My first home made mustard!

I've been wanting to make my own mustard from scratch for awhile now and I finally tried it. I'm glad I waited because I've only learned about lacto-fermentation just recently. I decided to make the more rustic, grainy style mustard; so I used two kinds of mustard seed: white mustard and black.

I let them soak for 3 days in a jar with whey from kefir, a bit of water and some raw sliced onion. (1 cup mustard seeds, 1/4 cup whey, and enough water to cover the seeds) The longer you soak it the spicier it gets, so after 3 days, it has quite a bite! You can add all sorts of flavorings to the mustard, I picked the onion because it sounded intriguing; it gave the mustard a slight musty taste that gave it depth..... I like it!

 Once soaked for the appropriate time, throw it into a food processor. Add a little turmeric to get that yellow color, and also turmeric has anti-inflammatory properties. Maybe a bit of sea salt, and a bit of cider vinegar if you feel it needs more liquid.

 And Voila! Home made mustard! Yum!

more recipes at Hunger and Thirst's blog

Some of my stinging nettle recipes can be found this month at Hunger and Thirst 's blog. A dynamic duo of bloggers sets a challenge using a wild foraged ingredient each month and at the end of the month, the Wild Roundup is published with all the recipes everyone has sent in. There were @ 30 recipes this month! It's a great way to learn about wild edibles and their uses.



2nd try at Salt of the Earth

Hi......... I had this post all done, and before I could hit publish, the internet ate it.......... so....... we'll give this another try.

Recently, the boyfriend and I and an old friend from FL, met up in Portland and went to the Colombia River Gorge scenic area to see more waterfalls than you can imagine in a couple mile area.

 Fantastical, dreamworld forests and waterfalls. The bf and I stayed overnight at the Bridal Veil Lodge, which was an old-time lodge with really cute, clean and comfortable cottage rooms, that had skylights, so you could see the stars at night.... well, if it hadn't been cloudy. I highly recommend the place, the owners are very knowledgeable about the area, friendly, and best of all, I could actually eat the breakfast for once, because they cater to food allergies! Just let them know your requirements the night before, and you'll get a yummy gourmet breakfast you can eat!

The second part of this trip for me was going to the amazing salt store in Portland, The Meadow; where you can buy the salt of the Earth, literally. They have fine salts from all over the world. Real salt. Did you know that typical table salt from the supermarket is a highly processed food? First, it is baked at high temperatures to crystallize it, which kills all the minerals and iodine. Then they add an industrial grade iodine back into it, but that turns it purple so they bleach it. Then they add dextrose to make it taste right again. None of that is on the label, because it's considered part of the processing rather than an ingredient. This is good to know if you have blood sugar problems. The body doesn't recognize this altered salt product, so you can actually be low in blood sodium, while messing up your blood sugar. I just want real salt, please, with the minerals and iodine naturally still in it. Anyway, back to the store, they are VERY friendly and will spend vast amounts of time explaining the salts; what different salts from different parts of the world are best at flavoring, and the difference between fleur de sel, and sel gris..... they have testers of each salt so you can try them out. The store also carries specialty chocolates and gourmet bitters. The bf was most patient while I took an hour to figure which salts I wanted......... it was like being in a candy store.

Plasto the recipe

I decided to go ahead and post the recipe, as I thought it would be less confusing than inserting my gluten-free substitutions over the recipe on another web page. This recipe was inspired by Laura Constantino, who was in turn inspired by a recipe from a Greek Church. This is probably my all time fave nettle recipe, altho it's tasty to have a mixture of greens, say nettle and dock, or nettle and kale, last night I added in some parsley, whatever greens you have foraged or have on hand...... chard.........

makes about 6 servings

filling:
4 well-packed cups of greens (remember greens shrink alot with cooking)
1 chopped onion
1/4 cup olive oil, butter or lard rendered from a pastured animal
dash of salt
1 tsp. hot pepper (optional)
1/2 cup fresh dill, minced or @ 2 tbsp. dried depending how much you like dill
couple sprigs of mint, minced
1 cup kefir or yogurt

cornbread:
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup plain yogurt or kefir
1/2 cup other liquid, I use whey left from my kefir, or almond milk or even water
2 eggs, whisked
3 tbs. melted butter, I use goat butter, could also be olive oil

Preheat oven to 400*. Grease 10x10 pan .

Make filling: wash greens. Discard and tough stems, or save for another use. Bring a large pot of water to boil, and blanch greens for a couple minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water. Squeeze out as much water as you can and chop. We don't want soggy bread! Put greens in a bowl.
Sautee the onion in the oil/butter over medium heat until onions are softened; stir in pepper.
Mix together chopped greens, sauteed onions, dill, mint and yogurt/ kefir; season to taste with salt.

Cornbread: Mix all dry ingredients together. Whisk together eggs, yogurt/kefir and liquid until all ingredients are blended. Melt butter or add oil. Stir egg mixture into dry ingredients until they're almost completely mixed. Stir in butter/ oil.

Spread a little less than half the cornbread mixture over the bottom of the buttered pan. Spread filling over cornbread mixture. Pour the remaining cornbread mixture ove the filling and spread to cover. Bake for @ 40 minutes, until crust is golden and filling can be seen bubbling from the sides.

Let it rest @ 10 minutes before serving. It's actually really good cold and makes an excellent picnic, foraging snack!

seaweed foraging

Last Saturday, we finally had a beautiful sunny day here in Seattle. It was a perfect day for a talk on wild seaweed foraging, led by Melany of Essential Bread. It was a fun and informative talk at a local park, probably not a good place to forage on a regular basis due to urban pollution; the park was packed that day! But there was alot of life in the water. To harvest seaweed in WA, you will need a Shellfish/ Seaweed license, but they're not expensive and you can get one at Fred Meyer's or other outdoor recreational stores. As always, it's good to learn from someone local that knows what they're doing before putting anything in your mouth! The best time to forage is at low tide when the shallow water offers up her bounty. Check on the government site for regulations and resources: http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regulations/  Western WA has alot of wild edibles, so it's a good thing to learn to recognize what's edible. Here are some photos:

Irridescent Seaweed

Turkish Towel

ok, the starfish is not edible as far as I know, but it was pretty.

I did harvest a bit of seaweed to try out, although I'll look for a place a little further away from the megatropolis for future harvests. I wanted to try out some of the examples we looked at. yum.

first harvest from my little garden!

I've picked a few odds and ends, but this is the first full salad I've harvested from this year's garden. I used a couple of things like garlic chive flowers, some of the pak choi which wanted to go to seed instead of making heads, and the shallot seed pods to make a veggie tempura, along with the salad. Yum!

Gaia dressed up

Today is beautiful, finally! Sunny and warm, so I decided to go out and capture some of Gaia's finery on camera....