David Smith 1/21/15 David Smith 1/21/15

Roast Squirrel with Orange Blackberry Cranberry Sauce

...a dish that's simple, is most excellent and has some real nice visual appeal. Blackberries have always been a good match for squirrel in my book, and when I...

What do you do when you've got a package of dressed and quartered squirrel in the freezer, a bowl of still-pretty-fresh cranberries hanging out in the fridge, a pile of leaves and stems from a just-pruned thyme plant, and fresh blackberries on sale at the grocer...and you're hungry? You get creative, that's what.

squirrel w orange blackberry cranberry sauce

Here's a dish that's simple, is most excellent and has some real nice visual appeal. Blackberries have always been a good match for squirrel in my book, and when I bought them the other day pairing the two was exactly what I had in mind. I ate an orange this morning just to get something in my stomach right away, and that gave me the idea to make an orange blackberry sauce for the squirrel.

As an aside, I rarely immediately dispose of things that smell good, and I like to keep a bowl of aromatic bits and pieces on the bathroom counter. Orange peels, herb clippings, twigs from the Christmas tree, discarded soap wrappers...anything dry and "pretty" smelling. The peels of my just eaten orange went into the bowl. Our thyme and rosemary plants are also doing very well since we brought them inside for the winter, with plenty of new bright green growth bending towards the windows. I've cut them back at least twice already since late November. Today I trimmed the thyme and ended up with a cup or two of great smelling twigs and leaves. I separated the good from the bad, tossed the leafy hard twigs into the potpouri bowl, and set the soft stuff on the kitchen counter for use in this roast squirrel dish.

As I was prepping everything I recalled that we had a bowl full of fresh cranberries in the fridge that had been waiting patiently for a couple weeks. There were a few undesirables in the bunch but most of them were still in fine fettle. Why not add those as well?

Here's the recipe. It's really just a normal orange sauce such as you might use with duck, but with the berries added. Duck and squirrel are similar in some ways and I think this sauce would make a great compliment to either one.

Ingredients:

a couple of squirrels, cleaned and quartered (I had a package of thighs and forequarters from three or four squirrels, so that's what I used here)
stick of butter
1 or 2 yellow onions, thickly sliced
half-dozen or so whole garlic cloves, smashed with the side of your knife
about a ¼ cup fresh thyme
1 orange, skin-on, sliced into ¼" circles
1 or 2 cups of fresh cranberries
about 1 cup orange juice
orange peel from one orange
about ¼ cup light molasses
½ cup light brown sugar (you could use honey too, but cut back on the amount)
piece of fresh ginger about half the size of your thumb, grated or diced
½ cup Grand Marnier orange liqueur
salt
cracked pepper
at least a cup of fresh blackberries

1. Heat oven to 350°.
2. Gently melt about ¾ of the stick of butter in a large cast iron skillet (I'm using cast iron for just about everything these days). Line the bottom of the skillet with a single layer of onion slices and all but one or two of the smashed garlic cloves. Toss in a handful of the cranberries.
3. Lay the squirrel on top of the onion/garlic/cranberry bed, in a single layer and evenly spaced. Salt and pepper the squirrel. Sprinkle the thyme leaves evenly over the squirrel. Lay the orange slices on top (you don't need to completely cover with the orange slices, a few should do the job).
4. Into the oven with the skillet. Set the timer for 30 minutes.

Squirrel thighs and forequarters layered over onions, garlic, cranberries.

Now for the sauce.
1. Combine the orange juice, orange peel, molasses, brown sugar, ginger, a couple cloves of smashed garlic, orange liqueur, and a big handful of cranberries in a sauce pot. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Once it hits boil turn the heat down and let it simmer, stirring regularly. Salt and pepper to taste, about a teaspoon each.

2. After simmering for 10-12 minutes, strain the liquid from the chunky stuff through a strainer, pressing the juice through the strainer with a rubber spatula. It doesn't have to be completely clear of the little bits, at least not for me. Return liquid to sauce pan and put on a low simmer. Add most of the blackberries and loosely smash them to break them up a bit (save a few to add to the final plating). Reduce until you get the thickness you're looking for. You could add that last ¼ stick of butter here if you wish, to give it a little more richness. I chose not to.

