08 May 2013
locavore log • Nature • Wild Food

Sunday’s Walk

Sunday’s walk – a day before the long rain. How fresh and green and vibrant was everything in the cool brilliant day.

Shades of green – a case of walking with your eyes up (no morels for me):

dogwood

Brilliant dogwood, Virginia state flower

pawpaws in bloom

Pawpaws loaded with blooms (edible fruit)
wild cherries immature

Tiny immature wild cherries (edible fruit – various other parts may be used with caution in herbalism)

wild viburnum

Viburnum blooming everywhere

witch hazel

Witch hazel forming fruit (herbal craft)

autumn beries

Intensely fragrant autumn berry blossoms (edible fruit)

sassafra

Sassafras – new leaves and immature seed head (herbal craft)

basswood in bud

Basswood (American Linden) – new young leaves (young new leaves are edible; other parts used in herbalism)

sylvie | No comments
07 May 2013
locavore log • Nature • Wild Food

A Forager Is Always On The Lookout

When foraging, it is important to always keep one eyes and nose open.

It can be hard to see fruiting blackberries in July. At that point everything is green and lush and overgrown. Ripe berries can “melt” in the background as you zoom by. But when the blackberries are in bloom, their dog rose-like blossoms just jump at you. Their pure white seems to flutter like butterflies over the surrounding spring green. It is impossible not to notice.  That how I mark new blackberry patches: I make note of them when in bloom and come back later when they are berrying.

Ditto with pawpaws, a native fruit that grows by streams and in bottom-land and prefer the edge of the woods. I have written about harvesting and using pawpaws. But in September they can be hard to pick out. In late April or early May (that is, now!), when they are blooming, the groves are very easy to spot.

pawpaws in bloom

The drooping maroon flowers are festooning the slim limbs of the trees this year. In the 6 or 7 years that I have been foraging for pawpaws, it’s the first time I recall seeing so many blooms. Their shape and colors are unique and easily identifiable – once you know what you are looking at – especially since the pawpaw is the only tree that has not yet leafed out nor budded. Many flowers will  drop off f course, but we may expect a heavy harvest this year.

I am making notes of trees I had not noticed before and plan to visit in the fall.

A small consolation given how meager the morels have been!

 

 

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03 Apr 2013
Garden Technique • Harvest • herb • Kitchen Garden • locavore log • Propagation • vegetable

Growing Ginger In Virginia

 

Nothing could be simpler than growing ginger in Virginia.

It’s almost true.

Just dug baby ginger in the fall

 

Ginger is reasonably ornamental – a reed-like plant with clear green leaves. While it can be grown in the vegetable or herb garden, it is not out of place with ornamental plants – provided you can dig them out easily enough — without damaging bulbs or perennials. Don’t plant them with daffodils!

A small clump of ginger growing with other tropicals and annuals

 

So yes, it is tropical – but that not necessarily a reason not to grow it. We grow many other plants from the tropics and treat them like annuals. You can do the same with ginger.

I have grown it for years in my garden – small yield but it was mine! Ginger requires a long frost-free growing season — about one year for mature ginger, 8 months for baby ginger. That’s more than our climate allows… except that you can start ginger indoors. farmers do it in high tunnels (aka hoophouses). I start it my greenhouse, but a very sunny window or sun room will work. With a warm early start in late winter, appropriate temperatures at all times, abundant water, and judicious shade, you can grow ginger to a harvestable size. Read more

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24 Mar 2013
Appetizer • locavore log • Main Dish • Vegetable recipe

Mushroom & Crème Fraiche Pizza

Homemade pizza is one of the simple pleasures of life. Make dough. Let rise (as many as 4 or 5 days in the fridge if needed). Roll out dough. Spread toppings. Put in a very hot oven. Open a bottle of beer or pour a glass of wine. Patient 10 minutes. Enjoy.

PS – use a pizza stone: it will immensely increase the quality of your pizza. One word: perfect crust!

PPS – neither tomato nor pepperoni necessary (although sometimes they have their use!)

Mushroom & Crème Fraiche Pizza Read more
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06 Mar 2013
locavore log • Recipes • Snack

Homemade Granola

I admit to loving a good granola, generally over plain yogurt. But many I have purchased and tried are simply not to my taste, either too sweet or with too many added overpowering  flavors — sometimes, both! Also they often contain too many dry fruit that are not up to par.

The solution? make your own.

Remarkably simple as it turns out with about 5 minutes of active time, and of course, fresher and exactly as I like it. And – it never hurts – cheaper than store bought. Since I generally have on hand all the ingredient for it, it only takes just a little over an hour to make a batch: 5 minutes to mix, 30 minutes to bake, 30 minute to cool… and it’s the best granola you can ever have. Perfectly crunchy, lightly sweetened with the complex flavor of good honey, and utterly delicious!

Read more

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25 Feb 2013
Dairy recipe • Desserts • locavore log • Recipes

Panna Cotta By Any Other Name

Pannacotte with blueberry sauce

Panna cotta with blueberry sauce

Blanc-manger, panna cotta or molded cream, the idea is similar: gelatin is added to milk and/or cream infused with herbs, spices or nuts. The end result? A simple dessert perfect for a picnic (if made and left in small Mason jars and kept cool in a cooler) or — when nicely dressed — ready for a dinner party. How to dress it up? Vary the flavoring (change the herb; add rosewater etc), garnish with coulis and fresh seasonal fruit: perfectly ripe berries, barely sweetened sour cherries, rhubarb compote or, when in winter a cooked fruit sauce made with frozen berries.  Top it with a mint sprig or an edible flower. Substitute yogurt for the crème fraiche for a tangier and lighter alternative.  If you can’t have dairy milk, use almond milk or coconut milk (omit the almond meal in either case).  Once the basic technique is understood, there is no end to the fun!

