Greek style greenbriar with tomatoes, potatoes and lemon (lathera)

Greenbriar. I know, I said it was an early to mid-spring forage, since you only want to eat the tender new growth. 

Here's the thing, if you cut it back, it will continue to put out new growth throughout the spring and even into the dog days of summer, where in Texas the heat gets over 105. Which is great because not a whole lot else grows in these conditions. 

Best of all, I don't even have to be the one to cut it back, the city of Plano does it for me. Since greenbriar (Smilax species) are troublesome, weedy vines that grow like wildfire and have thorns, the local cities and towns cut them back from parks and trails all season long, creating new growth every couple of weeks. 

Now, in the spring when this stuff is growing in its natural season, I can usually pull 2 backpacks full out of local nature preserves every week. This growth is a lot less abundant, since it only comes from where the plants have been cut. Still its a nice meal's worth every month or so, when little else is growing. And anyway, greenbriar is one of my favorite foods to forage, I find it very versatile. 

Once blanched, I find that the flavor of greenbriar most closely resembles fresh, young green beans. I don't really like to eat it without first blanching, as it has an unpleasant, sour "swamp water" taste that I don't enjoy. For this reason I've never been able to roast it to my satisfaction. In any other way, I will prepare it as I prepare green beans, though for whatever reason my mind leans heavily towards mediterranean flavors for greenbriar. 

Today's dish is a foraged take on Lathera, a healthy vegan casserole (vegetarian if you add feta cheese) of tomatoes, green beans, potatoes, onion, lemon, fresh herbs and lots of garlic. It comes together very quickly, and all in one pot for easy clean-up. Served with rice, couscous, quinoa, pita or crusty bread it can be a main course,  and you can add meat if you like (I like it with ground turkey), though I've chosen not to here. You could also use it as a side for a meat main. 

Traditionally, this dish should be swimming in olive oil, but if you are trying to cut back on fats it tastes great with significantly less. I've chosen to substitute most of the olive oil for stock instead. 

Greek style greenbriar lathera

Serves 4 as a main course, 6 as a side dish

3 cups chopped greenbriar

3 cups potatoes chopped into bite-sized pieces

4 cups tomatoes chopped into bite-sized pieces, or mini tomatoes

1 cup of diced onion

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 lemon, zested and juiced

1/2 cup of roughly chopped parsley

1/2 cup of vegetarian broth or stock*

1/2 cup of kalamata olives, optional

Olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Sugar, optional

Feta cheese, quinoa, couscous, rice or pita bread for serving, optional

1. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil and add in chopped potatoes. Boil until you can just stick a fork into them. Add in the greenbriar and blanch for a 30 seconds to a minute. Drain and run over with cold water to stop the cooking process. 
2. Add olive oil to a sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add in the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent. Add in the garlic and cook until fragrant. 
3. Add in the tomatoes, olives, stock/broth, and the lemon juice and zest and bring to a simmer. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Taste-test. If it's too acidic, you may want to add some sugar--I didn't think mine needed it. If needed, add salt and black pepper. 
4. Stir in the parsley, then add in the greenbriar and potatoes. Reduce to a low simmer. Cook for another 5-10 minutes until potatoes are fully cooked. 
5. Optional: sprinkle with feta cheese, and serve with quinoa, couscous, rice or bread. 

* I used my favorite "Better than Bouillon" for my stock. I chose the roasted garlic flavor. If you use a homemade stock, you might need to add extra salt to the dish. 

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.

You CAN eat thistles! Plus a vegan, paleo Greek salad recipe

Thistles. Covered in spikes, bane of young children playing outside, hated by homeowners who want a perfect yard, and loathed by ranchers who fear the weed will take over the grasslands needed by their cattle. Thistles are also edible, at least in parts.

The problem, of course, is the nasty spines. They completely cover the thick, juicy stalks, and the ruffled edges of each leaf. But if you can get beyond them, the inner core of the stem, and the "mid rib" of the leaf (the light green/whitish part), are both edible, and have a texture very similar to celery. There is one downside: thistles, especially the leaf mid rib, tend to be on the bitter side.

Vegetarian garlicky cleavers walnut pesto. Keto foraging recipe, paleo and vegan optional.

This pesto is not only the best pesto I've ever made, it's the best pesto I've ever tasted, period. If you have cleavers, please try this pesto now. If you trust no other recipe on this site, trust this one. This garlicky cleavers pesto is something you need in your life.

This pesto is fast, simple and can go on absolutely ANYTHING, but of course, I enjoy it best simply tossed with some pasta. This wild herb pesto is a great condiment, it's super healthy because of the nutritious cleavers, and low-carb keto, as well as being vegetarian. If you omit the cheese, it's also Paleo and Vegan!

This recipe has some weird steps, that I came upon entirely by accident, but they worked out so well!

Cleavers are a very common backyard "weed" that's super easy to identify. If it's early to mid-spring, I guarantee that you can find some near you, perhaps in a local park. They have a great herbal flavor, vaguely like oregano, but mostly uniquely their own. Cleavers should be boiled before eating, and I prefer them pureed as well, to avoid textural issues.

Low carb, keto, gluten-free lasagna made from edible curly dock weeds

Before I started formally foraging, I hit a mental wall. I was afraid to pick wild plants, not because I wasn't sure of my identification, my grandmothers had been teaching me since I was able to walk, but because I was afraid they would go to waste. I thought I didn't know how to cook wild greens. I saw some of the pros make amazing, gourmet meals entirely out of foraged ingredients, and I knew I could never do that.

