Wild Edibles

Nice, soldiermom. Will have to check out the sites, too. Thanks so much for that.

Something I do with acorns because I have no patience is to get two large pans of water boiling on the stove, dump the acorns into one pot and let them boil for 15-20 minutes then strain them out and put them in the other pot of boiling water. While they're in the 2nd pot boiling away, I empty the 1st pot and get another load of water boiling. Switching them out like this for about 4-5 boilings leeches out the tannin more quickly.

I think the Indians used to put them in a bag and leave them in a cool running spring for a year but you'd have to be prepositioned, have your stock of acorns already harvested, you'd have to have patience. My way works better for me. LOL.

I have a few more recipes but I'll have to go through and make sure they're not the same ones I already posted.

Ahhhllll be bach. (I make a better Sarah Connor than I do an Arnold Schwarzenegger-LOL).

[edit on 10-9-2009 by whitewave]

Originally posted by calstorm
reply to post by whitewave

 

I just bought the ingredients today, can't wait to try it.

Good for you! Proactive. I like that. Please let us know your results and experience with your recipes.

Eating the Ezekiel bread right now. very yummy, but next loaf, I'll try adding a tad more yeast.

Glad to hear it. If you used chlorinated tap water to dissolve your yeast that may be the problem you had with thinking you need more yeast. Chlorine inhibits yeast from rising. You can mix your yeast into some other liquid or use filtered water.

Also, I don't add the salt until the bread (any bread I'm making) is completely done rising. Yeast doesn't do well with salt. Yeast is a persnickety beast but, like any pet you take care of, you learn its likes and dislikes and grow to love it.

What did you use to crush the grains or did you get everything already in crushed form? I have a food processor and a coffee grinder. If one doesn't do the job the other one usually will.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. See folks? They really are edible foods. LOL.

Ahha, the salt and the chlorinated water would both be the problem then. Oh well, next batch, it was still yummy and filling. I ground the ingredients they hard way, by hand. Heck, it was a great stress reliever. I really need to get a new blender. With the left overs I made soup.

I thought the following link might come in handy since we're talking about a survival situation which may include no electricity. How do we cook all the goodies we've gathered from the wild?

Build a solar oven for under $10

We have a firepit in the backyard and a wood stove we use for heating in the winter that I can also cook on but I thought this oven would make a handy addition too. I haven't tried this yet, but I plan to.

It's probably a good idea to invest in some sturdy cookware that can be used over open flame. Anything from a coffee pot to a dutch oven and frying pan.

Just wanted to add too that a quick search on ATS will return other threads regarding solar ovens.

[edit on 9/11/2009 by soldiermom]

reply to post by calstorm


Good for you. You must be tired after all that grinding by hand. I go through blenders on such a regular basis that I have to plan them into my budget. I get the cheap ones because I haven't found the expensive ones last any longer.

What kind of soup did you add your "leavings" to?

reply to post by soldiermom


I lived out in the wilderness in Washington and in Oregon and a Dutch oven is a life saver. Those things are so sturdy and handy. I'd make biscuits on the lid in the morning over a pit fire and meat gravy in the pot. After breakfast, I'd gather whatever was going to be lunch/dinner, throw it in the pot over the burned down coals, cover it with coals and dirt over the lid then go enjoy my day. When I'd get back, food was ready to eat and keeping it warm was just a matter of putting it back on the embers.

Good call on the solar cooking. We can't rely on any of the current conveniences we have that are dependent on the infrastructure maintaining its status quo. Always good to have back up.

Some of these recipes won't be practical in a survival situation but they are provided to let people know what can be done with wild edibles. If you cook much at all, you get a feel for improvising with foods and their varied flavors and textures. I was making a linguine the other night and didn't have any cream to make an alfredo sauce so I just substituted a can of cream of mushroom soup instead of using alfredo sauce. Although those 2 "sauces" are nothing alike in flavor, the dinner was scarfed down by the family who didn't notice that I didn't adhere to the recipe.

In the meantime-before we have to revert to no amenities, cooking with wild edibles can help save a lot of money on your grocery bill and add nutrition. Plus it's fun, creative and gives you a good excuse to get out of the house on your own.

Originally posted by whitewave
reply to post by soldiermom

 

In the meantime-before we have to revert to no amenities, cooking with wild edibles can help save a lot of money on your grocery bill and add nutrition. Plus it's fun, creative and gives you a good excuse to get out of the house on your own.

So true on saving money on the grocery bill. I just said the exact same thing to my aunt a couple of hours ago on the phone. I tallied up around $400 that I've spent over the past two weeks to feed a family of five, sometimes six when my oldest son is home.

I'm going to start utilizing some of these recipes in hopes of cutting down on that monstrous amount I spend on food every month. It truly is outrageous.

The price of groceries lately is getting scarey. Still, the cost of living beats the alternative.

It's good to have choices and alternatives. If we can save on food (which is a large portion of a lot of people's outflow of income) and save on electricity by cooking with solar heat, we'll be ahead of the curve. If we can show our neighbors how to do the same, we'll be ahead of the crime wave.

