version of the famous/infamous "aster" flavor. And it smells amazing. 

Because horseweed reminds me of oregano, I tend to put it in Italian dishes, egg dishes, and soups and stews of all kinds. I've made it in pasta fagioli before, but this is the first time I really feel like I got everything right--the base soup recipe and the horseweed balance--so now I'm sharing it with you. 

A nice patch of horseweed in my yard

Pasta fagioli with foraged horseweed wild plants

Serves 4-5 as a main course

8 oz (1/2 lb) small pasta, like ditalini
12 cups of broth or stock*
Two cans of white beans, cannellini or great northern, drained and rinsed
One can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
One can of diced tomatoes
Two large handfuls of young horseweed leaves, roughly chopped
4 oz parmesan cheese or cheese rind, cubed (omit for vegan)
1 large, sweet yellow onion, diced
1 entire head of garlic, peeled and minced
1/2 stick of butter, or equivalent olive oil
Optional (omit for vegan/vegetarian): 2 oz diced pancetta, bacon or prosciutto 

1. Heat butter or oil in a large stockpot, add in onion and sauté until translucent.
2. When onion starts to brown, add in garlic, horseweed, and meat if you are using, continue to sauté until onion is caramelized, garlic is fragrant and horseweed is soft. Remove all from pan. 
3. Add beans, cheese, tomatoes and broth or stock to the pot and bring to a simmer. 
4. In a separate pot, bring water to a boil and cook pasta according to package directions. 
5. Continue to simmer the beans, stirring only occasionally, for around 30-40 minutes, until the beans are super soft, almost mushy. 
6. Using a slotted spoon, strain about 1/2 of the beans from the pot and add to the onion/garlic/herb mix you set aside. Try not to remove any of the tomatoes or the cheese, leave them in with the broth. 
7. Using a hand-mixer or food processor, puree the stock, tomatoes, 1/2 beans and cheese. This will make the soup thick and hearty. 
8. Add the pasta, the onion/herb/garlic mix and the removed beans back to the main pot and heat till warmed through. Season as desired with salt and/or pepper. Serve immediately with crusty bread and/or a salad. 

*I used "Better than Bouillon" Italian Herb base

I really cannot emphasize enough how delicious this soup is. It's my favorite pasta fagioli version of all time!

20 minute 5 ingredient Austrian garlic soup with foraged wild garlic

Super easy and quick meal to share today: A simple garlic soup, based on a traditional Austrian recipe, but made with wild garlic. The soup is called knoblauchcremesuppe, and the name is about 10x more complicated than making it, as the soup has a mere 5 ingredients and comes together in 20 minutes. 

Early spring wild garlic,
this is crow garlic

Wild garlic is one of the earliest and most important greens of spring. The vibrant stems and leaves start to poke up early, when everything else is dead and brown. 

That pungent garlic or onion flavor is actually intended as a defense mechanism, especially against herbivores. 

Early humans developed at taste for Alliums (the family that has garlic and onions) specifically because we were searching for nutrition after a long winter. 

Now, almost every culture on earth adds garlic and onion to a variety of meals. We plant and cultivate Alliums, so really the plants lost the battle but won the war. 

Anyway, while this soup in Austria is currently made with garlic bulbs, so comes out a creamy white color, it most likely started out as a green soup, like this one. Way back at its origins, this soup and recipes like it, were developed to take advantage of the nutrients in these early spring greens. 

Wild garlic, rinsed and chopped

Austrian wild garlic soup, knoblauchcremesuppe

8 cups wild garlic greens, or greens and bulbs, rinsed and roughly chopped 
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock*
2 cups whole milk (or vegan milk)
1 cup flour
1 stick of butter (or vegan alternative), divided
salt

1. 
   Melt a 1/2 a stick of butter, sliced, in a large stockpot. Add the chopped garlic greens with a sprinkle of salt, and sauté until softened, they won't be fully soft. 
2. Remove garlic and set aside. Add remaining sliced butter and melt. Add in flour and whisk until smooth.
3. Add in stock and simmer while stirring, till thick. 
4. Add in the sauteed wild garlic and simmer while blending with an emersion blender until as smooth as you like it. 
5. Turn off heat, but keep pot on the heat, add the milk while whisking constantly.
6. Remove from heat, season with salt and serve with croutons and/or sour cream. 