But eventually I realized I didn't have to. Using foraged wild edible plants is easy. It doesn't need require a million crazy ingredients, expert techniques, or a lot of time. All you need to start foraging and eating is to make simple replacements in your day-to-day meals.

Pasta free lasagna is a favorite dish if you are trying to eat keto, low carb or gluten-free. It usually substitutes strips of zucchini or eggplant for the pasta, but on a whim I made an easy foraged substitution: curly dock leaves!

Vegetarian henbit, macadamia, and asiago pesto recipe. Keto, gluten-free, foraging recipe made with edible "weeds" of early spring

Pesto is one of the easiest and most common ways to prepare wild greens. But just because it's been done with some plants, doesn't mean it's the right way to prepare them.

I've seen, and tried, pesto for greens like chickweed, and I've been a bit disappointed. To me, chickweed tastes like a refreshing Boston or bibb lettuce. It's delicious, but would you make a lettuce pesto? Probably not. The taste of chickweed gets totally lost with spices and cheese and nuts.

Henbit, however, is perfect for pesto. It's like it wants to be pesto. It's rich, intense, herbal. . . the strong flavors really hold their own when blended with others. I feel like this pesto really hits the balance right. I opted for macadamia nuts, with their buttery creaminess to balance the punch of the henbit, and a small amount of sweet white onion -- instead of garlic -- to offset the slight bitterness of the greens.

I hope you try it and agree!

Balsamic soy wild mushroom pizza. Vegetarian foraged honey, oyster and velvet shank recipe.

When my husband and I lived in the Northeast, one of our favorite restaurants was The Continental. They have locations in Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and the surrounding areas. The food is great, the atmosphere is retro, and they do awesome things with mixing and fusion cuisine.

Winter oyster mushrooms

One seasonal dish they make is a balsamic soy flatbread pizza with wild mushrooms. I've seen a lot of balsamic soy mushroom recipes, but something about theirs always stood out. Maybe it's the wild mushrooms or the quality of the aged balsamic, but the dish was really superior. Since then we have played around with a ton of variations, and they've all been good (my favorite is with hen-of-the-wood mushrooms!). This one uses honey, velvet foot, and wild oyster mushrooms - all foraged. 

I hope you like this recipe, it's one you can make with store-bought mushrooms if you like - try cremini, shiitake, or store-bought oysters or hen-of-the-woods.

The rich flavors of wild mushrooms and aged balsamic mean you don't have to go crazy with the cheese to still have a decadent pizza, keeping it low in fat and as healthy as pizza can be. Which isn't very healthy, but still. . . sometimes you just have to have pizza!

Velvet shank or velvet foot mushrooms, another winter species that makes a great pizza topping

Avgolemeno recipe (Greek-style chicken & lemon soup) with foraged purslane. Gluten-free, low-carb, paleo

A quick jaunt around the neighborhood yielded quite a basket full of purslane, and some wood sorrel. Both plants contain oxalic acid, with a bright, lemony flavor. I decided to try adding the weeds to a Greek Avgolemeno, a chicken soup with lemon, eggs and fresh veggies.

Given that purslane also has a mucilaginous (thickening) quality, I decided to bypass the rice that's usually added to the soup, and make it 100% gluten-free and paleo. It was a great lunch, and I have plenty to bring to work for healthy lunches throughout the week!

Foraged Pizza with Chickweed and Caramelized Greenbriar

I was having foraged pizza envy, after seeing a post by @nibblingonnature on Instagram. I realized it had been a long, long time since I last made a foraged pizza. That one had had dryad's saddle on it. It had been amazing and I completely forgot to take pictures or make a post.

Homemade pizza is a Good Friday tradition with my in-laws. As the last Friday in Lent, you can't eat meat. Everyone gets together at my husband's aunt's house, makes a ton of pizzas, with 3-4 toppings, and then stuffs themselves silly. It's a good time, and a great meal. My favorite of those pies is the white pizza with cartelized onions.

They also make another dish which I would share, but it's a family secret. It's called grass pie and it uses a ton of dandelion greens! It's really heavenly.

Of course, having moved away from New Jersey, I didn't get to participate in this year's Good Friday, but I was still craving pizza. A weekend forage netted a bunch of Greenbriar shoots (Latin name: Smilax, also known as catbriar).

The tender new growth of greenbriar is edible

Pickled Sow Thistle Bud "Capers"

 

As sow thistles get a bit older, and start to flower, the leaves become tougher, more bitter and a tad fibrous. The prickles can also become stiffer and less pleasant to eat. At this stage it's best to cook the leaves completely before you do anything with them. But this is the stage when the buds are also ripe for harvest.

An older sow thistle with buds

The buds don't taste all that different from the rest of the plant, a mellow sweetness within, sort of like corn, would be the only difference. Otherwise it's that same rich green, slightly bitter flavor, rather like kale. 

One of the most popular ways to eat any slightly bitter bud is to pickle it, and make sort of a mock caper--it's really crazy how much they tastes like them when done!

I've had sow thistles this way, but I've never made my own, so when I was on my evening walk and saw 5 large plants on the corner, I figured it was the perfect opportunity.