My daughter has had her apartment broken into 3 times this week and she lives in a nicer neighborhood. People are getting hungry. I think most people would refrain from bad behavior if they thought they had alternatives and knew how to be more self-sufficient.

Been asking and hunting around for some easy recipes to add to the list and got a good one. It's BURDOCK SALSA. Who doesn't like salsa?

Chop up 3C. burdock leaf stalks, 5 tomatoes, 1 onion, 1/4C. green chilis. Add it all together in a pot and slow cook for 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I like to eat this one with those different colored vegetable chips. It's tasty with regular corn type chips too, though.

Many, many thanks for your excellent information. (S&F) There are many of those items available not far from where I live and in the right seasons we'll be trying some out. We are already avid collectors of many varieties of mushrooms, along with berries, wild apples and the like, and we dig our own wild horseradish every year. (Hot!! )

I like that simple recipe for frying the dandelions. It's amazing how many people don't know that some flowers are even edible! A while back my wife and I were walking through a park in Prague and we noticed lots of dandelions growing by the path, so we picked a few to munch on as we walked.

The looks we got from other walkers were really something!

Thanks for the kind words. It's good to hear that people try wild edibles and are willing to share their experiences with different foraged foods.

Raw dandelions are a little bitter for me but they sure make tasty fritters.

I think I truly understood the value of wild edibles during the Reagan era when he had some program for giving away cheese and peanut butter to the poor and needy. There was a distribution center where the line snaked down the street for blocks.

What's ironic is that most of those people were standing right next to lamb's quarter, poke, dandelions, etc. There they were surrounded by food for the picking while waiting in line for the government to give them something to eat.

PARTRIDGE PIE

1C. cooked bird (cubed)
3/4C. cooked peas
1/2C. carrots
rich biscuit dough/gravy
Combine gravy and vegetables. Pour in greased casserole dish over bird and top with biscuit dough. Bake at 450 degrees F. til topping is brown. Serves 4-6.

SADDLE MOUNTAIN STYLE GAME BIRD

Clean and split bird. With a brush (or split twig to use as a brush), baste well with a mixture of 2T. whiskey, 2T. molasses, 1 mashed garlic clove, salt and pepper. Wrap bird in foil. Grill slowly over a low fire 20-30 minutes per side depending on size of bird. Remove foil and let the skin crisp directly over fire.

Hi
star and flag

Thanks for a wonderful thread so much information

I have enjoyed your posts and have bookmarked this thread as well as one of your others for future reference.
very handy before setting off into the bush.

Thanks

Ocker

reply to post by ocker


Thanks for taking the time to read it. My hope is that by all of us sharing what knowledge we have, more of us will have a better chance for survival if the wheels come off.

If nothing happens, great; we still will have saved money, learned new things, made new friends, and will have eaten healthier foods.

Thanks for your post.

Originally posted by The Utopian Penguin
Here's some fact I gleemed off the internet
sorry no links to source.

Dr. Everett Koop (former US Surgeon General) 10 of the most nutritious vegetables in the world are:

1. Broccoli
2. Spinach
3. Brussels sprouts
4. Lima beans
5. Peas
6. Asparagus
7. Artichokes
8. Cauliflower
9. Sweet potatoes
10. Carrots


SPROUTING-best for nutrition
Broccoli
Alfalfa
Green Peas
Wheat (Wheatgrass)

Fruits- best for nutrition
1. Blueberries
2. Kiwi
3. Strawberries
4. Guava
5. Cranberries

I'm trying to find a good list of edible perennials as well for a Type 2-3 climate. anybody ?

Sorry, but I doubt the most nutritious veggies in the world are commonly found table greens. But whatever.... Mr surgeon general is boss. He would never lie to you



Anyway, great thread! I'm going up to the northwestern coast soon and I cant wait to see what I can find in the woods there. Lots of fun!

[edit on 9-10-2009 by TheMadHatter]

Originally posted by TheMadHatter

Sorry, but I doubt the most nutritious veggies in the world are commonly found table greens. But whatever.... Mr surgeon general is boss. He would never lie to you

Anyway, great thread! I'm going up to the northwestern coast soon and I cant wait to see what I can find in the woods there. Lots of fun!

Well, aren't you a ray of sunshine! Do let us know of your foraging experiences when you get back from your trip. Pictures are always a nice addition, too. Have fun.

lol sorry I just jumped on that before I read the rest of the thread. Apologies.

It's definitely a good read! I remember seeing a bunch of skunk cabbage there on a past travel. I have a book on coastal medicinal and/or edible plants. We'll see what I can find. I'll also take some pictures of what edibles I can recognize especially the fiddleheads IF I see any. Wrong time of year. One comment on that, the fiddleheads are just the new leaves emerging in the center of the plant. Cutting those wont stop the fern from growing unless you yank them or damage the plant when collecting.

reply to post by TheMadHatter


Feel like spending major dollars on A centrifuge ?

Chlorella and Spirulina