Hazelnuts

Posted on September 15, 2014 by myediblebackyard

One thing I’m really going to miss about my old house when it finally sells is the hazelnut bushes. There are four of them, planted by the previous owner. I’ve been getting some pretty good harvests from them in the past few years.

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It’s a labor-intensive harvest. First you have to pick the pods from the bushes. They grow singly or in clusters of two to four pods, sometimes more. You can wait until the pods have turned completely brown and started to dry and open up. If you do that, however, chances are the local critters will beat you to it and you’ll lose a good portion of your crop. So it’s better to pick a little earlier and let the nuts finish ripening in the house.

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You can pick them when the pods have started to brown on the outside. If you open one at this stage, you’ll see that the nut inside is brown. If the nut is a creamy color, it’s too early to pick.

Spread the pods on a flat surface (I use one end of the dining room table) to dry. It can take a couple of weeks. If you are impatient, like me, you can open the pods and remove the nuts before they are completely dry. You’ll end up with sticky hands, though, and the nuts are much easier to remove from the dry pods.

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Put the nuts in a bowl with a nutcracker for snacking. Watch out if you have mice. I’ve had all the nuts disappear out of a bowl, only to discover them later hidden in dark closet corners and under sofa cushions.

I mostly use the nuts for baking. I shell them and store them in the freezer (to keep them from getting rancid) so I can just pull out what I need when baking time comes. The best method I’ve found so far for shelling the nuts is folding them in a dish towel (to keep the shells from flying all over) and hitting them with a hammer.

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This is somewhat tedious, so if anyone can suggest a more expedient method, please let me know.

To bring out their flavor, roast the nuts before adding them to a recipe. Spread them out on a baking sheet and put in a 350-degree oven for 5 to 10 minutes. Watch carefully so they don’t burn. They’re good in pumpkin bread and in toppings for fruit crisps.

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So Many Tomatoes

Posted on September 12, 2014 by myediblebackyard

There’s nothing like the taste of a freshly-picked tomato, but oh, jeez, there are just so many of them this time of year. Just about every meal these days seems to contain something tomato-y. And as if the piles of them that come in my weekly CSA share weren’t enough, this week I also bought a box of tomato “seconds” for making sauce.

A few years ago, my sister-in-law gave me a recipe for making roasted tomato sauce. I tried it out, and a few other recipes I found online as well, all tasty. Now I no longer follow a recipe, but just throw whatever in the pan. It always comes out good.

For this most recent batch, I used 13 tomatoes of varying sizes plus a handful of cherry tomatoes that were just about to pass their prime. I chopped up the tomatoes and put them in a baking pan, skins and all, with a medium chopped onion, five cloves of garlic, a couple of teaspoons each of dried basil and oregano, a tad of salt, and olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The amount of oil you use depends on how rich you like your sauce. I like it on the light side so add just a couple of tablespoons. On the other hand, I love the taste of balsamic vinegar so I am more generous with that.

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It filled a 9×13 baking pan. I put it in a 400-degree oven for an hour and a half, until the vegetables were soft and the tomatoes were just beginning to blacken. You could probably leave it in for up to two hours, for a thicker, more blackened sauce. I’m too impatient for that. Here’s what it looks like just out of the oven:

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I pureed it in the blender in batches and put it in freezer boxes. I got five pints to enjoy next winter when I’m in need of a little taste of summer.

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My Edible Plastic Condo

Posted on September 7, 2014 by myediblebackyard

I have not been neglecting this blog for the past couple of months. I’ve just been too busy packing and getting ready to move to have any time to write. I haven’t had much time for backyard eating, either, though I did manage to get a good quantity of raspberries, blueberries, and green beans into the freezer.

Now the move is complete, the unpacking has begun, and I am settling into my new residence. The house with the edible backyard is for sale and I am now living in a condo-type community. But even in a place such as this, as I have been happy to discover, there are plenty of opportunities for backyard eating. The neighborhood sits right next to the woods, and the landscapers seem to have a policy of allowing areas around the edges of the manicured lawns to stay natural. I have been eyeing an apple tree in one such area, and yesterday I decided to finally check it out.

The tree is located on a very steep slope (probably the reason why there’s no landscaping there) surrounded by thick brush. So it’s not very easy to reach the fruit on branches, and the apples that fall off roll down, down, down into brushy no-man’s land. I was able to gather enough apples, though, to make a decent batch of applesauce.

The apples are yellow with a rosy blush and taste slightly tart.

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They made a delicious applesauce.

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Right now, the areas beyond the lawns are bright with goldenrod. No doubt they also hold many natural edible delights, and I look forward to future adventures exploring and foraging around my edible plastic condo.

 

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Eating in the Garden

Posted on June 29, 2014 by myediblebackyard

Here are some critters I’ve found eating the garden, or eating in it.

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At least this snail was eating weeds. Its buddies have been gorging on my perennials and beans.

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A bug visiting the elder.

 

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I found this luna moth by the steps one morning after I had left the light on all night. Strangely, its body had not been eaten. It’s a complete moth. Even its antennae are intact.

 

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A little bug on the hazelnut bush.

 

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Milkweed Buds

Posted on June 24, 2014 by myediblebackyard

Milkweed Buds

During a late summer hike a couple of years ago, I gathered a handful of milkweed pods while crossing a field. When I got home, I opened the pods and scattered the seeds around my property. I planted my first milkweed crop.

