The Wild Foods Pot Luck (recipes)

 If you don't get our free "Just the Essentials" newsletter, you didn't see these recipes yet.  You can sign up on our website and get any news, specials, or information first!

Over the past weekend, the class we’ve been taking since January at The Rosemary House finished up, and one of the highlights was the wild plant pot luck lunch.  Since wild plant foods are near the top of the list of my interests, I was thrilled.  My focus is to normalize incorporating wild plants.  Dishes don’t need to be completely made from weeds, but they can add flavor and nutrition.

We only have the recipes for the 4 offerings we shared.  There were teas, breads, jellies, dips, salads, soups, dressing, and desserts!  It was a FEAST!

Besides this table, there was a dessert table, a table full of crockpots, and a table with beverages!

Maryanne made the following two recipes:

Kousa Dogwood Pudding Cake

https://www.tyrantfarms.com/recipe-kousa-dogwood-pudding-cake/

A delicious dessert made from kousa dogwood fruit with a texture like
a cross between pie and cake.

 

Ingredients

1 C organic whole wheat pastry flour *

1/2 t baking soda

1 t baking powder

1/2 t ground cinnamon

pinch pink Himalayan sea salt

1/4 t cream of tartar

2 chicken eggs, separated into whites and yolks

2 T butter room temp 

1 C honey

1 C kousa dogwood fruit pulp

1/2 t vanilla extract

1 1/4 C whole milk (preferably organic grass-fed)

 

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325ºF. Butter a 10” long x 7.5” wide x 2” deep baking dish. 

Stir the following dry ingredients together in bowl with a spoon: flour,
baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt. Set aside.

Separate egg whites from egg yellows. 

Put egg whites + cream of tartar into mixing bowl under electric mixer.
Mix for 1 minute on medium speed until cream of tartar fully
incorporated and the mixture has a frothy appearance. Then turn
speed up to high and whip until smooth, creamy, and peaks form
when you pull the beaters back, about 2-3 minutes.

Using spatula, remove whipped egg whites to separate bowl or large
measuring glass. (Don’t worry about scraping the mixer completely
clean since you’ll be adding other ingredients to mixer next.)

Add honey and room temperature butter to mixer, and mix on medium
until butter fully incorporated into honey, about 1 minute.

Add kousa pulp, egg yellows, and vanilla, and mix on medium for 1 minute.
Add milk, mix on medium for one minute.

Slowly add dry ingredients to mixer, about 1/4 cup at a time, while mixer
on medium speed and continue mixing until fully incorporated.

Pour your whipped egg white mix into the kousa-flour mix, then mix in
with a spatula (not with mixer). This is to help the final pudding be
lighter and fluffier.   

Pour ingredients into buttered baking dish. Bake on 325°F (163°C) for 60
minutes or until center of pudding cake is risen and barely jiggles when
lightly shaken. Let cool to room temp (or lightly warm) before serving.
Even better refrigerated and served the next day! 


*  I used regular all purpose flour

Wood Sorrel and Sweet Onion Tart   1-9” pie

https://www.wildedible.com/blog/wood-sorrel-and-sweet-onion-tart

 

INGREDIENTS

1 prebaked tart shell or you could substitute pie crust

2 T butter

3 C Vidalia or other sweet onion (about 1 medium onion), thinly sliced

1/4 t salt

splash of dry white wine

1 T flour

5 oz sorrel leaves (if using wood sorrel include flowers and pods - avoid
tough stems)

2 eggs

1 C heavy cream

freshly ground black pepper

few scrapings of nutmeg or a pinch of ground spicebush berry

5 oz Gruyere cheese, grated

 

 INSTRUCTIONS

In a heavy bottom pan, cook onion, salt and butter slowly on medium-low
heat, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft.

Raise heat to medium, add wine and let it cook off for a minute or so.

Add flour and stir to evenly distribute and cook for 2 minutes.

Add sorrel, stir, cover and cook 1 minute to wilt.  Remove from heat.