*I used "Better than Bouillon" roasted garlic stock

Pin this picture please!

Chickweed frittata with prosciutto, potatoes and shallots. High protein, gluten-free foraging recipe.

Happy New Year everyone!!

I hope you've had a fantastic holiday season: safe, healthy, fun and full of family and friends. 

For us, Texas has been magnificently warm, with temperatures in the 60s and even into the 70s throughout the month of December. 

As a result, the plants have been seriously confused as to season, with many spring plants sprouting and even flowering. The strangest I've yet seen are violets in flower!

Foraging has been superb, when I can get to it. A major project at work has kept me working late, and sometimes even weekend overtime. 

One of my favorite, generally spring-only ephemeral plants -- chickweed -- has been coming up in large patches or dense matts everywhere. 

Chickweed is delicious, one of the few wild greens that I will eat both fresh or cooked. It has a flavor like spring peas, with a hint of sweet corn and Boston lettuce. When you cook it it becomes slightly herbal, like spring onions. A very versatile plant, no one I know who has tried it has disliked it, making it great for new foragers. 

A quick recipe for today: a decedent frittata. This time I've made it properly, starting everything over the stove and only finishing in the oven. Previously, I've often made frittatas in the oven-only, which saves time and cleanup, but at the cost of flavor. 

This recipe is delicious, easy to do (though somewhat time-consuming), gluten-free, high in protein and great as a main course for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner. 

Chickweed frittata with prosciutto, potatoes and shallots. 

Prep time: 10 minutes, cook time: 45 minutes. Serves 4-8 as a main course. 

6 eggs

4 cups of roughly chopped fresh chickweed

3/4 lb of prosciutto, diced

1/2 lb fingerling potatoes, chopped bite size

3/4 cup of sliced shallots

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1/4 cup heavy cream

5 oz. grated hard cheese (asiago, parmesan, etc.)

1+ sticks of butter

Salt, pepper, ground celery seed

1. Lightly salt 8 cups of water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add your chopped potatoes and reduce heat to a slow boil. Continue until potatoes are soft, then drain.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and heavy cream. Set aside. 
3. In an oven-safe 11" sauté or cast iron pan, melt 1-2 pats of butter over medium-high heat. Add in your sliced shallots. Sprinkle with salt and celery seed and cook, stirring often, until shallots are translucent and beginning to brown. 
4. Add in your garlic, and more butter if needed. Continue to sauté until shallots are fully caramelized. 
5. Add the prosciutto and sauté about 5-7 minutes until the meat has softened. Add in the cooked potatoes, season with ground black pepper and celery seed, and stir. 
6. Working in batches, stir in chickweed. When each batch wilts you can add in more. 
7. The chickweed will release a lot of liquid. Make sure you cook, stirring frequently, until all the liquid has dried. You can increase heat to do so. 
8. Reduce heat to low. Stir for about 10 minutes to allow the temperature to reduce.
9. Add in 4 oz. of your grated cheese, stir to mix until melted. 
10. Slowly pour in your egg and cream mixture. Gently stir the pan, once or twice to allow the eggs to fill in around all the ingredients. 
11. Continue to cook over medium-low heat, without stirring, until the eggs are fully cooked. You can occasionally turn or shimmy the pan over the heat. 
12. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Top the cooked egg mixture with the remaining grated cheese. Bake in the oven for 5 minutes, until cheese melts. Remove from oven. 
    
    
    
13. Raise oven temperature to a broil. Return frittata to the oven, and broil for 3-5 minutes until cheese is browned and bubbly. 

Enjoy! My pictures really don't do this dish justice!

Elderberry honey mustard sauce: sweet, zesty, savory

With elderberry season winding down, I had been leaning towards a baked good of some kind with the last of the berries I was finding. But my husband had requested something savory, something he could put on grilled meat. Of all the foraged meals I've made him over the years, his favorite is still the Middle-Eastern inspired mulberry sauce.