Back to the squirrel.
5. After 30 minutes, remove skillet from oven and with tongs turn each piece of meat. There should be a good amount of liquid in the bottom of the skillet, but the meat should not be completely submerged. Cook for another 30 minutes.

6. After 30 minutes, turn the pieces of meat one more time and set the oven on broil. Broil for only 5 minutes or so, just enough to give a nice browning to the surface of the meat.

7. Plate it up, pour the sauce, eat it up. A couple of wine recommendations for this dish: Von Stiehl Winery in Algoma, WI makes a Cherry Bounce that is to die for, and Door Peninsula Winery in Sturgeon Bay makes a wonderful Blackberry Merlot. Both do nicely here.

Roast squirrel with orange blackberry cranberry sauce.

David Smith 1/6/15 David Smith 1/6/15

"Ever eat a pine tree?"

Euell Gibbons helped me to see that pine trees offered so much more, in the form of culinary adventure. I looked for and thought about other edible aspects of pine trees. What did Gibbons mean when he said, "Many parts are edible?" Could you just pluck a twig and start chewing?...

That's the quote that immediately comes to mind whenever I think of Euell Gibbons, naturalist and father figure of the modern foraging movement. I was just a kid when Gibbons was all over television hawking Grape Nuts cereal. "Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible." became one of those popular cultural catch-phrases that kids and grown-ups repeated when passing a pine tree, decorating the Chistmas tree or simply having cereal for breakfast (and a heckuva lot of us had Grape Nuts in the kitchen cupboard, though truth be told most of us kids much preferred Captain Crunch, Cheerios or Frosted Flakes; the Grape Nuts were really for Mom).

But Gibbons was spot on in heralding the pine tree as a good source of nutrition and sustenance, as he was with just about everything he wrote about in his popular series of foraging and back to nature books. As a kid I knew that pine trees carried nuts/seeds in the cones but could never find any with seeds big enough to make the labor of picking the cones apart worthwhile.

I also knew from my youthful readings of early American history and adventure stories that the needles (or more accurately, the leaves) helped early Americans stave off scurvy, which I only knew as the "sailor's disease", and its relevance to mountain men and pioneers was lost on me at that time (once people reached land and got off the boat, scurvy - whatever that was - was a non-issue, or so I incorrectly assumed). And of course we knew that pine pitch, that impossible-to-remove super-sticky gunk leaking from the trees, was used by the Indians to make their birch bark canoes. Beyond that all I knew as a kid was that Christmas treees were pine trees, they were great to play under and build forts around in the winter snow, and they smelled good.

But Euell Gibbons helped me to see that pine trees offered so much more, in the form of culinary adventure. I looked for and thought about other edible aspects of pine trees. What did Gibbons mean when he said, "Many parts are edible?" Could you just pluck a twig and start chewing? (Yes, you could, I discovered, but who in the world would want to. It was gawd-awful in every way.)

I did learn about using the leaves to make tea, and that some pine trees did have seeds large enough to harvest, even if they weren't readily available in Wisconsin. I also learned that pine pitch was used as a kind of chewing gum by American Indians, though that too proved to be a once-is-enough experiment for me.

It wasn't until years later, as my culinary skills evolved professionally and I began to marry them to my foraging, hunting and fishing pursuits, that I revisited Euell Gibbons old TV commercial catch-phrase. The first culinary experiments I did with pine were simple infusions. I stuck fresh pine sprigs in bottles of extra virgin olive oil and grapeseed oil, and in vodka, and allowed them to infuse over several days or several weeks. The olive and grapeseed oils developed piney, citrusy notes (more promounced in the grapeseed oil) that were great in salad dressings, and we used the vodka to make some really wonderful "Christmas martinis" (complete with spruce tip garnish) at our coffee house restaurant, Stumpjack. The piney vodka could be a key ingredient in any number of cocktail recipes. That's really where it's at with pine, leaching the the aromatic, oily essence for use as a flavoring agent. Other than pine nuts and its use as an herb or spice, there's really not much of the tree itself that you'd want to consume wholly on its own.

We also make a simple syrup using pine needles that we use in coffee drinks, tea, and some other cocktail concoctions. A favorite winter morning coffee drink is a riff on Irish Coffee where I add a splash of pine infused simple syrup to the coffee and whiskey, topped with a lightly pine infused whipped cream using a whipped cream charger. You've got to taste and keep track of how much and how long you infuse things with pine however. A little goes a long way here, and it's not hard to go overboard with pine flavor and aroma. Too much and you might find yourself drinking something more like a mug of furnisher polish. You really want something that has a subtle citrusy flavor and just a whisper of pine aroma. Enough to make you feel warm and cozy, but not enough to curl your hair.

