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I was thrilled when Uncommon Goods asked if I would be interesting in reviewing some handmade gifts from their artists and makers! Uncommon Goods is an online community market place where you can pick out handcrafted gifts that are truly made with love! Each gift has a story about the artist who made it just for you.
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I’ve been pretty obsessed with cranberries lately! I mean they make such fabulous nightshade-free sauces like this cranberry ketchup (and my cranberry BBQ sauce featured in the new AIP Instant Pot Cookbook) it’s kinda hard not to get a little obsessed!
October is prime time for harvesting cranberries here in the NW. So last weekend hubby and I drove up the coast to Long Beach, Washington to pick our own cranberries at Cranguyma Farm for just 50 cents a pound u-pick! We also stopped by the super cool Cranberry Museum and Pacific Coast Cranberry Research Foundation located just down the road from Cranguyma Farm AND we visited the annual Cranberry Festival in Ilwaco, the next town over too! Oh, and if you are into cranberries as much as I am, be sure to bring some spending money to purchase all sorts of cranberry goodies in the museum gift shop, including my favorite no-white-sugar added cranberry jam, along with cranberry candles, cranberry lip balm (I bought this too!), cranberry ice cream, and fresh cranberries if you visit in October.
If you visit the Cranberry Museum you will learn all about how they grow and harvest cranberries in the NW. To sum it up short and sweet, you can harvest cranberries by dry picking (this is what we did) or flooding the area they are growing in to create a bog, use equipment to shake them loose from the small bushes so the cranberries will float to top of the water and then they are funneled out to a collection area in the corner of the bog. …
One of the most magical & informative wild food foraging adventures I have ever experienced was in June when I attended the Ginger Root Rendezvous Wild Food Adventure 4 day camp-out and workshop taught by Dr. John Kallas. This event takes place every summer in Silverton, Oregon. The extended weekend event is dedicated to being out in the field, learning how to correctly identify and prepare wild foods, and celebrating how tasty wild foods can be with a shared dinner each night. In this post I am going to share a little snippet of the highlights of the weekend, including some of the wild plants we learned about, but you will have to get yourselves out to Silverton, Oregon next summer if you want to know EVERYTHING this intensive wild food weekend entails!
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The following content is intended for readers who are 21 or older.
My husband and I just got back from a pretty amazing “glamping” trip where we visited historic hotels, ranches, natural hot springs, cabins, and wilderness areas in Eastern Oregon, Northern Nevada, and Western Idaho. It was such a fun trip! I am talking Epic!!
One of the coolest places we stayed was in an off-the-grid Forest Service Cabin we rented for 2 nights in the Blue Mountains in NE Oregon. The cabin came with a propane powered kitchen, kitchen utensils, indoor and outdoor picnic tables, and beds with mattresses. We just had to bring the food and sleeping bags. We also were sure to pack some wine, as wine goes so great with grilled steaks! I found the Cabernet Sauvignon from Woodbridge in these cute little “stackable” single serve wine glasses to be a great pairing for our dinner. I love these single serve glasses, as they don’t require a corkscrew to get into them, and a corkscrew is something we’ve accidentally left home without more than once.
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Wild Serviceberry Pie is one of my most favorite pies, EVER. Serviceberries, also called Saskatoon Berries, and June Berries, taste like a blueberry mixed with wild huckleberry. And the flavors really come out and dance when these berries are heated up. Once slice of this wild berry pie, and you will see why I consider serviceberry pie to be the ultimate rustic wild fruit pie! Bonus – I believe the serviceberries have a high pectin content as the pie filling thickens up so nicely without needing to added thickeners or starches. …
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone and should not be taken as medical advice. #StimulateTheSenses #CollectiveBias
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There is something so magical about collecting and eating wildflowers that just makes me happy!! How can you not be happy on a cool early summer morning spent outdoors in a field of wildflowers!! And the best thing about the flowers being featured in this edible wildflower salad is the are very likely already growing in your yard! In our yard we’ve got wild pea flowers, Oxeye Daisies, golden California Poppies in bloom right now, and if you don’t have a large yard, you can just as easily collect these flowers in a park or alongside a country road. Just wander in off the road a bit to avoid picking next to the road where they might have sprayed pesticides….
There is something so magical about being able to take a leisurely morning hike in the woods to pick your breakfast!! It’s mid June here in the Oregon Coast Range and the blue elderberry plants are in full bloom! And so are the “wild” feral pie cherries growing along the countryside, one of my most favorite fruits, which I also picked for this meal! But the true star of this recipe is the blossoms of the wild blue elderberry plant. So yes, when you eat the blossoms you are eating potential fruit, but where I live elderberries grow in such abundance, it’s hardly noticed that I’ve made breakfast from a few of the blossoms. I use the “blue elderberry” blossoms, which are actually white, as the red elderberries are said to be somewhat toxic to humans (this info varies based on which source you check). And the red elderberries are also said to be less palatable for this reason too. I should also note that it I’ve read there is some cyanide-inducing glycoside in the blue elderberry stems and leaves, but the berries and blossoms are edible, and as you surf the web you will find endless testimonies of people enjoying elderflower fritters with no ill effect. Most seem to also consider the tiny stem fragments that hold the blossoms together harmless, so I just cut off or eat around the larger stems.
