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Monthly Archives: June 2012

Wild Edible Cookery: Milkweed Flower Risotto

21 Jun

Milkweed flower buds taste like a cross between asparagus, peas, and artichokes. They make a wonderful addition to a risotto.

I can’t say enough about the tasty versatility that is the edible milkweed flower bud. They are a delicious cross between asparagus, peas, and artichokes and can be had for free if you know where to look (but as always don’t be greedy and over-harvest any wild edible–in this case the monarch butterflies rely on them for survival). While several parts of certain milkweed plants are edible, the flower buds offer a treat in early summer and can be either eaten on their own with butter, or incorporated into other dishes such as this delicious risotto recipe we made up in the Rural Spin kitchen. Be sure to read our ‘spin, Respect for the Yummy Milkweed for more info on how to process milkweed flower buds for eating.

INGREDIENTS (about 4 servings)

Milkweed flower buds before processing. They need to be processed twice to remove bitterness and alkaloids. After that, they are delicious.

  • 2 cups processed milkweed flower buds (again, see Respect for the Yummy Milkweed on how to do this)
  • 1 1/2 cups arborio rice (if you don’t use this kind of rice, the recipe just won’t work)
  • 4 cups chicken stock (you can also use vegetable stock if you want a vegetarian option)
  • 1 cup white wine
  • 3 cloves garlic, sliced very thin or chopped finely
  • 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional, or more to taste)
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (or more…if you want)
  • salt and pepper to taste

HOW-TO

Place your stock and wine in a saucepan and heat until boiling. Reduce heat to a slow simmer — you want it to just stay hot. You’ll then want a heavy-bottomed, shallow pan — like a large, deep frying pan — for making your risotto:

Processed milkweed flower buds are added after the rice is fully cooked, to incorporate and heat through.

  • Melt 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil in your pan over medium heat until bubbly. Toss in your garlic and and red pepper flakes and saute for about two minutes until the garlic is soft.Toss in your rice and stir thoroughly to coat the rice with the butter and oil. Saute for about two minutes, stirring constantly, until the grains are lightly toasted.
  • Start adding your hot broth/wine mix. To do this take a ladle-full at a time (my ladle holds about 1/2 a cup of liquid) and add it to your rice, stirring constantly until all of the liquid is equally absorbed into each grain of rice. After the liquid is absorbed, take another ladle-full of your liquid and repeat the process until all of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is cooked through. It is important to follow this process and stir constantly. If you don’t do this and you just dump all the liquid in at once, your risotto will not work.
  • You want the rice to be tender but still have a “bite” to it. If you find you need more liquid, add more broth or wine. As you follow this process, you’ll notice that the starches in the rice will create a wonderful creaminess. That is why other rice varieties won’t really work.
  • After your rice is cooked, add your processed milkweed flower buds and the last tablespoon of butter. Stir to heat through and incorporate.
  • Turn off your heat, then add your Parmesan and mix thoroughly. Taste to see if you need to add salt and pepper.
  • Remove from heat and serve, topped with more red pepper flakes and Parmesan, if desired.

    Milkweed flower risotto with Parmesan, garlic, and red pepper flakes.

 
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Posted by on June 21, 2012 in Edible Plants, Homesteading, Recipes

 

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Add Sour Cherry Spirits to Your Food Preservation Arsenal

17 Jun

Sour cherries, sugar, and your alcohol of choice are all that’s needed to preserve this seasonal fruit. The final product can be used in cocktails, recipes or as gifts for the holidays.

When I bought my house a year ago, I scored a sour cherry tree in the front yard. It has never been pruned, is really too tall to harvest effectively, and leans over the roof of the house a fair amount. The birds love it, and the squirrels love it more. The aphids love it so much that I purchase lady bugs once a year to take care of the problem (it works great). Last year the birds and squirrels beat me to the ripe fruit. Not this year. Oh, no.

I harvested a pound of fruit off the tree this afternoon, which isn’t bad considering I’m not even 5′ tall and am terrified of heights. The ladder helped, but with the awkward hang over the roof and sheer height of the never-before-pruned tree, a pound was what I could manage. But what does one do with a pound of fruit? There really wasn’t enough for a batch of jam or sour cherry pie filling. But, it was the perfect quantity with which to make some tasty infused spirits.