When nothing appeared last year, I figured my experimental crop had failed and completely forgot about it. So I was surprised and delighted when I came across a small stand of milkweed in my field the other day.

Milkweed is a delicious wild food. You can eat all parts of the plant. I am particularly partial to the buds and the young pods. When I discovered my new milkweed crop the other day, the plants were covered with buds, so I steamed some and ate them for lunch with butter and salt.

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Milkweed has a very distinctive taste. There’s no way I can think to describe it; it just takes like milkweed. You’ll have to try it for yourself and see if you like it.

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Mowing the Lawn

Posted on June 18, 2014 by myediblebackyard

This is my lawn mower.

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This is my yard.

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Any questions?

OK, you may want to know why I choose to mow such a large expanse with just a person-powered mower.

Simple answer: Because I am a little but nuts. Also, it reduces my carbon foot print. And, it enables me to do two things at once: cut the grass and get exercise.

Mostly, though, it’s because I don’t like being dependent on scary machines that I don’t know how to fix. I already have a computer dependency and a car dependency. That’s about as much dependency as I can handle. I’m pretty sure a gasoline-powered mower would just about push me over the edge. But I know how to sharpen this mower, oil it, and change any worn-out parts. That’s pretty darn good for a machine-phobic person such as myself.

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Anticipation

Posted on June 15, 2014 by myediblebackyard

Berries are on the way.

The first to ripen, in early July, will be these wild black raspberries. Around here people call them blackcap berries. So exquisitely delicious.

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These are the blossoms of cultivated purple raspberries.

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Wild blackberries.

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Elderberries, still in bud stage.

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These are the teeny tiny beginnings of hazelnut pods.

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I had a bumper crop last year. It’s still hard to tell how good a crop is coming in this year, but every day I see more and more of the tiny pods.

 

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Spruce Tip Shortbread

Posted on June 11, 2014 by myediblebackyard

In my quest for interesting things to do with spruce tips, I’ve come across numerous recipes for spruce tip shortbread. This definitely appeals to my love of baking, not to mention eating, cookies.

I decided to try the recipe here because it seemed fairly simple and used few ingredients. I followed the recipe exactly except instead of all-purpose flour, I used whole wheat pastry flour, which is what I use for pie crusts.

Other than that, I did everything the recipe said, even to the point of using the food processor, something I tend to shy away from because of all that annoying assembling, disassembling, and washing of multiple parts. However, It was worth using the food processor for this recipe. It chopped up the spruce tips well and easily mixed them with the rest of the ingredients.

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Not surprisingly the dough turned out rather greenish.

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But the finished product was a lovely golden brown.

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It tasted like shortbread with a hint of citrusy Christmas tree. It was a bit crumbly, as the recipe implies, but the pieces I stored in the freezer were not crumbly at all when  I took them out. They may have become so when thawed, but I didn’t wait around to find out. Are you kidding?

 

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Spruce Tip Syrup

Posted on June 8, 2014 by myediblebackyard

Spruce Tip Syrup

I learned about pine tip syrup and spruce tip syrup on a wild foods walk a few years ago. Since then, I’ve made the spruce tip syrup several times because I have lots of spruce trees on my property. You need to make this in the spring when the new growth emerges from the ends of the branches—the light green tips.

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The flavor has been described as citrus-y, and I think that’s accurate. It smells like a Christmas tree while brewing, but the flavor of the final product is closer to a lemon.

Spruce Tip Syrup

Bring to a boil 2 cups water and 2 cups sugar. Remove from heat and stir in 2 cups fresh spruce tips. Cover and let sit over night. Strain through a coffee filter into clean jars. This should keep for 3-4 months in the refrigerator.

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I mix the syrup with seltzer water, ice, and a squeeze of lemon juice to make a refreshing summer drink. It’s great on a hot day. You could probably use the syrup to flavor just about anything you cook. I bet it would taste great poured over sponge cake.

 

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Eating Chives

Posted on June 5, 2014 by myediblebackyard

I have lots of chives on my property, put there by the previous owner. Strangely, he planted them beneath two spruce trees. I guess he didn’t consider the fact that the trees would grow and spread their shade. But they did, so I transplanted the chives to various sunny spots around the garden.

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I put some by the rose bushes because I had heard they repel aphids. I’ve never seen aphids in these roses, so I guess it works.

I like eating fresh, chopped chives in a green salad. They also make a tasty addition to scrambled eggs.

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They add a nice flavor to almost any dish. Here’s what I made for dinner the other night:

 

Spinach, Mushrooms, and Chives with Pasta

½ lb pasta (I used whole wheat spinach spaghetti)

2 or 3 garlic cloves, minced

a large handful of chives, chopped

½ lb white mushrooms

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 lb fresh spinach, rinsed and torn into smaller pieces

grated cheese, any kind you like

Cook the pasta according to the package directions. While it is cooking, sauté the garlic in a small amount of olive oil in a large frying pan. When it starts to brown, add the chives, mushrooms, and thyme. Cook until the mushrooms are tender, about five minutes. Add the spinach, still damp from the rinse water, and cook until wilted, 3-5 minutes. Serve over the pasta. Sprinkle grated cheese on top.

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