Passing on traditional skills like foraging, cooking from scratch and living well on less
Garlic scapes are in season at the moment, and they are delicious to use in garlic scape pesto. What are garlic scapes? These are the flower stems found in the center of hardneck and elephant garlic. These will eventually become flowers, but if left on the plant most of the plant’s energy will go […]
We recently had a bounty of rhubarb and I found myself looking for a great way to use it past the usual recipes. When I stumbled across a rhubarb juice recipe, I had to try it. That original recipe was a little bit (okay, a lot!) too sweet for my taste and even my kids […]
Looking for information on foraging in Japan, or just interested in learning about traditional Japanese wild foods? Eating Wild Japan is a fascinating read, with a few caveats. First of all, it has to be said that I read this book as an American forager. Our family forages hundreds of pounds of wild foods a […]
So you’ve decided you want to start cooking and eating more naturally, but you don’t have the money to invest in $500 blenders and fancy bakeware. The good news is that it doesn’t take a huge budget to make a huge difference in your kitchen. Here are some frugal ways to convert to a healthy […]
You’ve heard of the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken pots are repaired with lacquer mixed with gold so they’re more beautiful than they were to begin with. We can do the same things with our clothes, blankets and other belongings with darning, embroidery, patching and other techniques. It’s wonderful to learn simple mending techniques, […]
This is another recipe I’m putting online because friends ask me for it so often. 🙂 Here’s an easy, delicious way to use extra fruits and veggies you have on hand and create a fabulous gluten free treat at the same time. Every time we make it, it has a different flavor since we […]
It’s only February but we’re impatiently waiting to start foraging wild foods again. This time of year, when there’s still snow blanketing our Minnesota landscape, I’m already making mental lists of what wild edible foods will be emerging soon and what we want to look for. Here are our favorite wild foods that we forage […]
This time of year, our family really loves making old-fashioned cookies and treats — especially sugarplums. These fruit-based treats are all natural, gluten free, easy and customizable, plus they’re really fun to make with kids. I’m sure everyone has heard of sugarplums at Christmastime (“While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads” from Clement Moore’s […]
I have a new favorite mushroom foraging book. How to Forage for Mushrooms without Dying: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Identifying 29 Wild, Edible Mushrooms was released this month and I can’t recommend it enough. I was lucky enough to receive a digital Advanced Reader’s Copy of the book last spring, and I have been […]
So many homes and parks have crab apple trees and so few people put these tasty, healthy little fruits to use. Here’s a recipe to change all that! It’s easy, packed with vitamins and antioxidants, and delicious. It’s also practically free! I came up with this recipe to use up some crab apples that we […]
If you have a garden, chances are that you’ve been pulling up one of the best greens in it for years. Lambsquarters are a very common “weed” in yards and gardens, but they’re actually a really tasty plant that you should probably get to know! Lambsquarters are also known as lambs quarters, wild spinach, pigweed, […]
There’s nothing better when you have fresh tomatoes than homemade salsa — and luckily there’s almost nothing easier too. Here’s our 3-minute fresh salsa recipe, which is the type of salsa (pico de gallo) you get from authentic Mexican restaurants and so good. Our recipe is adapted from one I found years ago that we […]
Just for fun, I thought it would be fun to make wild edible and medicinal plant personality profiles. 🙂 Which would you be? Which ones would you add? 🙂 Please follow and like us:
A few years ago, we purchased a little sour cherry tree from some big box store because it was on clearance at the end of the garden season. That little cherry tree is now a huge, productive tree that we love! It makes the most beautiful white flowers in the spring. And then around July […]
If you’re lucky enough to have fresh beets in your garden or CSA box right now, don’t use them all in the roasting pan or pickle jar. From flourless chocolate cupcakes to beet pasta, there are oodles of wonderful ways to use beets in delicious new ways. These brightly colored veggies are surprisingly versatile. […]
There are some recipes I put on this blog because friends and family ask me for the recipe so often and I want to have an easy way to give it to them. Victoria’s cranberry sauce is one of those recipes. It’s so easy that it’s hard to believe that it is so tasty, and […]
Yes, even in the midst of a pandemic (actually, especially because of the pandemic), our family still foraged quite a number of wild foods this spring. Foraging was actually even more beneficial than usual in these unusual times since we used wild foods in part to help with recovery from our illness and foraging as […]