INGREDIENTS

For 2 quarts of spirits

  • 1 pound of sour cherries, cleaned and pitted
  • 4 tablespoons of sugar (or more to taste)
  • 1 bottle (750 ml) spirits. I used bourbon but vodka or brandy would also work great!
  • A container with a lid large enough to hold it all

Pitting the cherries isn’t necessary, but it makes it much easier to make use of the fruit after it’s done its job infusing the liquor.

Pitting the cherries is optional, but at the very least they must all be pricked to allow the juice to infuse into the liquor. I like to pit the cherries myself–in a few months I can reuse the fruit to make ice cream or to include with other fruit in desserts, a BBQ sauce, or some other topping over a cooked meat or fish. Doing the work of pitting now saves me serious hassle later.

I used two quart-sized mason jars as my infusing containers, but you can use whatever you’d like. In each of the jars I placed half of the fruit and 2 tablespoons of sugar total, sprinkling it over layers of fruit in teaspoon increments. I then took a bottle of bourbon and poured half of the bottle in each of the jars. Giving each of the jars a good shake, I then placed them in a dark cabinet.

Over the next two months I’ll shake those jars frequently. For the first week I’ll shake them once a day to make sure the sugar is dissolved. After that, I’ll shake the jars once a week, or as often as I remember. In a month or two, the resulting goodness will be a thing to behold!

Layer sugar to taste in with your fruit. I used two tablespoons of sugar in each quart-sized jar.

The uses for the infused bourbon are many:

  • A tasty addition to cocktails
  • Drinking it straight in a cordial glass
  • A liquid addition to batters for cakes, cupcakes, scones, cookies, and more as a flavoring.
  • An ingredient in sauces for meats such as BBQ sauce, steak sauce, and more
  • Addition to stews and other thick soups as a flavoring
  • An ingredient in casseroles or hearty meat dishes
  • A wonderful holiday or hostess gift when poured into a decorative bottle
  • An item with which to barter with friends and neighbors

The fruit will have done most of its job infusing the liquor, but it can also be used as an ingredient in ice cream, alcoholic smoothies, various batters, or an ingredient in sweet sauces. But if I know myself (and I do), I’ll mostly be using both the infused alcohol and the fruit as an ingredient in one of my favorite libations, The Manhattan.

 
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Posted by on June 17, 2012 in Edible Plants, Food Preservation, Holidays, Recipes

 

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Ginger One Eye: A Chicken Hatched for Fame

12 Jun

Near-blind Ginger One Eye is one hen destined for fame. She isn’t afraid to look a person in the eye.

Behold Ginger One Eye, the newest addition to my massive flock of four chickens. I got her when I had to give friends at The Lyons Farmette my young hen-turned-rooster, Louis. Louis was a fine bird, but local chicken laws forbid roosters and Louis had to go.

Betsy, owner at The Farmette, asked if I wanted to take one of their hens in Louis’ stead. Bumpina — as she was affectionately called because her left blind eye bumps out from the side of her head — was overwhelmed in the flock of 80 hens at The Farmette. Betsy and I both agreed that a mostly-blind Bumpina would be much better off in my wee flock where I could keep an eye on her. So, Bumpina made her way home with me.

Now, I am the first to admit that my hens get some odd names. Louis’ full name is “Louis The Man.” Another chicken is named “Prison Break” for its propensity to make a mad dash for the gate whenever I open it. And two hens are both named “One of The Twins” simply because I can’t tell them apart.

Bumpina’s name quickly changed when I told my friends that “I got a chicken with one eye.” They would say, “How’s the chicken?” And I’d reply, “You mean the one with One Eye?” It stuck. Admittedly, this name creeped my neighbor out a tad, as she is much more sane than I. We decided One Eye needed a first name that was a bit more genteel for everyone else to use who wasn’t abnormal like me, and Ginger popped into my head as an appropriately dichotomous foil to “One Eye.” Think of her like a character in a Quentin Tarantino film.

Fast friends, River and Ginger One Eye, discussing the day’s events.

Ginger One Eye has a wonderful personality and she is without a doubt my favorite hen, though Phyllis is right up there. Ginger One Eye’s blindness gives her a certain quirky edge that makes her hard to resist. Whether it’s because she can’t see me or because she really likes me I can’t tell. And sometimes it’s just better not to know these things so we can delude ourselves that it’s the later. But whenever I walk into the run, she walks slowly up to me and lays on top of one of my feet…like she’s trying to hatch me. I do have to watch out when I take care of things in the run, so as not to step on her gentle self.

