It all started with my new book that arrived in the mail- Pascal Bauder’s new book, The New Wildcrafted Cuisine, which I received as a review copy (the review will be coming soon, this post is just a little taste), and I’ve been devouring.

The book makes you see the foods in the wild and in your kitchen (even if you’re not a forager) from a completely new perspective, with unique ways of preparing those foods, and after reading only half the book, I got a hankering to get my groove on in the kitchen and do something interesting and different.

So last night, I went out and foraged some redbud blossoms, lavender, rosemary, and green almonds. I put some lavender and rosemary and green almonds each in their own separate container and then covered them with vinegar to infuse them, and hopefully make some tasty flavored vinegars.

After that, I decided to try dehydrating things as well. I sliced the green almonds thinly and dehydrated them, as well as redbud blossoms and lavender stalks. Since I had the oven going, I decided to see what else I could dehydrate, and got inspired to dehydrate some ferments as well- I did some fermented carrots, fermented wild fennel stalks, and fermented tomato/wild fennel/mint salsa. I reserved the liquid from the salsa and will be using that to make a salad dressing.

Top tray- redbud. Midle tray- fermented fennel fronds, fermented carrots, and unseen- fermented tomato/fennel/mint salsa. Bottom tray- green almonds, lavender.

Clockwise from top: sugar with lavender and redbud, green almonds, redbud, fermented tomato/fennel/mint salsa, lavender, fermented carrots fermented fennel fronds

Chicken breast with lavender and redbud powder.

Only half of the dock I collected!

I’d also wanted to check out some new plants, see what I could forage in the forest there that I couldn’t near my home, and ended up nearly entirely with plants I’d never foraged before.

My friend Ruth came along, and I guess we were just feeding off each other’s energy, and because of that, we both got inspired to dig for tubers, something I’d never done in the past- I got a large bag of a local type of tuber, as well as a medium bag of salsify tubers (as well as some flower buds).

Salsify root

Last night I learned that hawthorn leaves are edible and tasty, so since I passed some today, I decided to give them a try. Surprisingly, they don’t have much taste. Not bitter, not sharp, not sour, not astringent. Just “plain”. I picked some to experiment with. I think it would be nice as a green in salad, but I can’t wait to try it out cooked as well.

Edible and tasty hawthorn leaves

I picked some chasteberry “fruit” to grind and use as a flavoring.

And while we were out foraging, the kids and I picked up some recyclable trash that we found in the woods, and then after we finished foraging, we went to the grocery store, got paid some cash for our recycling (helping the environment and making money in one go) and I also I bought 15 packages of super cheap gluten free bread.

And then I came home and I was in trouble.

There was no room in my fridge to put anything away.

First I needed to empty out my fridge of whatever I could.

I still had a really large amount of celery in there- even after my celery feast the other day. I made up a batch of celery kimchi- they get packed down and take up a lot less room that way, and it stays outside the fridge, and hopefully we’ll have a delicious condiment in a few days or a week.

Celery kimchi.

There were some crumbled leftover carrot cornbread muffins in the fridge that were taking up room, so I decided to toast them to use as crumbs for various recipes, like shnitzels.

The huge bag of wild fennel went into the oven to dehydrate, after which it will be ground up to be used as a seasoning.

And then there was another inspiration from Pascal. He makes an instant soup powder from ground dehydrated wild greens, which made me think- why not do the same with my standard soup vegetables. So I took a bunch of carrots, chopped them up, including some that accidentally froze in the fridge and therefore their texture would be less than ideal, some celery, and a slightly woody lone radish, that were taking up room in the fridge, and that also went to dehydrate.

And half the dock I picked today went into the oven to dehydrate as well, to make into powders.

Top tray- veggies for instant soup powder, middle tray- dock, bottom tray-fennel.

Salsa jars filled, then needing washing, and then canning.