I debated a lot of things, I was thinking a butter sauce of some kind--like a gastrique or something I've never really tried before, but in the end I decided to go with something more familiar--though I did end up adding butter in the end. 

It's been ages since I made a dijon sauce with fruit, not just from foraged ingredients, but in general. It's one of those things that's hard to mess up; just include some sweet (the fruit+ a little extra, since elderberries aren't super sweet), something a little spicy (the mustard) and something a little zesty (lemon) and a little acidic (vinegar) to cut through the richness. 

About a decade ago there was a recipe going around that was all the rage, called "man-pleasing chicken". Made with maple syrup, rice vinegar and dijon, it's basically the same concept you have here--and just as man-pleasing. 

With ingredients so minimal, you are going to taste each one to the fullest, so make sure to buy really good quality ingredients.

We enjoyed this sauce on grilled chicken for dinner, and also I had some on an open-faced ham and brie sandwich, which was to. die. for.

Elderberry honey dijon mustard sauce 

1 1/2 cups of elderberries

1/4 cup of stone-ground dijon mustard

1 1/2 Tbsp raw honey

1 Tbsp lemon zest

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 Tbsp aged balsamic vinegar

1 pat grass-fed butter

Sauce right after whisking in the dijon,
reduce again by half after this, and whisk in butter

1. 
   Add the elderberries, lemon zest, lemon juice and 1 and 1/2 cups of water to a shallow sauté pan and bring to a low boil. Boil for two minutes, while smashing the berries. 
   
   
   
2. Add in the remaining ingredients, except the butter, and whisk vigorously. Bring to a low simmer and allow to simmer until reduced by half, whisking occasionally. Remember to scrape down the sides of the pan as needed. 
3. Add in the butter, whisk and continue to simmer until reduced by another half. Remove from heat and serve hot over meat or cheese. You can also store in the fridge and serve reheated or chilled.

In addition using as a sauce, I also mixed some with some red wine vinegar, salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil, and made a vinaigrette for a couple of salads. Not only was it tasty, it changed the chicken breast and feta cheese to a pretty shade of pink!

Pears poached in elderberries with warm spices

Elderberry season seems to have come quickly this year,  even by Texas standards. I found a stand that I identified last year, past season, and already about half of the berries had fallen. This is now my second good source, as I already had an enormous tree right in my neighborhood.  

Fruit heads 8-10" across.

Better still, just days before I went and got the berries, my across the street neighbor invited my husband and myself to come grab some feral pears from the tree in her yard. Feral fruit is when you have a cultivated variety, in this case green anjou, but you don't treat it in anyway, you just let it grow as if it were wild. So no insect spraying, feeding/fertilizer, etc. 

Theoretically, this can deminish yield, and smaller sized fruit, but, well just look at it! Each branch was heavily laden with fruit and many of the pears were enormous! Honestly, I had difficulty finding "medium" sized pears for this recipe.

Pears that have not been sprayed for insects have thicker, more bitter skins than pears that have. The pear thickens its skin in response to insect activity. So naturally,  with pears that need to be peeled in one hand, and a crap ton of elderberries in the other, my mind went to poached pears. 

I like to poach pears to remain firm after cooking, for this reason I harvest them slightly underripe. Also, most recipes say to remove the elderberries from their stems by running a fork through them like a comb. I end up with a hot mess when I try this, so instead I simply use my fingers, gently. It may take a bit longer but it's not that bad. 

Nutritionally, this dish is super good for you, especially when you consider what's usually in a dessert. For each half-pear serving, with 1/6 of the sauce, you have about 135 calories, a ton of antioxidants and about half your daily vitamin C.

