I remember the very first time I ate an apple straight from the tree. It was as if I had been in Plato’s cave my whole life and what I thought were apples were only shadows.
Crisp. Juicy. Sweet. Refreshing.
I was in college by the time I experienced an amazing apple, as where I grew up was too cold to have fruit trees. Fruit trees, apparently, don’t like -40 temperatures. Actually, I can’t think of any living thing that does. Click to continue reading
A delight in nature influences my mother’s adventurous culinary skills. I grew up thinking it was normal to gather stinging nettles to eat or plantain to heal.
One wild vegetable/herb that is easy to forage is spruce tips. Spruce trees are the ones with scaley bark and short, prickley needles. In the spring, new growth sprouts from the ends of branches, a bright neon green against the dark old growth.
The smell of spruce tip tea brings me back to smokey fires and crisp morning alpine air. The little blackened tin pot would be have a few flecks of ash in the water, and the bright green tips would darken to an ugly brown as they infused their goodness into the hot water.
Spruce tips are full of vitamin C, although apparently three year old needles have the highest amount. The tips are much easier to gather, however, as they are easily pinched off and not prickly. Besides tea, you can also make beer, finishing salt, and spruce honey. I haven’t ventured into beer making (yet), but the salt and honey are easy to make.
Preserving herbs in honey is my favourite method of preservation – it’s easy, tasty, and lasts forever. I’ve done it with elderflowers, spruce tips, and have plans for more. Using sugar to make a medicinal syrup seems counterproductive to me, and using honey is much easier. I don’t have a recipe – just chopped up some spruce tips, threw them in a jar and poured honey overtop till it felt right, and stirred. I’m saving it for winter months, to stir in tea or take by the spoonful for colds and flus. I opened it after two weeks and it has an amazing smell and taste, quite different from the original spruce tips but I can’t describe it. You’ll just have to make it.
Making spruce finishing salt is just as easy. Chop up spruce tips finely, mix with equal amounts of (unrefined) salt, spread out to dry. When dry, put the mixture in a jar. The salt helps the spruce to dry faster; I dried some spruce tips plain, and they took much longer.
Hunger and Thirst has some excellent ideas for using spruce salt, including on mushrooms and in a bath. Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska also has some great recipes with spruce tips, including spruce mayonnaise and spruce shortbread.
I also used the spruce tips to make ice cream. I happened to use rapadura to sweeten it because it was the only sweetener I had on hand, and I ended up loving the caramel flavour of the rapadura paired with the zingyness of the spruce. For those on GAPS or AIP, dates would make a great substitute for the rapadura, I’ll update with how much when I try it.
I used homemade coconut milk which has considerabely less coconut flavour than bought coconut milk. I recommend making the coconut milk or using another mild flavoured milk, such as almond or cow milk/cream.
Spruce Tip Ice Cream (Dairy Free)
2 cups homemade coconut milk
1/2 cup spruce tips
1/2 cup rapadura
1 tsp gelatin powder
2 egg yolks
Heat the coconut milk until almost boiling. Add spruce tips and turn off the heat. I infused it for about 10 minutes, like for tea. If you are used to spruce tip flavour and want it stronger, you can infuse it for hours.
While still warm, pour the milk spruce tea through a sieve. Stir in rapadura. Sprinkle gelatin overtop and let bloom for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks. Temper the egg yolks by adding the milk mixutre a tbsp at a time until the eggs are well mixed, about 4 tbsp. Mix the yolks with the rest of the milk.
If you have an ice cream maker, follow the instructions for your particular maker.
If you don’t have an ice cream maker but do have a high speed blender, you can try it this way: put the milk mixture in the freezer. Stir it every once in a while when you happen to remember as it’s freezing (I’m so precise, I know). I think I managed three before it froze solid. When frozen solid, use a spoon or butter knife to cut the ice cream into chunks (alternatively, freeze the ice cream mixture in ice cube trays). Put the frozen chunks inside a high speed blender and blend until smooth, pushing down the pieces with a tamper as necessary. Put back in the freezer to let it firm up again.
If you have neither ice cream maker or high speed blender, you can whisk it every 10 min or so while it freezes, but I’ve never managed to remember for enough times.
Serve and savour the wild foraged goodness!
Shared at Fat Tuesday, Hearth and Soul, Allergy Free Wednesday, Gluten Free Wednesday, Real Food Wednesday, Pennywise Platter, Simple Lives Thursday, Fight Back Friday, Simple Meals Friday, Thank Goodness It’s Monday, Savoring Saturdays
In honour of Mother’s Day on Sunday, I thought I’d take the opportunity to brag pay tribute to my own mother, particularly as pertains to my food philosophy and thus this blog.
Our childhood was a bit unusual; my sister recently described our Easter celebrations. Think Laura Ingalls Wilder – we were Little House in the Big Woods set the 20th century. Click to continue reading
I love discovering new food combinations with ingredients I already know. There are a few Slovak combinations I haven’t gotten used to, like French toast with ketchup or tartar sauce, or pasta with cocoa powder or jam.
These cakey squares, though, are perfect. It’s not the combination of apricot and walnut, or any fruit and nut mix, that is new, but the way of putting it together. My mother in law makes them, and I made a paleo adaptation, grain and gluten free.
Click to continue reading
As the weather turns to spring and gets warmer, I start making more salads.
One of my favourites is this simple salad with cucumber and radish – it’s light, crispy, and ridiculously easy to put together. After I made this yesterday, my girls were asking me to make it again today. Click to continue reading
My youngest sister and her daughter were visiting from Canada for two weeks. It was so lovely to have someone to chat with while cooking, giggle over family stories, and sing harmony with. She washed many sinkfuls of dishes and watched the kids so my husband and I could have a couple dates. Thank you, Miwa!
Having her here brought to mind something I’ve thought to myself in moments of mom-desperation. “We were meant to live in tribes, to have aunts and cousins and grandmothers help with children, and meals, and life in general.” Living close to family has it’s own perils, but so many of us live in relative isolation. Parents spend more hours at work than with children or spouses, extended family often lives far away. Some communities of friends support each other, others have yet to. Click to continue reading
Last week I wrote about our outing to harvest ramps (or more properly, European bear garlic). There is another wild vegetable available early in the spring: stinging nettle.
It’s a busy week this week here at Almost Bananas, I’ve got another post over at Whole New Mom. It was my birthday a few weeks ago and I wanted something special – this cake did not fail to deliver: buckwheat crepe cake with chocolate (or carob) avocado filling and hazelnut ‘cream’. Moist and rich, it’s also gluten free, dairy free, and adaptable to egg and nut free. Head on over and check out the recipe!
I’ve seen recipes and references to bulletproof coffee, basically coffee blended with butter, but mostly ignored it because I don’t drink coffee. Then a friend recommended Hot Buttered Cinnamon Tea.
I almost facepalmed. If in coffee, why not in tea?
I realize that I have a proportionately high number of recipes with cauliflower, like Garlicky Cauliflower Medallions and Bibimbap. In those recipes cauliflower is a substitute (flour, rice); in this recipe, cauliflower shines as itself. Click to continue reading