No matter how many times I cut open a prickly pear fruit (aka tuna) I’m surprised by its color. On the outside they’re a pretty pink, but cut the fruit open and bam! It’s a vibrant magenta you wouldn’t expect to find in nature. Prickly pear syrup is a great way to preserve both the flavor and color of this fruit,…
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Wild Ginger Syrup Recipe
Making wild ginger syrup is a great way to preserve our native wild ginger. In liquid form, wild ginger can flavor cocktails, soft drinks, sorbets, crepes, or marinades with its complex and versatile taste. For years I’ve used wild ginger freshly chopped or dried and powdered. That’s great for baking, but liquids are better for certain applications. By making wild…
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A Guide to Ginkgo Nuts
Ginkgos are gorgeous trees, most appreciated for their unusual leaf shape and brilliant yellow fall foliage. But how many of you have enjoyed the flavor of ginkgo nuts? These trees are dioecious, meaning that trees are either male or female. Without DNA analysis it’s impossible to determine the sex of a tree before it reaches bearing age, which can be…
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An Online Foraging Course for Beginners
How do you get started as a forager? If you’re lucky, you learn from a friend. But not everyone has a foraging friend. So you go on foraging walks, you read everything you can get your hands on, you take classes, you watch videos, you sign up for wild foods weekends. And now you have another option: you take my…
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Dr. Nadia’s Acorn Sweet Bread Recipe
This is not my recipe. I got it from Dr. Nadia Navarrete-Tindall. Nadia took my wild syrups class at the Midwest Wild Harvest Festival, in Prairie du Chien, WI. She is a native plant educator and consultant living in Columbia, Missouri, and last November I read an article she wrote about acorns. At the end of the article, Nadia referred…
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