Tag: foraging
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This Week’s Mushroom of Interest: Brittlegills
Brittlegills, or Russulas, are simple-stemmed mushrooms without rings. They tend to have brightly coloured caps, usually red, purple, yellow or green. They’re often convex (curved) when young, and become flat or funnel-shaped as they mature. The flesh tends to be granular, like a lump of sugar. The gills are brittle, hence the name, and are…
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FORAGE Gorse & Jelly Ear, Meet Scarlet Elf Cup
Spring is really kicking off into a higher gear now. Last week I made a video about Foraging & Eating Jelly Ear Mushrooms. These common tree mushrooms have a brilliant texture, but a very mild flavour. Sort this by marinading them or adding them to a rich umami broth! Click the link above to check…
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Magnolia & Maple Blossom Munchies Mid-March
This week I found Norway Maple (Acer platanoides) in full bloom, its zingy lime-yellow blossoms looking like they’d been dyed with fluorescent marker pen. Maple blossoms, apart from Sycamore, are edible and taste like peas. Yum! Norway Maple has leaves much larger than our native Field Maple (Acer campestre). Norway Maple has 7 pointed lobes,…
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Make Ground Elder Soup
This week I’ve been down to the riverside to check on the carpets of Ground Elder (Aegopodium podagraria). Spoiler alert: it’s not Elder (Sambucus sps). It is, however, very tasty and nutritious. It was brought over as a pot herb by the Romans, and left here to ravage our gardens with its invasive nature ever…
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Stinging Nettles
Everyone knows Stinging Nettles, they’re everywhere in the UK. They’re a menace, but they’re really good for you, especially for women. Stinging Nettles make amazing compost for the garden, a nutritious feed for farm animals, and have even been used to make fabric in the past! Trust me, if you’re eating it, the stems are…
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Wild Garlic
Now you’ve got to be careful of this one. Wild garlic is bloody lovely, but it’s also very similar in appearance to lily of the valley. A poisonous plant. In all honesty, I don’t really go with wild garlic these days, simply because I find it really easy to grow my own garlic and spring…
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Cleaver Tinctures
This is what I did to make the tincture: pick a load of cleavers, stick ’em in a jar, then fill the jar with whatever alcohol you have that’s 37.5%. I prefer vodka, as it doesn’t affect the flavour too much. I give it a few months for the nutrients to transfer over into the…
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Cleaver
Cleavers are bloody brilliant, I pick them every year to make my own multivitamin. I read the other year that, because they don’t count as a food and they don’t count as medicine, the multivitamins you get at the shop aren’t well regulated. So you’re downing pills, thinking it’ll strengthen you, but in reality it…