I first learned about making wild edible elderflower fritters and pancakes from my most favorite wild food adventure book, “Foraging the Mountain West” I highly recommend this wild food guide whether foraging in your own neighborhood or for taking along on summer camping trips. We take this book on every outdoor adventure we go on! And from this book I have learned tons of neat tricks and tips on how to enjoy the bounty of wild foods that are growing all around us everyday!
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One of my favorite remedies for a spring cold is a hot mug of wild picked Douglas fir tip tea. You can also pick the spring tips (new growth) off of pine, spruce, and hemlock trees for your tea. I use Doug fir since we have so many Douglas fir trees on our property. We even have one within reach from our back deck, and that is the one I made this tea from when I was recently hit with a nasty little spring cold. I am pretty lucky when it comes to avoiding most cold and flues that are going around, but I was not so lucky this spring!
To make a cup of fir tip tea all you need is a small handful of tips, hot water, and I like to add in a cinnamon stick and a little honey. As both cinnamon and honey are said to be helpful in fighting a cold too. And the honey can help soothe a sore throat, and cinnamon is credited with being an expectorant.
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I am sharing some photos one of my most favorite places on earth. I feel so incredibly blessed every time I step foot into this little oasis, that it just happens to be right outside out back door. Our dogs also love to explore our woodsy backyard with me any chance they get. This hidden away natural habitat on the backside of our property has oak, cedar and Douglas fir trees, wild edible greens (including Miners Lettuce as featured in the recipe below), wild strawberries, Indian plums, wild flowers, and is a popular haven for the local wildlife including elk, deer, coyote, bobcat, and a wide variety of birds.
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We are enjoying the first few days of spring here in Oregon and you know what that means, Nettles!! The young tender stinging nettle leaves are ready for picking. We are pretty lucky to have a stream running through our property where the nettles love to thrive. If you go out looking for stinging nettles your best bet is to look in healthy ecosystems near creeks and ravines, where they are often growing within a short distance, as they do like being near water. Early spring is prime picking time to pick the plants for the optimum nutrient benefits, and if using for food it is said you want to harvest the leaves before the plant goes to seed. I always do my best to pick lightly in an area to leave enough of whatever I am picking for the wildlife to also enjoy and to assure future generations of the plants and seeds with thrive. With nettles I pick from the tender top leaves, leaving behind the bottom leaves and remainder of the plant.
Because nettles have little hairs on them that contain formic acid, and truly do sting, I wear gloves when I pick them. I also pick in a way where I grab the top of the leave and fold it over itself to help reduce contact with the stingy hairs under the leaves and along the stem. That said, I do always allow myself to get a few little stings on purpose on the back of my hand just to make a connection with the plant and the earth, and it makes me that much more alive. It has also been noted through history that the stinging nettle can be helpful in the treatment of arthritis when used topically in raw stringing form, or ingested after being cooked or taking extractions. A quick blanching of 60 seconds in hot water will remove all the ouchy stinging parts and make them safe to eat. I have read that drying nettles will do the same. In the photo below you can see those tiny yet potent little stinging hairs long the stalk and stem. Wild nettle has a nutty taste and is a bit like spinach, and I actually prefer the taste of cooked nettles over spinach.
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These low carb chocolate cake pancakes came to be because we are always go camping (well these days it’s more like “glamping”) for my hubby’s birthday, since it’s right in the middle of summer. And even though we may be sleeping in a small off grid cabin, in a fire lookout tower, or rustic lodge my hubby still deserves a “cake” to help celebrate the day. And this gal can make pancakes anywhere there is access to a fire or propane.
This past summer we were in Glacier National Park on his birthday. We spent the first night at the park in the”Honeymoon Sweet” (pictured below) at the Historic Belton Chalet. It was the only room available when I called so we took it! It was the ultimate “glamping” experience staying in the humbly posh and woodsy lodge. We even got our own cute private deck to watch the sunset. For breakfast the next morning Tom enjoyed an huckleberry bear claw from the infamous Pole Bridge Merctantile that I had purchased at the farmers market the day before. My low carb paleo apple fritter recipe was inspired by that bear claw he ate!
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Hello Comfort Food. This celery root puree with truffle and leek is quickly becoming a winter comfort food favorite at my house.
Below is a photo I took just steps from our front door, in a neighboring forest of 20 to 40 year old Doug Fir trees where wild truffles come to life here in the Oregon coast range. I was lucky enough to have a professional truffle hunter, Goose the black lab, and his owner Kelly, lead us to find wild truffles in this forest a few winters ago. Since then, I have been working on training our black lab, Jack, to hunt for truffles too.
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How to harvest Wild Plum Pit “Nuts” and feature them in a delicious summer salad!
This salad reminds me of mountain range. It starts off with a peak of fresh summer lettuce greens tossed in a a floral vinaigrette made from cherry pits and white wine vinegar that seriously tastes like cherry blossoms, mix in sliced wild plums, crisp cucumber, radishes, wild huckleberries, toasted wild plum pit “nuts”, finally crumble on a little goat cheese to cascade down like snow. This is my theme salad for this summer. We eat variations of this salad many times a week….
This recipe was inspired by our three day stay in Polebridge, Montana last week. Can I just tell you I loved everything about Polebridge! Tucked away in the northwest corner of Montana, just 22 miles south of the Canadian border, and on the western edge of Glacier National Park, you will find this great little gem of a town.
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