You can also use pine needles much as you would an herb like rosemary (they share similar attributes and flavor profiles) or sage. Pluck them from the branches and sprigs and use them fresh, or dry them and store as you would any other dried herb or spice. Unless I'm using them in a bouquet garni where the whole sprig is the way to go, or in an herb or spice satchel that is removed from a simmering soup before serving, I will mince the leaves on a cutting board. For example, the other day I made a loaf of Irish Soda Bread into which I incorporated a couple tablespoons of minced pine needles, along with pine infused buttermilk, to give the whole thing an aromatic, piney essence.

This post is getting a bit lengthy, so I think I'm going to make this a two-parter with a couple more recipes, next week perhaps.

Recipes

Pine simple syrup:
1 cup water
1 cup cane sugar
Half-dozen pine sprigs

1. Gently heat water and sugar, stirring constantly, until sugar is dissolved.
2. Add pine sprigs and bring to a boil. Let boil for a minute, turn off heat and allow to cool.
3. Remove sprigs, strain and bottle, refrigerate.

Pine flavored whipped cream:
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Handful of pine sprigs

1. Give the pine sprigs a few wacks with a meat hammer or press them with the side of your chef's knife. Just rough them up a bit to facilitate releasing their oils.
2. Place the sprigs in a mason jar and add the heavy cream. Screw a lid on and set in the fridge for a few days. Taste the cream after two or three days to see if it's where you want it. If not, add a couple more sprigs. The pineyness of it depends how much and what kind of pine you're using and even the time of year (pines seem more or less aromatic depending on the season).
3. Once it's to your liking remove the sprigs and strain the cream. Add the powdered sugar and mix very well.
4. Add cream to whipped cream charger, shake and serve.

Piney Irish soda bread:
This is a basic soda bread recipe.
4 cups all-purpose flour
4 tbl sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1½ tsp salt
½ stick butter, cut into ½" pieces
2 heaping tbl minced fresh pine needles
1½+ cups cold pine infused buttermilk plus a bit extra for brushing
1 egg

1. To infuse the buttermilk, follow the same procedure as with the piney whipped cream recipe, except of course use buttermilk instead of cream and ignore the whipped cream charger. This means you'll have to plan ahead a few days before making the soda bread in order to allow enough time for the buttermilk to become properly pine flavored.
2. Line a large cast iron skillet with a piece of parchment paper (cut paper in a circle a bit larger than the skillet).
3. Mince fresh pine needles. Depending on the type of pine you're using (I prefer a fraser fir or a balsam) the leaves can be pretty oily and will easily stick to your knife, so it'll take a little time.
4. Heat oven to 375°
5. Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, butter in a big bowl. Add minced pine needles and mix again. I do this in two steps because it's just a little easier getting the pine needles distributed into the flour after the butter is incorporated.
6. Whisk the egg and buttermilk together then work into the four mixture.
7. Flour your counter and turn the dough out onto the counter. It will be sticky. Knead it just enough to form it into a ball, flouring your hands as you go.
8. Place the dough ball onto the parchment-lined skillet. Cut a large X into the surface of the dough. Brush surface with buttermilk.
9. Bake for about an hour, giving it a brush of buttermilk once or twice during the bake. Check doneness with a toothpick or wood skewer.
* You could, if you want, add a cup of golden raisins or currants to the batter as well.

This bread has an almost biscotti- or scone-like quality to it. It's quite nice with coffee and perhaps a bit of fig jam.

David Smith 12/11/14 David Smith 12/11/14

Squirrel & Dumplings Soup (acorn dumplings too)

...chicken noodle soup became squirrel noodle soup, and I decided to make it even more traditional and belly warming by adding dumplings. I remember with great fondness the dumpling soups my mom and grandma would make: giant kettles of soup (grandma had 11 kids of her own and always an assortment of cousins and grown-ups wandering in and out of the farmhouse on any given day) with big white, glistening dumplings floating on top. They were wonderful.