Ginger One Eye and my dog, River, also have a special relationship. They bonded immediately through the run fence, and as Ginger had a propensity for escaping the run early on, she and River carried their friendship even further over the fence line. While One Eye has seemed to stop her forays into the wild world away from the coop, she always walks right to River when River plants herself next to the fence run. In fact, River will whine for Ginger One Eye to come to her if she doesn’t do so on her own. It’s quite sweet, and indeed puts life into perspective after a trying day.

 
7 Comments

Posted by on June 12, 2012 in Animals, Farm Profile, Homesteading

 

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Respect for the Yummy Milkweed

03 Jun

This showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) can be confused with common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). But never fear, as they are both edible.

There are close to 150 species of milkweed plants worldwide. About 25 of these are the only food source for monarch butterflies, and milkweed is an important nectar source for bees. And while a few species of milkweeds are edible to humans some are poisonous, and all should be treated with respect. If you don’t know what you’re doing, do yourself a favor and don’t do it.

There are about 20 edible milkweed species floating around, which is good! That being said, basically all of the different milkweed species contain alkaloids, cardiac glycosides, and toxic resinoids. As the scary names imply, these can all be bad. The secret lies in knowing what you’re doing when it comes to eating these plants, and don’t eat them at all if you can’t remember what the rules are. (Note: Make sure you refer to a reputable botanic key to identify plants, or have an expert show you.)

EDIBLE MILKWEEDS

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is the most widely known and distributed edible milkweed, though it is definitely not the only one. Common milkweed looks very much like showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa, see above), though the flowers of common milkweed are, of course, not as showy as the flowers above. Both are edible and can be treated the same way.

Here are some other edible milkweeds that are not as commonly known, including their reported edible parts. For these plants it’s important to consult a reputable edible plant resource that speaks to these plants specifically before consuming them (note: my source for the following is Plants for a Future, which provides wonderful information on edible and medicinal plants):

  • Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata, see photo below): flowers, leaves, oil, seedpod
  • Purple silkweed (A. lanceolata): flowers, leaves, and seedpod
  • Green milkweed (A. viridiflora): flowers, leaves, oil, root, seed, seedpod
  • Butterfly milkweed (A. tuberosa, note all references say to either avoid this plant or consume in low quantities): flowers, leaves, oil, root, seedpod
  • Purple silkweed (A. hallii): flowers, leaves, oil, seed, seedpod

Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), is edible too, though many references recommend staying away from narrow-leaved milkweeds because of higher toxicity levels.

EATING MILKWEED

The edible parts of some milkweed plants include the new shoots, which taste like asparagus and can be harvested in spring when they are less then 8 inches tall. The flowers and flower heads taste like peas, and can also be harvested. As the plant matures the seed pods can be picked when they are about 1 inch long or less; as the pods increase in size, they also increase in bitterness and alkalinity.

The root of milkweed may nor may not be edible, depending upon the source you’re consulting. My policy is that when it comes to conflicting information regarding whether a plant or plant part is edible, I err on the side of caution and don’t eat it.

Some sources say that young seed pods and shoots of milkweeds can be eaten raw, but I don’t recommend this. These sources also recommend only eating the raw plant parts in  low quantities, and in my mind it’s always better to process plants that contain any alkaloids and toxins properly just to be safe. Processing the plant parts also removes bitterness, and just makes them taste better.

To process your shoots, flowers, and seed pods, place them in a pot, and cover them with boiling water (do not use cold water…make sure you boil it on its own first), then bring everything back to a boil. The water must then be discarded, and the process repeated two to three times. A tea kettle kept at a boil on the stove comes in handy for this.

To eat the plant parts after processing, boil them normally for about 15 minutes, until tender. You can serve them with butter, a sauce, or any other way you’d eat asparagus, peas and the like. Also feel free to include them in soups, casseroles, eggs, and more. They are very tasty. The flower heads can be boiled down to make a sugary syrup because of the sweet nectar, and feel free to pickle the seedpods in the same fashion as you make cucumber pickles.


 
12 Comments

Posted by on June 3, 2012 in Edible Plants, Outdoor and Survival

 

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