Chanterelle no kneed, dutch oven bread, made with dried foraged wild mushrooms

Making bread never really interested me much. It seemed like it tied you at home in the kitchen, waiting for yeast to fart just so you could periodically punch it back down. My weekends are very precious and loosing hours that could better be spent outside in the woods, swimming, hanging out or even doing chores has never appealed to me, even though homemade bread is crazy delicious. 

So needless to say, I was intrigued when I started hearing about dutch oven breads, which had as little as 15 minutes of prep time, can rise in the refrigerator for hours or days, so you can get to them when you get to them, and who only need about 40 mins in the oven. 

Mushrooms infuse the bread 3 ways:
powdered mushrooms in the flour,  mushroom
reconstitution liquid and mushrooms baked on top

This manner of bread-making produces a small, dense, oval loaf with a crispy crust that becomes more like a sourdough if you leave it for a longer period in the fridge. 

These loaves are often baked simply, perhaps with some poppy seeds, or olive oil and fresh herbs, but I speculated there was no reason not to infuse the bread with other ingredients and flavors, and so I did. Having just come back from another foraging trip, our larder is rich with chanterelles, especially Cantharellus texensis. 

A pepper-tasting Texas red chanterelle

Unlike the fruity classic golden chanterelle, C. cibarius, the Texas chanterelle is mostly peppery in taste, with the fruitiness fading into the background, and I felt like that flavor would work well in a savory, crusty loaf. 

Plus, chanterelles and their closely related cousins, are often famously ground into powders and used as seasonings. Since they are very thin-fleshed, they dehydrate and grind easily, but their strong flavors mean even a small amount go a long way in terms of taste. So I decided to basically make an infused flour with ground cinnabar chanterelles. 

The darker color and speckled texture looks like whole wheat, 
but actually the color comes from specs of ground-up mushrooms 

The flavor of this bread is excellent, very, very umami and a bit peppery, with a hint of fruit-like sweetness on the very tail end of the palette. Traditional yellow chanterelles would probably make a sweeter loaf.

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.

Redbud (or any other edible flower) smoothie - vegan, dairy free, gluten-free and paleo and raw diet optional

Omg! How much do you love that color?!?!

That pretty pink alone would energize you throughout the day, never mind that this gluten-free, low sugar, low fat, dairy-free, vegan smoothie recipe is packed with vitamin C, plant-based protein, and antioxidants. Bonus: redbuds are naturally loaded with anthocyanins (one of the most important flavonoids)!

I made my smoothie with soy milk, but if you swap it out for almond milk, it becomes both paleo and raw-diet friendly.

You could swap the redbud blossoms for any other edible flowers if you like, but these fruits do compliment the sweet sour tang of redbud perfectly.

Flower-power redbud and fresh fruit smoothie

makes about 12 oz.

1 large banana

1 cup fresh pineapple, chopped

1 1/2 cups packed redbud blossoms

1 cup ice cubes

1/2 cup unsweetened soy or almond milk

Raw honey or agave, optional

1. Blend all the ingredients together at high speed. Add more ice or milk, if needed, to get the right consistency. Taste and add honey or agave, if needed. 
2. Serve it up in a pretty glass, sprinkle some more flowers on top, because it's worth it!

Henbit and dead nettle shakshuka: eggs, greens and feta in a spicy tomato sauce

Shakshuka is spicy, rich, decadent, yet healthy at the same time. The heat level is why it's commonly known as "eggs in hell". It's a vegetarian North African/Middle Eastern/Israeli meal that's eaten overseas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And it's become a hip brunch meal in some of the hottest West Coast cities. It's vegetarian, gluten-free, low in carbohydrates, low in fat and high in protein. You can omit the feta and it becomes Paleo and dairy-free.

There are a lot of Shakshuka recipes out there, but I've been told that they all leave something out, that when you eat it in the Middle East they add a lot of fresh local herbs and spices, many of which would be foraged. With that in mind, I thought adding henbit to the dish was appropriate, as henbit originates in North Africa.  Dead nettle and curly dock aren't from North Africa, but they have become local here in the US, so I felt they would fit the spirit of adding local greens.