My wife and I each caught a cold virus last week. Chicken soup and plenty of fluids is the traditional good remedy, but we had no chicken. We do, however, have a freezer full of dressed squirrels (yes, from casual to evening wear...ba-dop-bop!). So, chicken noodle soup became squirrel noodle soup, and I decided to make it even more traditional and belly warming by adding dumplings. I remember with great fondness the dumpling soups my mom and grandma would make: giant kettles of soup (grandma had 11 kids of her own and always an assortment of cousins and grown-ups wandering in and out of the farmhouse on any given day) with big white, glistening dumplings floating on top. They were wonderful. Hot and doughy on the outside, soft and bready on the inside. Arguably the pinnacle of comfort food.

BTW, this recipe is for friend Tim Suchoki, whose birthday it is and who asked me to share the recipe. Happy birthday Tim.

I made two separate batches, two days apart, one with regular white flour dumplings and one with acorn flour dumplings. I used two squirrels, plus their giblets, per batch (hearts and kidneys) (the livers wouldn't go well here, so I sauteed them and ate on toast while the dumplings were simmering). The second batch that I made the following day, was more of a stone soup recipe, as I decided to use a few things off the cuff, so to speak. I'll give the basic, extremely-loose-on-amounts recipe, understanding that the second batch really only differed in a few spices and the addition of acorn flour to the dumplings.

Ingredients
Soup:
* 2 squirrels, cleaned, with hearts & kidneys
* stock, about 2 quarts. Chicken stock is preferred, but I used some turkey stock I made from the Thanksgiving turkey for the first batch. Second batch I used a combination of turkey, squirrel and beef stock, as I had some partial containers of each to use up.
* 4 or 5 carrots, diced about ½"
* 1 or 2 white onions, diced about ½"
* 3 or 4 garlic cloves, fine dice
* any other veg you might want to add (I added peas to the second batch)
* egg noodles
* spices (I used fresh thyme & sage, as well as dried cayenne, celery seed, red pepper flakes, basil flakes and of course sea salt and crushed peppercorns. a bay leaf or two doesn't hurt either.)
* butter or bacon fat
* water

Dumplings:
* 2 cups flour (for the acorn dumpling I used about 1½ cups reg flour and ½ cup acorn flour)
* 4 tsp baking powder
* 1 tsp baking soda
* pinch salt
* pinch of grated nutmeg if using acorn flour
* ¾ cup milk
* couple tbl butter or lard

Cover squirrels is salted water and bring to a hard simmer until the meat is falling off the bones. Periodically skim the scum from the surface. Remove the squirrels and allow them to cool enough to handle. Save the water as you'll be able to use this in the soup.

Once the squirrels are cool enough to handle remove the meat from the bones. Pay particular attention around the spines and ribs. There are some small bones in those areas, so take your time when picking everything clean.

Sweat the onion and garlic in bacon fat or butter until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the squirrel meat, giblets, and spices, and saute just long enough for everything to make a first impression, just a few minutes. Add stock to the pot with the squirrel broth (you should have only a cup or two of the broth), add the meat/onion/spice mix, any veg you might want as well as a bay leaf or two. Heat to simmering.

I like to cook the noodles separately and add as I bowl it before eating, otherwise they tend to get a bit too soft. But you can do that now if you wish, or wait until you're ready to eat. After all, egg noodles only take 5 or 6 minutes to cook. There apparently is some debate over the appropriateness of having both noodles and dumplings in a soup. I like both, so that's what I did, convention be danged.

You can, of course, bowl it up and eat right now. It's great just like this. But if you do want to add dumplings it's easy enough to whip up a batch.

For the dumplings, mix together all of the dry ingredients. I added a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg to the acorn dumplings because I think it adds a little magic in bringing out the acorny goodness. In a small pot add the butter or lard to the milk and gently warm until the fat melts. Whisk to blend. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and roughly and quickly mix until the dough just comes together in a rather ragged manner.

The dough should be ragged, loose and sticky.

Roll the dough out into rough balls, but don't work it too much or compact the dough balls. Rough and quick is the way to go.

Gently drop the dumplings into the simmering soup, cover and cook for 10 or 12 minutes. When done the insides will be like freshly baked bread: kind of between moist and dry, and bready in texture.

That's it. I like my dumplings best right away. If they sit too long in the liquid they get heavy and doughy. My wife, however, likes them heavy and doughy. To each his own.