Pears poached in elderberries with warm spices 

Makes six servings or 3 large servings 

• 2 cups of elderberries (about 5 large heads of berries)
• 3 medium sized pears, peeled, tops and bottoms removed, cut in half lengthwise
• 4 green cardamom pods, smashed to open
• 1 cup of water
• 1/4 cup red wine or 2 tbs. bourbon 
• 2 tbs. brown sugar or honey 
• 1 tbs. aged balsamic vinegar
• 1 tps. ground cinnamon 
• 1/2 tps. ground cloves
• 1/4 tps. ground allspice
• 1 star anise
• Zest of one medium lemon 
• 1 tbs. corn starch

Add the water, smashed cardamom, lemon zest, star anise, brown sugar/honey, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice to a medium sauté pan on high heat. Bring to a boil and stir. 

Add in the elderberries and reduce heat to medium, but keep it simmering. Simmer for 5 minutes until the berries start to break apart. You can smash them a bit with your wooden spoon.

Place your pear halves in the sauce and continue to simmer for about 40 minutes, flipping the halves every 10 mins or so, until pears are the desired level of softness and redness.

Remove just the pears from the sauce and set aside. Mix the cornstarch with 3 tablespoons of water. Then add the resulting slurry to the sauce. Bring heat to a roiling boil and boil for 5 minutes, stiring constantly. 

Remove from heat, return pears to the sauce and serve pears and sauce after letting cool for about 5 mins. Tastes great with nonfat greek yogurt (makes a great brunch), clotted cream, ice cream or all by itself!

I mixed 1/2 cup fat free plain and 1/2 fat free vanilla greek yogurt and ate as a brunch!

Notes of caution when eating elderberries 

• Be sure of your identification.  People have mistaken deadly plants for elder.
• Only harvest flowers or berries, all other parts of the plant are poisonous.
• Only pick dead ripe and black (or blue, on the blue elder bush) berries. Underripe berries are partially poisonous as well.
• Only eat elderberries if you've cooked them well, the seeds contain toxins which must be destroyed with heat.
• Do not eat elder if you have the following medical conditions: diabetes (can interfere with medicine), cancer on chemotherapy (can interfere with treatment), autoimmune diseases (can aggravate symptoms and/or interfere with treatments) or if you are on laxatives or diuretics (can enhance the effects of both for dangerous dehydration) or Theophylline or other bronchodilators.

Easy 30 minute greenbriar ratatouille. Vegan, paleo, low carb, gluten-free, and low fat.

So clearly I've been on a Mediterranean kick lately, with a cleavers pesto last week (I've been enjoying the left-overs since), and a thistle Greek salad the other day. So when I was looking at an ENORMOUS haul of greenbriar shoots, it's really no surprise that my mind turned to ratatouille.

Ratatouille is a French dish, usually served in the summer because it's loaded with summer veggies: summer squash (zucchini/yellow squash), eggplant, and tomatoes. But it comes from the Provonce region, on the Mediterranean, where the cities of Marseille and Nice are located. It's a hearty, rustic stew, that just happens to be vegan, low carb, low calorie, low fat, dairy free, gluten-free and paleo; though it's often served with bread, you could also eat it as a side dish for meat, or over polenta or pasta.

The spirit of ratatouille is to make a healthy meal out of what's seasonally available, and while tomatoes aren't exactly in season, I did have a ton of spring greenbriar, so I decided to go for it. This dish involves caramelizing the onions, and since I enjoyed the greenbriar caramelized as a pizza topping last year, I thought this would be a slam dunk! It was fantastic, even my husband liked it, and he doesn't like REGULAR ratatouille! Best of all, the greenbriar cooks a lot faster than the traditional eggplant, turning an hour-long prep into a meal on your table in 30 minutes!

Thick and juicy, but still tender and bendable,
these greenbriars are at the perfect stage for eating.

Greenbriars, aka Similax species, are only edible in the early to mid-spring, because it's the young, new growth you eat. The shoots and young leaves are quite tasty, and because of some sugars in them, they also caramelize beautifully. They are fairly easy to ID, I wouldn't quite say beginner level, but definitely for a slightly experienced novice. Please check out my post on how to ID greenbriars.

Savory spruce (or pine!), oatmeal and cheese scones. Eat your Christmas tree, part 2!

So after experimenting with the spruce in a sweet dessert cookie, I got curious about it as a savory. After all, rosemary and pine have kind of similar flavors, and rosemary is frequently the featured flavor in artisanal breads, biscuits and rolls.

