Forage Friday Part II

I went out again this morning before it got too hot.  I saw pretty much the same as last week, I won't reshoot everything I already did, with a few additions.  The mulberry tree still has pink fruits on it so I should be able to collect again next week.  Garlic is ever-present.  The wild onions are nearing the end, there were a lot of dried stalks with aerial bulblets on them and only a few green stemmed ones left.  Here's what I found new (or just happened to notice this week)

Wood Sorrel - it looks a bit like a clover, it has a distinctive lemon taste.  Don't make this a primary food source as it contains oxalic acid, which is bad for you in large quantities.

Chicory - if you've ever played Skyrim, you know this as blue mountain flower.  Its roots are used to make a coffee substitute.  I collected a bit but it needs to dry.

Chantrelles - I found my first one of the year!  These small orange/yellow mushrooms can be found on the forest floor.  As always with mushrooms, if you're not sure throw it out!  I'm sure on this one though, and I've found a spot near me where they are growing (so I don't have to drive 40 minutes to my other spot.)

Basswood nuts - I just missed the window on what I think is a new and good source of wild food.  I had previously found these nuts to be edible when they drop on the ground though they are tiny and have 2 shells.  The first can be peeled and the second one you can crack by heating them in a pan, they reminded me of popcorn kernels I recall.  I was by our old house on Sunday and for no good reason picked one of the unripe flour/seeds.  It was nutty and a little sweet.  Today the flowers are falling off and the nuts are much greener.  I still picked a small container of them, even though I think they are past their prime.  I will have to try to get them a little earlier next year.

Sir Not Appearing in this film - there is an apple tree between our old house and current residence that always drops fruit on the sidewalk, and always seems to be fruiting too early.  I stopped there on the way and sure enough, I collected a pocket full of small under-ripe apples!

Here were my collections for the day, clockwise starting at noon - mugwort, garlic, burdock root, mulberries, wild onion bulblets, basswood nuts, wood sorrel, apples.  Off to the right is a sumac cone soaking in water.  

So here is what I managed to craft.

Back row, soup made from the mushroom broth mentioned in my last post, this was a little too strong and a bit bitter.  I added water later but haven't revisited it since I was full.  Sumac tea, the cone was still a little weak, it should have a good strong vitamin C flavor.  It really reminds me of Dairymen's tea when its good.  This was passable.  Basswood tea, this was a byproduct of boiling the hell out of the nuts, it had a fairly good flavor.  I dropped a bit of catnip in there, which is a mint relative that grows around here.  I guess I'll photograph that next week.  Anyways that and a bunch of sugar and I had a fine beverage.

Plate, clockwise from noon; apples and mulberries, uh, compote? I don't really know what a compote is but I guess that's what I'll call this.  I feel like this took a lot of sugar to sweeten up since the apples were so dry and tart, but the final outcome tasted good.  Rabbit, uh, pate?  I was trying for a pate but there isn't enough fat so its really just shredded meat.  It tastes good, its made of meat after all.  Apple and Maple glazed rabbit, this was the best of the plate.  I took the other (front) half of the rabbit I started on last week, and cut 2 good strips of meat off the back.  I am saving the legs for a bbq tonight.  The rest I threw in a pot with the burdock root and boiled into the previously mentioned 'pate'.  Back to the fillets, I put the apples in enough water to cover them and cooked them down until they were soft, I added the fruit into the mulberries that were already cooking and saved the liquid.  To this liquid I added some sugar and let it reduce down a bit.  I pounded the 2 fillets thin with a kitchen hammer, then dipped them in the maple apple glaze and then cooked them in a cast iron skillet.  These were completely devoured.  Burdock root, after last weeks experience I figured out how to deal with these roots.  If you have ever peeled the center out of a carrot, that is pretty much what you have to do to these roots and then boil them for an hour.  They were acceptable, a bit like a starchy asparagus.  Roasted garlic, I just put some of the bigger cloves in the cast iron pan and put it on a very low heat and kept rotating them until they were soft.  I have had better in restaurants but I haven't had much success prior to this on my own, so I call it a win!  Finally, mashed garlic and basswood nuts.  I boiled the hell out of both of these.  There wasn't that much mashed garlic so I added into the basically flavorless basswood nuts, resulting in something that feels very filling but a bit of a chore to eat.

Everything was at least edible.  Here's my ratings;  soup 3/10, weak sumac tea 5/10, basswood tea 6/10, compote 7/10, pate 7/10, glazed rabbit 9/10, burdock 5/10, roast garlic 6/10, mashed gruel 4/10.