Foraging and Weekly Happenings

Hello dear friends!  How are you this lovely Spring day?  We had a few days of warm(er) weather so I've been enjoying some outdoor activities.  It was so nice to go outside without having to put on my big bulky, my name for my down-filled winter coat.  Rejoice in the little things! It was warm enough for the dandelions to pop out.

FORAGING

Dandelions must be the easiest to recognize and most abundant food to forage that ever existed.  When foraging, make sure to pick only in areas you know that haven't been sprayed with herbicides or fertilizers or where pets like to do their business.  This year we tried something different, dandelion fritters:

They were quite good, although a little piddley to make"

Dandelion Fritters

1/2 C, flour
1/2 C. cornmeal
1 tsp. your favorite seasoning (we used Cajun)
1 egg
2 tbsp. milk
the heads of clean dandelions


Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl.  Whip together the egg and milk. dip the heads in the egg mixture then into the flour/cornmeal mixture.  Fry in hot oil until the coating is browned.  Salt and pepper to taste.

We also had dandelion salad with this using some of the dandelion leaves and some of our lettuce that we are growing in our cold frames:

This recipe is just your basic wilted lettuce salad but with dandelion leaves in lieu of lettuce, you can use spinach too.

Wilted Lettuce

a few rashers of bacon
2 tbsp. cider vinegar
2 tsp. sugar
lettuce

Fry the bacon until crisp. Drain off all but a tablespoon of the bacon grease.  Add the vinegar and sugar to the frying pan along with the bacon grease.  Stir until  the sugar is dissolved.  Put the lettuce into the hot frying pan and spoon the grease over the top, until the lettuce begins to wilt,  Sprinkle the bacon over top.  Serve immediately.

This was a doubly foraged meal for us as the vinegar I used was made from some foraged crab  apples.  Spring is a wonderful time to forage.  We went out morel mushroom hunting Sunday afternoon, or as we call it "a nice stroll in the woods". We rarely find any.  And when I think of the grocery bags full that we used to pick as children. Ah! The good old days!

There's also lambs quarters and purslane to be found at this time of the year. And our friend Jason told us his young son made dandelion chips (like kale chips).  Pretty clever!  Caleb is parsimonious person in training. You're never going to hear me complain about free food.  It's like money  in the bank!

WHAT'S  GOING ON

Ran and Jamie swept our chimney.  That saves us about $150 and a lot of frustration, because dealing with independent small business people around here, particularly in anything that is home-related is like banging your head against the wall a lot of  the time.  Anyway,  somehow, the chimney brush came off  midway up the chimney.  Thoughts of how embarrassing it was going to be to call the chimney sweep  to have him retrieve the brush quickly popped into my head.  So I was standing there fretting , when Ran turned to me and said "You standing there worrying isn't helping anything." Ha!  So true!  How many times have I stayed up all night worrying about things, only to have nothing come of the problem?  How many times has what I worried about came to fruition only to discover that I could handle it and it wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined?  And yes, it is true, worrying never helped anything. So whatever situation you are going through right now, don't worry, instead put on your thinking cap and come up with a solution.

I've had many discussion with family and friends over the past few weeks about what may or may not happen to the economy.  Some experts say we'll be in the next depression soon, others say we'll bounce back. Some say there will be food shortages, some say not.  I don't know and I'm through trying to make any predictions.  But I do know that putting aside some things has never hurt anyone.  Remember when everyone was predicting a major catastrophe for Y2K?  I didn't really believe the hype, but I bought a big bag of pinto beans, just in case.  Nothing ever happened, but we used the beans anyway.  It certainly didn't hurt.  And that's the beauty of prepping, if nothing comes of whatever the headlines of the day are, you still can use the food.  So to that end, when I went grocery shopping this week, I took notice that there was very little meat on stock at Aldis and what they had they were limiting to two packages a person., so I went to a smaller independent grocer and purchased some pork and canned it up.  I also noticed that  our Mennonite butcher's (he raises, butchers, and sell his own meat) parking lot was full.  Usually, we are the only people in his store. Let's just say he doesn't normally do such high volume business. All this to say in my long-winded way, "what would it hurt?" to stock up a little?

We order our firewood this past week.  Our local supplier is a very nice  man and always quickly fills our order and is very generous.  We order 10 cords but he always brings between 13-15 cords.  And never charges extra! As a matter of fact, he gave us a discount because we are loyal customers.  Makes a person happy to support a small businessman like that.  If only they all could be so dependable!   So Ran and Jamie spent the week splitting and stacking wood.  Ran splits wood, with an axe ( no log splitter for him), like he was thirty years old.  All this fresh garden produce must be doing his body good, because he'll turn 63 in a couple of weeks.  My thirty-something year old son, says Ran can run circles around him. Just goes to show you, that yes, good organic produce and plenty of it, plus regular exercise keeps you young.  We never think about our age, occasionally we will overhear someone state theirs and we'll look at each other and say, "That old person over there, is younger than us!" Ha!  We never realized that we had gotten old, been too busy I guess.  So anyway, we are ready for winter, although spring has barely arrived.  Up here we only have two seasons, winter and getting ready for winter.  Tonight it is supposed to snow. Ugh! But I guess it just makes the warm days sweeter. And I hope that you have a sweet days ahead of you!

Hugs
Jane