I started out with a fairly basic oatmeal scone recipe, but I deviated pretty quickly. Technically, I think these would count as a "teacake" at this point, rather than a true scone.  I made them a little smaller than scones, as they are little sweeter (but still not sweet), denser, and richer. 

With spruce being an ingredient in Scandinavian cooking, and scones being British or English, what would you call these? Scandlish? Britinavian? 

I really liked these a lot, more than the sweet cookies I made earlier, though most everyone else liked the sweet better. These are best served hot, preferably with some creamy, grass-fed butter or fresh cheese, and, of course, a pot of hot tea!

Special note: women who are pregnant should avoid eating spruce. You could make these with pine or balsam fir instead, though!

Wildcrafted wood sorrel compound butter

Making compound butter is just fun. It's nearly impossible to go wrong when you mix fresh herbs and creamy butter, everything just tastes good. Compound butters are a great way to preserve the flavors, medicinal benefits and nutrition of herbs, fruit and flowers, long after their season is past. Finally, compound butters are an essential chef's tool to infuse dishes with flavor. As the butter melts, it seeps into the crevices of meat, fish, etc. and carries the fresh flavors with it. For a vegetarian, you could use the butter on pasta or grilled veggies!

Wood sorrel is great for compound butter, the sharply sour citrus flavor contrasts with the sweet,
creaminess of the butter. Use quality, grass-fed butter for the best results. 

For each 1/4 lb of unsalted butter (1 stick) I used about 1 cup of fresh wood sorrel, lightly packed and 1/8 teaspoon of sea salt.  

I minced the sorrel first, in the food processor, before adding the butter (in 1/2 cubes) and salt. I processed everything until very smooth. At first, the butter looked smooth but still had a lot of fibrous textures from the stems, so I just kept going. Eventually it became really smooth and creamy. 

Once you have it the way you want it, you can wrap small amounts in plastic wrap, and freeze it.

Foraged Wild Mushroom & Ramp Strata

And just like that, ramp season is over! 4 weeks, give or take a day or two, and the leaves of all the plants are yellowing, wilting, and dying. We went crazy, harvesting the last of the greenery last weekend. We picked enough for another batch of Spicy Black Bean Fish with Ramps, enough to fill a couple of large freezer bags, and enough for this bread pudding dish.

A strata is like a bread pudding, very rich and dense. This is not a light meal, this is not a healthy meal; with heavy cream, prosciutto, eggs, bread, butter, and cheese, it's just plain decadent. . . But ramp season comes just once a year, and it just seemed fitting to have it go out with a bang!

I reconstituted wine-cap (Stropharia rugosoannulata) mushrooms from that epic haul of a couple weeks ago to make this dish, but you could use fresh cremini or white button mushrooms instead. Tossing a few morels in would probably be pretty great as well, given how well they pair with cream.

Buttery Swordfish with Ramps & More Ramps

This really isn't much of a recipe, more of a status update on what I'm eating, but it was quite tasty, so I hope you enjoy.

Ramp season is again upon us, and by us I mean the Northeast, Appalachia, parts of Canada and the Midwest. The UK also has very similar Rampsoms, which can be used in the same way as our Ramps. If you are unfamiliar, ramps are a gourmet, uncultivated onion, which can only be gathered in the wild, and only for about 3-4 weeks each spring. You can learn how to locate, ID and sustainably harvest Ramps from my blogpost here.

Ramps are so tasty, and they have been embraced by the world of restaurants and foodies, so they make a great way to introduce your hesitant friends to the world of foraging.

Swordfish isn't a fish I frequently eat, mostly for cost reasons, but also because I generally prefer to eat farm-raised for issues of sustainability. But properly harvested, swordfish can be one of the more sustainable wild-caught fishes, so make sure to check your source. This dish would be awesome with many kinds of fish really, salmon or perch would be great, as would any firm white fish (like sea bass, halibut, orange roughy, basa or swai). I think the ramps would probably overwhelm more delicate fish like flounder, but you should experiment with what is affordable and sustainable by you.