Sweet Red Apples

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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?1426419_10151980407711774_174364279_n 1465299_10151978165191774_591760497_n

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.

 

Puff Ball Mushrooms

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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.

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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!).

 

Storing Jelly Ears

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Preserving and Storage

Set your oven on 50-70 degrees (or the lowest possible setting). Lay out the jelly ears evenly, preferably on some kind of rack or grill to allow air flow beneath them. Leave them in the oven until completely dried. When almost done you may turn off the oven to allow the remaining heat to finish them off.

Store in GLASS, do not use plastic containers and ensure they are dry and no longer sweat. They will keep until you wish to hydrate them again. Personally, I keep a jar on my kitchen shelf and label them by mushroom type, location found and date.

Jelly Ears

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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:

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Identification

  • Cup shaped when young resembling an ear
  • Rubbery/gelatinous texture
  • red brown colouring
  • Inner surface smooth and shiny, scurfy outer surface matte

Beware Of

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).

Sweet Chestnut Soup

sweet Chestnut Soup

Ingredients

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

Method

  •  Gently fry the garlic, onions and butter in a saucepan until golden brown.
  • Then add the chestnuts, potato, stock and bay.
  • When the potato is soft remove the bay and blitz.
  • Stir in ream and adjust seasoning to your taste.

sweet Chestnut Soup

sweet Chestnut Soup

Mushroom Identification Tool – Online

While trying as hard as we could to identify a random mushroom we encountered today we came across this neat little mushroom identification tool: Mushroom Identification.

 

We were really stuck on this one particular mushroom, it wasn’t in our books, so it was unlikely to be edible, but still we had to find out what this little blighter was! After finding this ingenious little tool I was able to narrow it down considerably until I stumbled upon the correct mushroom type. I’ll try to upload some pictures later on if I can.

Roasting Sweet Chestnuts Recipe

roasted chestnuts

Ingredients

  • As many Viable Sweet Chestnuts as possible/according to your needs

Method

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.

Foraging Sweet Chestnuts

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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.

 

Rosehips

Last Sunday we went foraging in Birmingham for Rosehips. I’ll warn you now, wear gloves or suffer a thorny death!

rosehip

 

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.

Elderflower Wine

elderflowerwine

 

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:

Elderflower Wine – 1 Gal

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

 

  • Sterilise your equipment
  • Dissolve the sugar in the hot water
  • Place the flowers, raisins and lemon juice in the primary bucket
  • Add the sugar water
  • Mix thoroughly
  • Allow the mixture to cool until it reaches around 21C
  • Add yeast, Tea and yeast nutrient
  • Cover and place airlock
  • Keep in a warm dry place
  • After 8 weeks, test the mixture with a hydrometer. Add sugar according to taste if it’s ready to bottle.
  • Add a crushed Campden tablet to clear according to the tablet instructions and allow to settle
  • Rack Off and then bottle!