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#foraging

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A British feast from garden weeds

Jessica Vincent, 8 May 2020

Excerpts: "It was an unusually hot April morning in Colchester, England, and the fields, now in full bloom, were bursting in brilliant yellows, whites and purples. Armed with a wicker basket and David Squire’s book Foraging for Wild Foods, I scanned the Essex countryside for the ingredients to my first-ever foraging taster menu: stinging #nettle soup; gnocchi with #dandelion leaf pesto; #WildGarlic and stinging nettle ravioli; and, for dessert, dandelion flower cookies.

[...]

"The earliest memory I have of #foraging is picking wild #blackberries with my grandmother. Our quest for England’s sweetest wild fruit led us to our local park in Banstead, Surrey, a small patch of green which, between August and October, would burst with swollen blackberries. Under strict instructions, I’d carefully manoeuvre my way around the thick, sharp brambles, my eyes scanning for the darkest and shiniest berries of them all. My grandmother had learned from her mother – who, as a young evacuee during World War Two, would forage wild fruits and plants as a supplement to the meagre food rations – that the plumper, darker berries were the sweetest. Those juicy crimson-purple morsels would often be turned into blackberry crumble, the perfect sweet finish to a Sunday roast dinner."

bbc.com/travel/article/2020050

BBC · A British feast from garden weedsBy Jessica Vincent

That's yesterday's wild garlic harvest processed... soaked for a bit, rinsed twice, lightly spun, chopped roughly, and spun harder... after that we got 352 grammes of slightly damp leaf, plus a few flower buds. We split the leaf 50/50 and did one 176g of leaves with 250g of salted butter, and the other 176g of leaf with 200g of local extra-virgin-rapeseed-oil. Now in an ice-cube tray to freeze.

Mostly we like to use this in a simple pasta, just melt one or two "cubes" into the pasta and add a bit of black pepper and some fresh parsley or basil. But a buttery one is also excellent melted on top of a grilled steak.

The wild garlic flower buds have been put into a small bottle of white wine vinegar.

A good weekend of board games.

My Meetup's library event was on Saturday morning, featuring a learn-and-play of AZUL. Another attendee brought DICE KINGDOMS OF VALERIA, which is a fun roll-and-write that focuses on chaining together actions; it's a bit like HADRIAN'S WALL, but not as complicated. I may need to consider getting it.

Back home, we continued our Clank! Legacy 2 campaign with game 11 -- one game is left. And we played some smaller games: the card game DRAGONKEEPERS, and the bag-builder GARDLINGS.

Sunday we brought out WILD GARDENS (shown), published by Rose Gauntlet, for the second time; the last time we played it was in October. You're foragers wandering along paths to collect ingredients such as mushrooms, bark, aquatics, and fruits, and using them for recipes like Elderberry Lemonade that award points. Guests want specific combinations of recipes, like (a main dish) + (a drink), or (dessert) + (anything), and they grant additional points plus an immediate benefit or an ongoing ability.

This library board is from WILD GARDENS. You can take a Study action to check out the book matching a particular ingredient, and also collect the skill token next to it. The skill token goes on your personal board and improves one of your available three actions.

Huh, I should probably take a deeper dip into the #foraging community and get some identification and guidebook recommendations to add to my collection while I can still order books. :reply_request:

What guidebooks and recommended reference and lookup books for foraging in the Northeast US (and international perspective and practices) would you recommend?

The ~hour commute is a bit of a drag, make for a long old day... but it is cool that quite close to the work end and not much of a detour away is our old #WildGarlic stomping ground. It's a bit of a walk from the road but in 35 mins from car parked to back on the road I was able to gather a nice bunch of leaves.

Most of the ground level greenery in these photos is wild garlic!

It's a bit young still, but still a good harvest to be had.

At home now and I've made a nice batch of wild garlic, EVOO, and cashew "pesto", with a touch of salt and lemon juice. A large dollop of this mixed through orecchiette will be dinner. (With bonus #vegan points.)

Harvested some young nettles in the garden yesterday along with some purple dead nettles. Sautéed that up with some butter, salt, and pepper, and served it from a bread experiment I bought yesterday. Local farmer was trying out a new wholewheat flour type, and I happened by the shop at just the right time. Eat those weeds.

Gestern im Garten ein paar Brennnesseln und purpur Taubnesseln geerntet. Die gab's dann heute in Butter angebraten mit Salz, Pfeffer und einem Brotexperiment. War gestern zur genau richtigen Zeit im Hofladen. Sie hatten mit einem neuen Vollkornmehl gebacken. Unkraut wird Beikraut, wenn man es isst.

#gardentotable #foraging #eattheweeds #gardening
It's elm samara season! At least, where I live it is lol. For one glorious week, go eat your fill! The Siberian ones are invasive so you'll be doing your local flora a favor. This whole bowl came from one small branch.

#foraging