In a large bowl, whisk eggs, cream, nutmeg and pepper.

Combine sorrel mixture, egg mixture and half of the Gruyere cheese.

Sprinkle the other half of the Gruyere cheese in the bottom of the tart shell.

Fill tart shell with mixture and bake at 375ºF for 30 - 40 minutes until it’s set
and lightly browned.

 

My notes:   I used Swiss Cheese because I could not easily find Gruyere.

                     No idea if I used enough Wood Sorrel - Wasn’t sure if the 5 oz.
was by weight or volume, so I just gathered a bunch and cleaned it. It
wound up about 1/4 C.

My contributions were:

Seed Crackers
450° for 12 to 15 minutes

Ingredients:
3 C flour
1 ½ C shredded cheese (I used Mexican blend)
1 C water
¼ C olive oil
2 t salt
2 t sugar
2 T dried mushroom powder (instructions below)
2 T nettles seed
2 T lambsquarters seed
2 T sesame seed
1 t nigella seed
1 t amaranth seed

1. Mix cheese, flour, salt, sugar, and about 1/3 of the seeds (all kinds) into a food processor.  Pulse until the cheese is well incorporated.
2. Dump into large bowl and add water and oil.
3. Mix very well, eventually using your hands to get everything into a nice firm dough.
4. Cover baking sheet with parchment.
5. I used my pasta roller to roll the dough out to about 1/8”.
If using a rolling pin, you could roll it out right on the parchment to make it easy to transfer to the cookie sheet.
6.  Wet your hands, shake off extra water, and then wet the surface of the rolled out cracker dough.
7.  Spread 1/3 of the seeds on the top of the dough. 
8. Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough to the size cracker you want.
9.  Use a fork to pierce all of the crackers so they don’t get puffy.
10. Carefully lift the parchment and place it into the cookie sheet.  It helps to have a helper.
11.  Bake!
12. Store in an airtight container and eat within a week.

Mushroom Powder
Buy dried mushrooms.  Put them in a Ninja or Bullet, and powder.  Use anywhere you’d like to add a little umami.  A little goes a long way.
Note:  I made them early and froze them, so I crisped them up by putting them back in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes.

Dessert table

 Green Pasta
Ingredients:
1 1/3 C flour
1 egg + 2 egg yolks
1 – 2 T water
1 T olive oil
1 ½  t salt
1 t pepper
Greens – nettle, dandelion, violet, chickweed, and Echinacea leaves.
                Add 1 C (packed) mixed greens, whole egg, 1 T water, and olive oil to Ninja/Bullet and
                blend until it is liquefied. 
A blender will work too – but there will be lots of green dots and the pasta will be paler green.  It’s mostly aesthetics.
Make a nest with the flour.  Put the two egg yolks in the hole in the middle, and then add the green juice.  Mix together until the dough is less sticky and holds together.  Depending on the moisture in the greens, you may need a little more water (go in teaspoons at a time) or flour (tablespoon at a time).
Form the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and let rest for an hour.
Here’s where it’s nice to have a pasta machine and pasta dryer – but I didn’t always have them. 

Maryanne's Onion and Wood Sorrel tart next to the dressed pasta. 

Divide the dough into 4 or 5 sections, working with one hunk at a time.
Try to roll it into a rectangle or square (easier said than done), and cut into whatever size noodles you want.
Hang them on clean clothes hangers, hooked to cabinet knobs.

I freeze whatever I’m not having for the upcoming meal.   Having read a lot of varying information about how long dried homemade pasta stays good, I just let it dry for a couple hours and throw it in the freezer. Labeled, of course.

“Sauce” here is butter and Parmesan.

Our classes have been hosted next door at Sweet Remembrances Tea Room, and Nancy Reppert took our rag-tag conglomeration of containers, and created a beautiful spread.

If you're looking for a good in-person class and you're close to Mechanicsburg (Harrisburg) PA, give Susanna a call at The Rosemary House for info!  She teaches Rosemary Gladstar's course along with her own - it's pretty wonderful!