Life is too short to eat bad gluten-free pizza, and there’s no reason you have to. Gluten free pizza dough is easy to make at home (it’s even quicker and easier than traditional pizza dough!) and it is honestly delicious. We’ve been gluten free in our family for over eight years now, and pizza was […]
Last year was a good year for foraging for our family. We’ve been using wild foods as a major part of our diet for about 7 years now and it’s become a regular part of our routine for much of the year. Here’s how it looked for us in 2019. https://www.instagram.com/p/B1yDwnQBsi1/ What was good We […]
James Beard Award winning Southern chef Sean Brock released a new cookbook this week that I was lucky enough to preview. It was a fantastic read with stunning photography and mouth-watering, authentic recipes from all regions of the South — with a few caveats for some home cooks. This is a gorgeous, wonderfully written book […]
This article was originally published in Daryl’s Cooking with Kids column at examiner.com in September, 2013. Some links are affiliate links, meaning we get a small commission on purchases made through our links. Making fresh applesauce is something every kid should get to do. We are lucky enough to know several people with apple trees, […]
(Note: This recipe was originally posted by Daryl in his Cooking with Kids column on Examiner.com in 2012.) Here’s a quick and easy way to make tasty gluten-free, dairy free muffins that doesn’t require any special ingredients or much effort. Since our family went GF last spring, we’ve tried a lot of recipes that have […]
I have a new favorite book that I’ve been having a lot of fun using for my garden dreaming. The Everyday Sanctuary workbook is a companion book to Jessi Bloom’s popular Creating Sanctuary. I was able to read a digital advance copy of that book and loved it, so I was thrilled when the publishers […]
I read The Joy of Foraging: Gary Lincoff’s Illustrated Guide to Finding, Harvesting, and Enjoying a World of Wild Food while vacationing at a friend’s house, courtesy of her library book pile. It’s a good book to get from the library before purchasing it to get a feel for whether it will be a good fit […]
Dock seeds are prolific everywhere you look right now, so this is a great time to gather them and make dock seed flour. If you haven’t ever cooked with dock seeds, they’re an easy and healthy source of wild flour to forage. Dock grows as an invasive weed all over the world. You can often […]
We try to use nettles a lot around here since they’re so healthy, so tasty and grow so plentifully all around us. One of the kids’ favorite ways to enjoy nettles are in smoothies. Yes, really! You probably know how healthy stinging nettles are for you, but most folks don’t realize you can use them […]
Got boat loads of zucchini this time of year? Here’s a delicious and easy way to make use of them. Zucchini fritters are kid-friendly and tasty, and the recipe can easily be converted to gluten free (the way we make them), paleo and/or vegan. The recipe is very simple and adaptable, not even really a […]
A somewhat nerdy looking new book was quietly published this year that has the potential to not just greatly improve your life, but greatly improve the world. I admit that sounds like a bit of hyperbole, but Trees of Power offers a really inspirational look at how the trees that are all around us can […]
Here’s a super simple recipe that the kids like to make for fruit sorbet. I even let them make it for breakfast, because they think they’re getting a treat and I know it’s healthy. Just blend frozen fruit (pineapple is a family favorite and what’s pictured here) with sweetened vanilla non-dairy milk of your choice. […]
There’s a fantastic new book that focuses on foraging with kids. Family Foraging: A Fun Guide to Gathering and Eating Wild Plants was released last month and it’s my new favorite book on foraging with kids. The book, by David Hamilton, features 30 commonly found wild edible plants of North America. The plants covered in the […]
We recently found ourselves in the possession of over a dozen bags of prunes (dried plums) and found ourselves wondering what to do with that many prunes. We used some for fresh eating and for homemade granola bars and energy balls, but our favorite way to use them so far is in a spiced prune […]
Here’s one of my favorite ways to use wild ramps, and you can use it to enjoy the wonderful flavor of ramps all year long. Dry the leaves and grind them with coarse sea salt for a simple but delicious wild ramp salt. Simply dry wild ramp leaves until crisp and then put them in […]
Flowers can turn meals positively magical. From drinking out of tulip cups to to scattering flower petals in Wildflower Pound Cake to tossing brightly colored nasturtium petals in a salad, edible flowers can take an ordinary dish and make it extraordinary. There are plenty of flowers that are edible, but you need to be sure […]
