If you have picked up some goosegrass this spring for eating, save a little to one side for some goosegrass tea.
DIABETICS SHOULD AVOID THIS RECIPE.
Making the tea is very simple! Just dry out the goosegrass at around 50 degrees in your oven or dehydrator. Then collect in an air tight dry and sterile pot.
To brew the tea, simply add a little to your strainer or pot and allow to steep for ten minutes.
This tea makes a great herbal remedy for constipation as it’s a mild laxative.
It’s spring! and One of the first things to come up this spring that you may not be aware of as being edible is – Goosegrass! You may know it by many names including sticky weed, it’s distinctive due to it’s sticky nature and most people know it from their childhood days of sticking it onto the backs of unknowing parents and siblings.
It’s been a while since our last post, and we haven’t been idle but winter is a hard season. Next year we will be able to tell you more about the various wine, cider and food stuffs we have been collecting in more detail.
Name: Goose Grass, Sticky Weed.
Location: Anywhere, usually poorly drained and compacted soil.
Months: March, April
Edible Parts: Leaves, Seeds
Non-Edible Parts: Burrs
Caution: Diabetics should avoid Goose Grass Teas.
As one of the first edible plants to pop up at the start of the spring season, Goosegrass is a handy herb to know how to use as a part of your diet. Best picked in March in full sunshine, you can take advantage of the young fresh leaves. The leaves can be used like a salad leaf or replacing basil in a pesto. If you use the leaves to make a tisane (Tea) it becomes a powerful diuretic and a mild laxative. The seeds can be used as a coffee substitute although in our humble opinion Dandelion roots make a much more substantial and tasty coffee flavour.
Even the root of this plant is useful as a red dye agent.
Name: Apples
Location: Apple Trees!
Months: October, November
Edible Parts: All except maybe the stalk
Non-Edible Parts: Stalk? The Tree?
While cycling through one of the many scenic cycle routes in Birmingham I came across a wonderful array of sweet red apple trees. I almost passed it by completely in my speed but the rate they were dropping had quickly created a red blanket in the corner and more were dropping as I looked. After a quick taste test I found these were not the lesser valued crab apples but sweet dessert apples of a most gloriously syrup like nature. I have never tasted a sweeter, crunchier apple in my life. Not a single ounce of powdery taste or bitterness.
There are so many apples there I could not fit them all into my backpack, so return journey’s are on the cards! I always find it truly amazing how many people just walk past these little golden finds and surely a red apple is as obvious a food source as it gets?
Oh well more for us! After picking up as many as I could possibly hold before the last of the daylight condemned me to utter darkness, I took them home and began the therapeutic task of washing and scrubbing the apples clean and sorting them into piles of bruised and undamaged. The undamaged ones are going to be used for eating and the bruised ones will be for cider with any luck.
Name: Puff Balls
Location: Dead wood
Months: Usually August and September (**Note I found some fresh new ones as late as November this year due to the mild weather!”
Edible Parts: The spongy middle if pure white (Remove skin and do not eat if it is turning yellow or green inside).
Non-Edible Parts: Skin (yucky)
Here’s what these puff balls look like when skinned.l They are spongy, pure white and have a bit of air in them so you can hear it escaping sometimes when you squeeze them.
Some puff balls have spiked skin and some are less wrinkly. All puff balls are edible.
They can be dried for storage just like any other mushroom but go great fried and added to burgers (especially giant puff balls which can make up a steak sized portion in your burger!).
Name: Jelly Ears, Jews Ears and more.
Location: On Dead Trees particularly Elder
Months: All Year Round
Edible Parts: All of the Mushroom
Non-Edible Parts: None
As you can see on this particular foraging trip we also found a variety of other goodies (a big field mushroom and around 2kg of sweet chestnuts). However, I’ll discuss those treats separately, for now I chose this picture but it shows very clearly what jelly ears can look like when very big! However, they look quite different when young:
Some of the cup fungi are inedible, distinguished by their brittle flesh (as opposed to gelatinous) and they grow on soil. If it’s not a tree, leave it be! (Please DO NOT apply this rhyme to all mushrooms… just the jelly ears).
A knob of butter
• 2 onions, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely sliced
• 1 large potato, diced
• 400g sweet chestnuts
• 1–1.2 litres vegetable stock
• 1 bay leaf
• 150–200ml single cream
Cut a cross in the top of each chestnut.
Pre-heat the oven to at least 200 degrees C.
Place chestnuts scattered out evenly on a baking Tray
Bake for 30 minutes.
These are best eaten while still warm so be careful and remove the outer hard shell first.
Name: Sweet Chestnuts
Location: Under Sweet Chestnut Trees
Months: October
Edible Parts: Inside the shell including skin
Non-Edible Parts: Everything else
We foraged around 2.2kg of sweet chestnuts in one hour today and there are stil plenty more to be had. The special thing about sweet chestnuts is not only are they packed full of goodness but they are only viable every few years. Not every crop of Chestnuts will be ripe every year. If the chestnut is soft, and small and flat/angular in appearance they are not ready for eating. You may go some years without seeing any viable chestnuts. That’ why as soon as we saw good chestnuts this year, we went crazy collecting as many as possible for our snacks and Christmas of course!
Sweet Chestnuts don’t taste great raw, although they can be eaten this way. Don’t be put off if you try them raw, get these bad boys roasted and then try them to avoid disappointment.
Last Sunday we went foraging in Birmingham for Rosehips. I’ll warn you now, wear gloves or suffer a thorny death!
Name: Rosehip (Dogrose)
Location: Everywhere
Months: September, October, November
Edible Parts: Bletched Fruit
Non-Edible Parts: Everything else
The rosehip pictured also includes japanese rosehip (the big rounder looking ones). They should only be picked when plump and juicy, if they are not squishing when you pick them, they are not ready to be picked. I will be making Rosehip Syrup and Rosehip wine with these little wonders this year so that means a lot of foraging and a lot of thorns in my fingers.
If the rosehip recipe proves successful it will be posted in approximately 8 weeks time so stay tuned. The syrup recipe will be updated later on this week.
This turned out to be an Excellent wine. In fact it was so delicious the 30 odd bottles that we made were quickly whisked away by friends and relatives. For basically the cost of the sugar, you can have a brilliant, slightly sweet and flavourful and strong white wine.
This is the recipe we used:
500ml Picked Elderflowers pressed lightly. Remove green stems.
1.5kg Sugar. White granulated to avoid changing the flavour
250g washed raisins
1/2 Mug Strong Tea
3 Lemons Squeezed
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp yeast nutrient
4.5L hot water
