Oh how I wish Mike Krebill had been my scout leader! No offense to my mother, who is a lovely woman and was a great troop leader, but when I think about what I could have learned in Mike’s troop…well, I envy his scouts. I met Mike years ago at the Midwest Wild Harvest Festival and was immediately impressed not…
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For a tender green, chickweed is a pretty tough plant. It’s one of the earliest greens to appear in spring and if you live in a snow free climate, you may find it survives a few frosts and freezes. Chickweed doesn’t much like the heat, though. By midsummer it has dispersed its seeds and gone dormant. Those seeds germinate in…
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Acorns are a benchmark wild edible for the serious forager. They’re an excellent source of starch and fat, and a versatile, delicious wild food. There’s no denying that processing acorns takes work, and I used to wonder if it was worth the trouble. It sounded complicated and I was afraid I’d do it wrong. By breaking the process down into…
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Hot leaching is a quick way to remove the tannins from your shelled acorns. However, since hot leaching acorns cooks the starch in the nuts, they’ll require an extra binder to hold together in baked goods. If you’re making acorn flour for baking, cold leaching is a better choice. But hot-leached acorns are still useful! My favorite way to use…
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Mushrooms and acorns bring rich, umami flavor and satisfying texture to this acorn mushroom soup. It’s filling, delicious, and thanks to its low fat content…very healthy. You can use any mushroom (wild or cultivated), but I suggest using something other than the white button mushrooms you find in most grocery stores. Those don’t have quite enough flavor to stand up…
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