speaking of violets–violet leaves are one of my favorite–possibly my very favorite–greens. they’re sooo delicate. cook them in just the water clinging to the leaves after you wash them and a dollop of oil or grease (i usually use bacon fat).
and omelets with dandelion flowers and violet leaves can’t be beat.
Ooo. i’ve been meaning to use the violet leaves to make a violet paneer. You know like the Indian dish palak paneer? I also pick up my first order of raw milk today from a local farm. I’m excited to see how that tastes.
I love to eat violet leaves too - but just raw, right out of my yard with a quick rinse. I’ve been gathering a handful every morning. They are an incredible way to begin my day…
Also dandelion flower fritters …this is one of the best ways to highlight dandelion flowers in my experience. From yard to fritter in less than 5 minutes and I can really feel all the life force in the dish this way!
ramps (aka leeks) with poke greens and eggs, cooked in bear grease (from last fall)
canned bear meat (from last fall) stew, with wild greens including nettle, sochan (aka “green headed coneflower”), violets, knotweed, smartweed, sour dock, lady’s thumb (a buckwheat family plant), milkweed…
bee balm, cleavers and nettle tea
roadkill possum stuck with spicebush twigs and grilled
chickweed and oxe-eye daisy salad with canned fish and herbal vinegar/olive oil dressing…
Today I made braken fern ala orange frim Billy Joe Tatum’s cookbook. It was alright, but could have been better. I would alter the recipe if I made it again. I suppose that is my new plant for the week. I’ve nibbled it before but never made a meal out of it.
today i had a salad of basswood leaves, violets, dandelion, plantain, cattail corms, daisy flowers, columbine flowers, leeks and steamed nettle heads. i have also been drinking burdock root tea, mullien tea, and yellow birch tea.
ive been nibbling on raspberry leaves as well.
thistle stalks are just starting to pop up and are delicious on a hot day.
High five burdock root drinkers! I’m doing an experiment that involves drinking at least 2 quarts of burdock infusion a week. So far it seems to have made a slight difference in my PMS symptoms and skin. More so than when I drank nettle or oatstaw or comfrey.
May I ask where you are located, tree whisperer?
I dug up the root of either curly dock or yellow dock and am wondering if I can make it into a tea or eat them. Anyone know? I know burdock is edible, but what about the other common docks?
Yeah you can definitely make them into tea. It’s a lot like dandelion root, enhances bile production, good for the liver. You could eat it too. If you think the taste and texture are good I would go for it. I’ve seen it used in fall/winter stews. My one book says late summer to mid-fall is the ideal time for medicinal purposes, but forget ideal. Things can still be good even when they aren’t “ideal”.
i think it has a lot of iron in it too.
be careful when eatin it though (curly dock), as i read ingesting the roots and leaves raw can cause severe stomach cramps.
Penny Scout, I noticed that you said you have drank a lot of comfrey. I heard that stuff if taken internally over a long period can cause severe cancer. Just care about you and don’t want you to get hurt.
does anyone have experience with eating bamboo shoots? we just dug some up and the only time ive eaten em before they left a wierd scratchy feeling in the back of my throat that i didnt like. maybe we could have cooked them more? what about pickling?
I eat them farily often. You have to get them while they are young and green. Cook them for a long long time, so they are soft soft soft. The “scratchy feeling in back o throat” I don’t know about.
Dedomesticator-
Thanks for caring. I only drink the comfrey leaf. It is the root that has the bad stuff in it. (The roots are good for external applications however.)
I’ve never enjoyed the taste of bamboo shoots and I’ve never experienced any scratchyness in my throat from it either. You might get allergic reactions from’em???
" So far it seems to have made a slight difference in my PMS symptoms and skin. "
hmmm…have you tried adding a lot more magnesium to your diet???.. and nothing works for the skin like zinc. Due to mineral deficient soils (unless everything you’ve been eating for the past decade is truly wild) many of us are on the edge of deficiency in some minerals, magnesium and zinc being 2 of the largest - along with selenium.
re: comfrey
i believe it is much safer than people are led to believe. root and leaf. i think there are some cautions that should go along with comfrey use (particularly internal). this is what i tend to follow clinically.
-is there a history of hepatic disease?
-have there been recent tests for liver enzymes?
-what is the health concern?
-is comfrey the best/only option?
-what percentage of comfrey is in your formula?
-are there herbs in the formula that would protect against hepatic failure/veno-occlusive disease?
-how long term would internal comfrey treatment be?
-what are the warning signs of VOD/hepatic problems?
-does the client know how to spot potential liver problems?
-can you do follow up with client?
-can you prescribe liver regenerating herbs for follow up if necessary?
these are precautionary questions regarding the internal use of comfrey. in traditional herbal medicine toxic plants are pretty commonly used. any plant can be toxic. overdose is related to dosage. it is how you handle the plants and the patient that is the issue. i generally think of comfrey as being pretty non-toxic and quite safe. i wouldn’t hesitate to use it internally for something i thought it was necessary for (like broken bones).
the science behind the whole comfrey thing is sketchy at best. considering the long term traditional use of comfrey and the FDA’s overzealousness when it comes to banning very useful and unpatentable herbs i choose to use it internally. i would bet that most household products and pharmaceuticals are significantly more toxic than my comfrey plant.
Well yesterday …I had a delicious lunch of red and green letuce ,tender red spinach shoots,tiny baby beetroots,a handful of the sweetest ever shelled peas, spearmint leaves, heavenly shredded fennel,baby broadbeans,red tomatoes and slithered yellow courgettes …all good RAW “alive” food …all from my foraging garden…and a chunk of crusty buttered bread…if you,d come ,I might have cut some globe artichokes…but as you didn,t…I,ll let them flower and enjoy their stately beauty,towering high above the purple sprouting broccolli …and all the more chocolate ice -cream for my dessert without you ,I say ! ;D Chickweed GROW MORE SPEARMINT AND EAT IT WITH EVERYTHING !
fennel.
i’ve been wondering about that stuff. i put some in my herb garden this year because i got a plant at the grocery store for 88 cents. but i have never used it before, and don’t recall ever hearing how people use it.
so, what do you do with fennel?
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i have some really nice purslane coming up in my garden that i’ve started eating with everything. any soup or salad or sandwich i make lately has a hunk of purslane thrown in. it has served as my “dandelion of the hot months”.