You need to plan a little for that dessert: it needs to be made it the day before as it needs plenty of time to chill and set.

Honey & Creme Fraiche Pannacotta Read more

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03 Feb 2013
locavore log • Nature

Small Miracle On A Snowy Day

Woke up to the smell of bread baking, teasing me awake…

Since the oven was hot already from the bread baking, I decided to make a cherry cobbler and a peach cobbler – using sweet cherries and peaches picked, processed and frozen last summer. Fresh local fruit is really hard to come by in winter (besides apples and sometime pears), so I rely on canned and frozen. Frozen cherries work perfectly for baking (and are great in smoothies or ice-cream too). I look forward to fresh fruit season every year, when I am able to bite into a perfectly ripe peach or pear, or delve into sweet cherries or figs. But this has to do. And it does.

Played with developing a new recipe – first results are very encouraging: carrot sherbet. Will have to play more, but yes, there is potential.

Admired seedlings in the greenhouse. Should not be too proud, that might jinx something.

Took a walk under lightly falling snow  and witnessed a cow giving birth. Never had seen it. I did not even notice her on my way up. On the way back, in a wooded area (it’s fenced and part of a pasture where cattle is kept), I hear this sudden brief  “moo”, turned my head, just in time to see a cow standing and her “plopping” something large and soft. I was incredulous. A birth? Sure enough, she started to lick the thing – so yes, it was a calf. I don’t know how long I stood there, on the other side of the creek,  watching her and her new born – maybe 30 minutes? She licked it, stopped for a short while, licked it again. It was at first laying down quietly, with its ears flipping now and then. After a while, it  struggled to get up and stay up on its tiny wobbly legs, falling several time (more licking). When it was strong enough  to stand,  it leaned against its mom (more licking), and was finally able to start drinking milk. She was all muddy from having laid on the wet ground. It was amazing watching it all happen – albeit from far: the snow falling, the cow alone in the woods going about her mom business. Humbling.

 

I know nothing about cows, but  I expect she went into the woods because it is more sheltered than the open pasture. Still, I hope they are both able to regain the massed safety of the herd. Coyotes prey, unfortunately. I think she ate the placenta (I was a little far to see well) so I hope that removes some of the smell that would attract those predators. They have attacked fawns, lambs and sheep, and I understand calving cows…

I hope to see a tiny calf tomorrow…

 

 

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03 Feb 2013
locavore log

Collage

While the carrot frozen yogurt is chilling, I am playing…

Homegrown or homecooked throughout the year…

sylvie | No comments
29 Jan 2013
Garden

Postcard From the Garden

Open today.

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28 Jan 2013
Appetizer • locavore log • Recipes • Vegetable recipe

Winter Swiss Chard

Lard crostini, with spicy Swiss chard & fresh farm cheese

It got down to 5F (-15C) last week and the high for a few days reached low 20sF ( -4 to 66 C) –  cold by our standards, especially with no protective snow covering. especially after the mild fall and winter to date. And yet! yet, how is the Swiss chard doing in its rustic cold frame (the one made with reclaimed storm windows)? Good enough to pick from.

It was even a late planted Swiss chard (that was started in the fall, sat too long in their containers and where finally transplanted in the cold frame in late October (see how it looked back then)

Newly transplanted Swiss chard back in November

But today? today after a really cold week? A very pretty bouquet!

Pretty good looking Swiss chard for January 29, after a long week of a very cold spell

It founds it way into a split pea, sausage and Swiss chard soup – a riff off the classic Tuscan cannelloni, sausage & kale soup (although when I made it, I was not conscious of the riff… this is how one cook after all when cooking without recipes – from memory or from unconscious influences).

I don’t like raw Swiss chard (I never use its baby leaves in salad for example), but I like it a lot cooked. It’s very versatile for one:

  • quick wilted in the frying pan with lots of chopped garlic, then thrown into a soup, with pasta or served as a side vegetable;
  • blanched, refreshed and squeezed dried, they can be tossed with a bean salad, with pasta, into a tart or quiche, in a gratin or on top of crostini.

I don’t really like the ones with all the brighter colors either. They might be pretty raw, but they don’t look so appetizing cooked (the red ones bleed all over!), their texture is rougher, sometimes vaguely unpleasant. I prefer green Swiss chard, and I am always on the look-out for new cultivars to try in the garden.I also really like the ones with a very thick stems – I use them as a separate vegetable. They are perfect in a garlicky cream-based gratin with a sprinkling of hard cheese and bread crumbs.

The recipe below is ideal for a quick lunch or appetizer as you can prepare the Swiss chard (and the cheese if using homemade) well ahead and refrigerate it – bring back to room temperature before using. All that’s needed is to toast the bread, before topping it with cheese and the greens.

Lard Crostini With Fresh Farm Cheese & Spicy Swiss Chard Read more
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