Eating "Local"

The Truly Wild 4H group that met in Lake Placid braved the rain to discover Jerusalem artichokes (aka sunchokes- not from Jerusulem & not artichokes but a native relative of the sunflower), the visible and scent differences between Queen Anne's Lace and hemlock, spotted jewelweed, mayapple, stinging nettle, thistle, day lily, burdock, and other plants in their early summer stage of growth. Luckily Gail brought extra umbrellas and the rain stopped before we were done.

Dinner was Truly Wild & Truly Local!

Salad-fresh spinach, self heal, red clover, day lily, wild strawberry, thistle celery, chickweed and wood sorrell. The dressing was local honey, with the only item not local-balsamic vinegar. Next time we will use all local products in the dressing!

Bread- Dandelion & Violet

"Flour" made from dehydrated dandelon blossoms & dried violets make this bread unique. Recipe will be in the next blog edition.

Milkweed & Rice Casserole- Everything but the brown rice was local.

Truly Wild Soup with Dandelion Pasta - Everything was locally grown or produced. The eggs were free range, blue/green and brown. * What kind of chickens lay blue/green eggs? The flours used in the pasta were locally milled. The soup was made from a vegetable base of : Lambsquarters, thistle root, burdock root, young burdock stem, thistle celery, evening primrose root, dandelion, and a handful or spinach from my garden. Frozen leeks, local garlic, frozen fiddleheads, daisy leaves, all sauteed in butter added extra flavor.

The Chateaugay Rec Park Truly Wild group also braved a rain storm to gather cattails, and other additions to our meal.

The tender center stem of cattail gathered from unpolluted water, is a very tasty addition to any stir fry, soup or salad. Pull the outer tougher leaves to expose the white "celery", rinse in cold water, slice and enjoy. Cattail root, stem, green "tail" and pollen were a staple of the Native American diet.

Milkweed Stir Fry - Milkweed buds, cattail celery, day lily, lambsquarters, and many other items were stir fried and served over dandelion pasta. We also enjoyed milkweed blossoms topped with butter! Milkweed was definitely a hit.

The boys nearly finished an entire jar of dandelion jelly with their dandelion bread! There will be a dandelion jelly making class in the spring just so Josh can have his own supply.