We love roasted cauliflower heads in our family but it takes a lot of time and effort to roast them traditionally to cook up tender and bake throughout. I’ve discovered that the Instant Pot can eliminate most of the cooking time and delivers perfect roasted cauliflower heads in much less time. It turns out the […]
This is a fantastic simple and delicious recipe for apple or pear cobbler where the batter makes its own crust. Our fifteen year old son, Jack, made it last week and proclaimed that it was his favorite dish so far that he’s baked (which is saying a lot, as the kid loves to bake). We […]
Tired of spending too much money on gluten free flour mixes that are expensive, gritty, low in nutrition and high in cheap ingredients like white rice flour? It’s so easy to mix up your own gluten free flours for tastier baked goods with more nutrition — and they cost far less money. Here’s the recipe […]
Most foragers know that cattails are an excellent wild food, so much so that Euell Gibbons called cattails “nature’s supermarket.” Foragers eat the hearts of the young stalks and the immature flower spikes, the pollen and the root starch, which can be used for a versatile cooking flour. That said, many foraging sites say that […]
The garden may be put to bed in most of the country, but we don’t have to give up all of our marvelous garden herbs. Many of them can be enjoyed inside year-round. Hobby Farms has made it easy to know how to grow herbs indoors, with free printable ID cards for 11 garden […]
Since next to nothing is fresh in the garden or the wild in winter in this part of the country, this is the time we rely on the root cellar and pantry. Canned, dried, frozen and root cellar foods are all staples for winter cooking for our family, including lots of wild foods we foraged […]
A new foraging book is sure to help folks in Eastern Canada and the Northeast United States find all kinds of fabulous wild foods. Eating Wild in Eastern Canada: A Guide to Foraging the Forests, Fields, and Shorelines provides photos, stories, cooking suggestions and recipes for all kinds of wild foods, from lobster mushrooms to […]
This past year was a pretty good year for foraging for our family. We foraged several hundred pounds of wild foods total, including some that were new to us. We also foraged quite a nice variety of wild foods and medicinal plants — 35 different kinds! We foraged in our own back yard, in parks, […]
2018 was an unbelievable year for fantastic new foraging books. There was something for everyone, from vegans to hunters, new foragers to seasoned experts, whether you live down south, in the desert or in New York City, and whether you want to learn about creating wild beer and wine, how to teach your children to […]
Looking for some creative alternatives to gift wrap and wrapping paper? From sheet music to pages from ruined children’s books to silk scarves, here are all sorts of fun (and earth friendly!) things to wrap presents with. Not only are they better for the environment, but many of them are free, too. In […]
A new cookbook has the perfect solution for that supper time rut. The Make-Ahead Sauce Solution: Elevate Your Everyday Meals with 61 Freezer-Friendly Sauces by Elisabeth Bailey offers a wonderful variety of sauces to use in all different ways that can help take simple meals to the next level. Anyone who’s ever eaten at a […]
I brought acorn spice cupcakes to my latest acorn presentation last week, and lots of people have asked for the recipe. Here it is, excerpted from my acorn foraging book. This recipe works with either gluten free flour mixes or regular wheat flour. Most of the recipes in my book are gluten free or have […]
Once you get started foraging, it’s helpful to keep records of what you gathered and when. We usually keep a running list on the fridge, but I decided it would be fun to have some nice looking printable pages to start keeping a more permanent record of all of our wild food harvests. Since I […]
Foragers and back yard gardeners often have the happy blessing of buckets of fruit to make use of this time of year. Here’s a wonderful recipe to make use of blueberries, mulberries, black raspberries, mulberries, peaches, strawberries or any other fruit that you have a bounty of. Sometime around mid-July every year, we pick over […]
It’s acorn season, which means one of the best wild foods out there is abundant and free right now. Acorn rice patties are delicious ways to make use of acorns and also happen to be vegetarian and gluten free. We usually have dried acorns and acorn flour on hand for cooking all year long, but […]
It’s zucchini season, meaning that even if you don’t grow zucchini you probably have more than enough giant zucchinis to find something to do with. Here’s a delicious way to make use of it. This zucchini bread recipe is simple and quite versatile. You can use your favorite gluten free flour mix or a blend […]
A well-known Instagram star’s popular new foraging cookbook has been pulled by its publisher, thanks to the fact that some actual foragers got a hold of it and alerted readers to some dangerous (and seriously unpalatable) recipes inside it. Tales from a Forager’s Kitchen: The Ultimate Field Guide to Evoke Curiosity and Wonderment with More […]