June Goodness :-) Cream of Spring Onion Soup

I was researching some recipes for the little newsletter we do for our local farmers market and came across the following on the King Arthur Flour website. I changed a wee bit of wording, but the ingredients are intact. It looks so good I can't wait to try it! Lately we've been doing a lot with wild edible plants. The chickweed/scape recipe from out last post and the talk it was for... If you're looking for a great wild plant cookbook, we've got it!

Wild Foods for Every Table was put together here at The Essential Herbal and has the favorite recipes from readers all over the country.

Cream of Spring Onion SoupAlthough we’re using onions, mushrooms, and spinach, don’t be bound by the parameters of this particular recipe; use it as a base for whatever fresh vegetables you have on hand, can gather in the woods, or can find at the farmers market!
2T butter
1-1/2 C sliced spring onion, scallions, or ramps,
2 C thinly sliced white onions
3-1/2 C sliced mushrooms (domestic or wild—morels if you can find them)
1/4 C King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
3 C chicken broth
2 C milk
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pound (3 or 4 C) chopped fresh spinach; if using baby spinach, there’s no need to stem or chop
1/2 C light cream or evaporated milk (optional)
Melt the butter in a large saucepan, and sauté the spring onions and mushrooms until the onions are transparent and the liquid from the mushrooms has mostly evaporated.Stir in the flour, and cook gently for several minutes. Stir in the chicken broth or water a little at a time. If you keep stirring, it won’t become lumpy. Add the milk and bring to a boil. The liquid will thicken just a bit. Add salt and pepper to taste, the chopped fresh spinach and cream or evaporated milk if desired. Bring soup to a simmer and serve immediately so it retains its bright green color.

Herb Gifts for Herb Folk!

If you haven't had a chance to visit our website, we've got some unusual items that might make the hunt for holiday gifts for the "herbie" in your life a lot easier. You'll find pictures of each item at the website, so stop by and visit!

Gift subscriptions to The Essential Herbal (of course!) This is one gift that comes a-calling 6 times a year, right to their door. Filled with recipes, crafts, information, and inspiration to help bring herbs into everyday life.

Wild Foods for Every Table - Cookbook for using the plants all around you. We gathered recipes from people who have been cooking wild plants and loving them! Great ways to incorporate wild (and FREE!) foods into your family's diet.

Hand Made Incense booklet and kit - add water or hydrosols to make cones from resin and sandalwood. Instructions and recipes included so you can do it yourself!

Herbal Bead booklet and kit - add water or hydrosols to create scented beads from botanicals. Instructions and recipes included so you can do it yourself!

T-Shirts for your favorite reader of The Essential Herbal . Available in bayberry blue, dusty rose, and terra cotta.

Lavender Wands woven from 17 stems of exquisite Grosso Lavender. Delightful!

"Wish Candles" for Wisdom, Healing, Abundance, Love, Manifesting a Miracle, Harmony , all are beautifully scented. Light and visualize that which you are trying to bring into your life.

Spice Clay Mix - just add applesauce . Each package will make about 25 ornaments that hold their fragrance for years. Great for package tie-ons, tree ornaments, potpourri, and garlands!

CobraHead Tool - Spring weeding is just around the corner... This is our favorite gardening tool, and we think you need one too.

And some other books and incense making tools/ingredients. Burners, tragacanth, and other hard to find ingredients.

Drop on by!

Morning has broken, like the first morning...

Cat Stevens was part of the soundtrack of my youth, and every time there is a particularly beautiful day, the song "Morning has broken" plays in my head as I sit in my office looking out over the acres and acres that stretch before me. Sometime in my late 30's, I was surprised to find the song on the program in a church one Sunday. I liked Cat's version better - more lilting.

On this particular morning, I was possessed with the desire to go find some berries. The blueberries have been giving me a handful each day to nibble on while weeding. There was some discussion on The Essential Herbal Yahoo group the other day about mulberries, and that made me think of the tree just out by the end of the near field. That - of course - reminded me that Bob had mentioned that the raspberries were starting to ripen over on the edge of the next field. So, 6:45, basket in hand, I set out.

Now mulberries are a funny thing. They are so common as to be a nuisance plant around here. The birds feast on them, and splatter cars with the magenta after-effects. The trees pop up everywhere, due to said after-effects. Some people don't even eat them, and I think that is because they are so common.

But to children (my sister excluded - she doesn't like them) they are a miracle! When Molly was a toddler, I could look out the kitchen window, and see a trail of clothing. That meant that I'd find her down by the mulberry tree. She was nothing if not tidy, and mulberries are very juicy. She'd be standing under the mulberry tree naked, eating her fill and singing to herself - smeared with juice from head to toe. The tree would be so laden with fruit that the boughs bent down almost to the ground. The best way to find mulberries is to stand under the branches where the fruit dangles under the leaves.

Just a couple years ago, a city-boy friend, who I happen to know LOVES berries told me he'd never had them. At that particular moment, I spied a tree just across the parking lot and swerved on over to pick some for him to try. They are a much under-rated fruit.
Mulberries can be used like any other berry, but has no tartness, so maybe a few drops of lemon juice might be required for some recipes. The stems are edible. Here's a recipe using mulberries along with other berries...
From Wild Foods for Every Table

Wildberry Slump
from Geri Burgert

1 c fresh ripe wineberries (Rubus phoenicolasius)
3 c fresh ripe dark mulberries
1 c all-purpose flour
1 c sugar
1 - 1/2 t. baking powder
1/4 t salt
3/4 c whole milk
2 T unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Put berries in an ungreased 5 to 6 cup deep-dish pie plate and sprinkle with 3/4 cup sugar.

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining 1/4 cup sugar into a bowl. Add milk and butter and stir with a whisk until smooth, then pour over berries.

Bake slump in the middle of the oven until the top is golden brown, 40 to 45 minutes. Transfer to a raack and cool 20 minutes. Serve warm.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.


Along the way this morning, I picked some wild flowers. There is a whole drift of them that were planted last year, and have spread and continued to grow. The coreopsis and blanket flower have done the best, but blue cornflower, flax, heart's ease, batchelor's buttons, yarrow, and poppies didn't do too shabbily either.
It was a glorious stroll. The neighbors weren't up yet, and the dogs didn't notice me. At some point, I rounded a corner and surprised the guinea hens. Sensing the quiet of the morning, they didn't even set up their usual squawking.
There are a couple other flowers I snapped along the way. The first picture is Lupine. These are sweet spires of various colored flowers. Very striking. After a couple of tries with these at the old house, I almost gave up, but these did ok, so maybe we'll have them around. There was a book we used to read at bedtime called "The Lupine Lady" about a woman who lived in a little town, and people thought she was odd and stand-offish. Her main activity was to spread lupine seeds, and at some point in the story the kids wander over the top of a hill and find lupine spires for as far as the eye could see, giving them a different perspective of the old woman.
Lastly is the picture of Blue-eyed Grass. I can distinctly recall the first time I ever saw this plant. It was growing along the side of the road, in a ditch on the dirt road leading to our house in VA. There were so many of them, and the color is so vivid, that I screeched to a halt. I may have screamed too... you'd have to ask Molly. We dug up a little clump to transplant by the door, but (of course) the goats ate them. So this year, Putnum Hill had the plant for sale at Landis Valley, and I scooped one up, feeling like I'd found a box full of sapphires. They've bloomed everyday since they got into the gardens. No goats - hee hee hee.