TEST

It is hard to walk through any wooded area or neighborhood in  Southern Ontario in the Fall without spotting green balls on the floor. This is the  black walnut , belonging to a tree species native to North America.  Walnuts are a tasty treat, but harvesting and processing requires a lot of work. This year, the crop seems to be extremely abundant. Here are several facts that are good to keep in mind if you decide to harvest some walnuts: walnuts are ready to harvest if your finger leaves an indentation on the green husk the green husk contains natural herbicides and it is not really suitable for compost (although oxidation fairly quickly neutralizes that chemical) green husk leaves yellow stains, so gloves are mandatory the green husk is poisonous to horses and dogs blackened and rotting husks do not affect the quality of the nut the black walnut tree fruits every two years it is not advisable to harvest directly from the tree; wait for fruit to fall on the floor T...

A week ago, the chef from Minnesota I follow published a  post about preparation of the cow parsnip blossom. Although mushrooms are my main interest, I forage for many other things. In the spring, my favorites are chicory and dandelion greens. I guess I picked up that tradition as a child in my homeland (Croatia). The Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maximum) is unknown in Europe. It is native to North America and apparently quite common. I did not have any experience with this particular plant. The only thing that I knew was that it can cause a bad rash, activated by ultra violet rays. In my book, avoiding it was a good idea. Howver, the Alan Bergo post peeked my interest. I happen to know a forest fringe area with quite a presence of the Cow Parsnip,  and according to Mr. Bergo, this is the perfect time to harvest unopened blossoms for food. I put on a long sleeved shirt, pocketed a pair of gloves and went on the trail. The Cow Parsnip is a big plant and hard to miss. I must admit that unopene...

The first attempt in processing of Wild Grapes was quite successful, but very labor intensive. The worst part was destemming the grapes. Long and tedious process, not to mention messy. The second time around I decided to try to take some shortcuts and see how it will turn out. The grapes I collected this time was more ripe and therefore quite a bit less tart. First I soaked them in cold water and attempted to eliminate as many green and bad grapes as I could. Good swirl in the water also eliminates critters (spiders, small slugs etc.). The washed fruit, stems and grapes together, I added in batches to the stock pot simultaneously crushing them with potato masher.  I did not try to hard. The goal was just to get juices going and start the cooking process. After the crushed mass boiled I cooked it for approximately 10 minutes, or until majority of grapes disintegrated. The whole thing was poured through regular strainer and pressed with big spoon to extract as much juice as possible. Res...

It is weekend and there was some rain and thunderstorms lately. In the early morning I checked one patch of coniferous woods (mainly spruce) with zero result. Somewhat later I started in the mixed deciduous woods. As expected, pretty soon some boletes showed up. Four species were prevalent. Boletus subglabripes The medium size mushroom prefers birch and grows scattered. The pore surface is intensive yellow and pores are small. Cap is colored in redish-brownish tones and dry. In mature specimens it sometimes seems there are multiple shallow depressions on the cap. There is no characteristic smell ("mushroomy" does not describe much). The flash is firm only in very young specimens ("buttons"), yellow and it does not stain. If packed in the bag they can stick together and get even softer. Spore print is olive brown. On the close inspection there are some glandular dots on the steam. That is why this species is sometimes refereed to as Leccinum subglabripes. The mushroo...

Temperatures dipped back to near zero over several nights.I tried  foraging in North York Regional forest with zero result. The consolation price for the weekend of May 14th were fiddleheads. There is some controversial info on the web about fiddleheads. Some sources have a warning about carcinogenic compounds found in several species of fern.The fact is they are still  sold in grocery shops in Ontario. I limit my foraging to Ostrich Fern . It is easily recognized by 3 characteristics: Dark green, almost bluish in color Paper like membrane (visible on picture bellow) Presence of characteristic spore bearing fronds Anyway, I follow recommendation of Government of Canada and cook my fiddleheads thoroughly, just in case. The fiddlheads season is very short. The best way to preserve is to blanch(cook in boiling water 2 minutes, shock with cold water to stop cooking), dry and put in freezer bags). Fiddleheads have a great, buttery taste and can be eaten as side dish or cooked veg...

When my Morel hunt fails miserably one of the consolation prices is  Garlic Mustard . This is an invasive species brought to North America to be used as edible herb, but escaped to the wild and is now creating quite a problem for native species. It is listed as  Ontario Invading Plant and some info about ways to help can be found  here. . A quick Google search will show that it presents a serious problem in many northern US states and southern Canadian provinces. It is propagating at astounding rate and every year it is obviously spreading. My recommendation is to help by destroying the plant whenever you can by pulling the whole plant out of the soil, but the alternative way is just to eat it. It is very good edible and especially delicious at this time of the year when it is not yet overly pungent and garlicky. The best is to collect stalks with flowers before the flowers open. Use same technique used to prepare asparagus. Bend the stalk and let it break. The upper part is good to c...