Make sure you only use the top of the henbit plants, as the bottom stems are woody and don't really soften in the dish. I inadvertently left a couple in, and they were the only thing I didn't like.

Foraged Chickweed and Mushroom Omelette

A mushroom omelette is one of my favorite ways to eat chickweed, because the flavor how very well with egg and most cheeses, and a light sauté keeps the freshness and crispness of the chickweed but fixes the textural issues of the hairy stems.

I prefer this dish with wild mushrooms, especially oysters, puffballs or milky caps, but I didn't have any of those so I used your basic white buttons. Half of a package will do for one omelette. I used Swiss cheese here, but goat cheese, asiago, Parmesan, and provolone all work.

It's simple to make, healthy and comes together quickly.

Wild Berry & Baked Brie Tartlets

Either I somehow managed to miss the juneberry season, or it really wasn't very good this year. In April, when the flowers were blooming, I went around and ID-d a bunch of trees, doubling the number I knew of in my neighborhood. Despite double the number of trees, I actually harvested less fruit than last year, which is a shame, because I was really looking forward, and I had several recipes that I wanted to experiment with.

Despite early indications of abundance, most of these
berries were eaten by birds before ripening fully.

The birds seemed to notice the poor season as well. They striped the trees bare long before the majority of the fruit was ripe. Also, usually they stay in the upper branches, since my neighborhood has a lot of constant car and sidewalk traffic, and this leaves the low-hanging fruit for me. However, this year the birds were everywhere, even sometimes within arm's length of me, as I harvested. They also seemed to do fly-by "strikes" on the fruit--where they swooped in and pecked at a berry while continuing to fly. This meant that a lot of the fruit I could get was unusable, as it spoiled once pecked at.

Anyway, complaining aside, I got enough berries to make this dessert. It's not particularly creative, there are numerous recipes where berries (usually blueberries) are baked with brie; however, I wanted to make something a little less sweet, and completely home-made, without the preservatives and other additives found in pre-made phyllo dough or ready-to-bake crescent rolls. 

Foraging: Identifying Juneberries (Serviceberries & Shadbush)

Identification difficulty: Beginner

This year, the sheer abundance of berries made them impossible to ignore. For the past 3+ weeks, I have made berry pancakes, berry drinks, various breads and muffins, added berries to frozen banana "ice cream" and even made a sweet and spicy sauce with mulberries and chipotle for chicken. (I'll get around to a mulberry post soon, I promise!)

Savory, Fat-Free (Almost!), Foraged Clover Bread Recipe

While on a tour with "Wildman" Steve Brill, we came upon a field of sweet clover, the red/purple kind; which the "Wildman" told us was very good for you. Upon tasting the flowers, I was reminded of this dandelion bread from Fat of the Land; and I knew I had to try to make a clover version--with my own small twists, of course!

I wanted to try to create a somewhat healthier version of the original. I substituted half of the white flour for whole wheat flour, but feel free to use whatever you have on hand. I also decided to use an old trick for reducing the fat of a dish, by replacing unsweetened apple sauce for the oil. The result is an almost fat-free bread--the egg still has a little fat in it. My first loaf was missing something, so the second batch got a dash of vanilla extract, which really perked it up.

There is a slightly bitter note in this bread; I would assume it comes from the green parts of the flowers, which are impossible to remove entirely. Still, it is rich, hearty and dense, with a touch of sweetness and a very pleasing texture. It tastes great with a pat of creamy butter, or toasted with a drizzle of maple syrup; but my favorite way of serving it is to add a razor thin slice of sharply-flavored cheese (I used Asiago), to top each slice of bread.

It is difficult to categorize this bread. It could be an appetizer, certainly, but it is also very nice for breakfast, brunch, or afternoon tea. And its delicious when paired with beer, so. . . However you look at it, its a tasty little anytime bread.