David Smith 10/2/14 David Smith 10/2/14

Shaggy Mane Mushrooms

As my work season is winding down I've got a slew of blog posts in the bag that I plan on posting semi-regularly - two or three times a week I think - over the next four or so months. I've been sharing images and a few thoughts on our facebook page over the summer, and maybe I'll pull some of those into something more blog post-like over fall and winter too. Lately I've been sharing images of shaggy mane mushrooms we've been finding over the last week, and one of my FB friends just asked, on my personal page, how to prepare them...just as I was finishing making soup. Well, the Packers are just about to kickoff against the Vikings and I've got the time to share that recipe right now while the game is on (Go Pack!).

Shaggy Mane, aka Inky Caps, are popping up all over town right now. I've been hopping out of the car pretty regularly to cut them from the grassy edges of sidewalks, parks, unmowed fields, under lone trees in gravely parking lots, close to fish cleaning stations and even on the lawn by the Post Office. They're easily identifiable (I won't go into identification details in this post; you can find that information in lots of places online), very fragile and ephemeral. Once you pick them you better be ready to prepare them asap or clean and freeze them, or you'll have an inky mess before long.

They are self-digesting, going from a soft though semi-firm state to a dripping, black inky liquid. You'll find them from small, little button-sized knobs to large, 6-inch-plus, shaggy vertical torpedoes. You'll also often find them in various states of disintegration in the same spot. You want the ones that are semi-firm, white and as closed as possible at the stem and cap junction. Their outer skin may be a little rough in appearance and texture, or peeling in numerous curling flakes not unlike the appearance of a fat, whittled fuzz stick, the kind used by Boy Scouts and woodsmen to get a fire going.

These are really not the kind of mushroom you saute' or fry like you might a button or morel mushroom. They're too insubstantial for that, too water-bound. But I've had good luck slicing the firmest ones into ¼ inch length-wise chips and flash frying over high heat in bacon grease til browned. We'll do that very thing for a garnish with this soup. These are very mild mushrooms, and have a soft, gentle earthy flavor not unlike the button mushrooms you might get at the grocer.

To clean the mushrooms simply rinse under cold running water with a little thumb rubbing to remove grass and dirt. Sometimes the outer shaggy surface skin will very easily peel or rub off, leaving you with a smooth, egg-like mushroom. There's no need to remove the stalk, so keep the cap and stalk together. Here's the super simple and tasty soup recipe. My brother stopped over as I was finishing cooking and he declared it to be "Excellent! Delicious."

Ingredients
5 to 7 cups shaggy mane mushrooms, roughly chopped
1½ to 2 cups chicken or beef stock (I used beef this time, because it's what I had on hand)
1 to 1½ cups whole milk
couple tbl spoons butter
couple onions or shallots, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, diced
Sea salt and cracked pepper
Sour cream
Chives
Handful of small, nice, firm mushrooms, sliced length-wise, ¼" thick

1. Saute' over medium heat the onion/shallots and garlic in a stock pot until soft.
2. Add chopped mushrooms and continue cooking for several minutes. If it looks like you're getting too much water in the pot, raise the heat and cook some of that off quickly, but don't compromise the integrity of the mushrooms.
3. Salt and pepper.
4. Add the chicken or beef stock, turn the heat down a bit and continue simmering for several minutes.
5. Add the milk and continue simmering, being careful not to burn or curdle the milk.

Once everything in the pot is well acquainted turn the heat off and allow to cool a bit. While cooling, add a tablespoon or two of bacon fat to a skillet, get it hot and gently lay the sliced mushroom pieces in the hot fat. Let the pieces brown on one side before gently turning them over to brown on the other side. It shouldn't take but a few short minutes. Place the pieces on paper towel to drain.

When the soup mixture cools enough to blend in a food processor go ahead and blend in small batches until smooth. Return to pot and if the soup looks too watery you can make a roux and add to thicken it up. Heat and serve, adding a dollop of sour cream, chopped chives and a few browned mushroom slices for garnish. Shaggy Mane Soup...it's quick, simple and very mushroomy.

David Smith 6/19/14 David Smith 6/19/14

Waxworm breakfast wrap

Part of my interest in foraging, survival skills and food in general has included insects as food. When I was a "kid" I used to spend hours while camping harvesting ant eggs and adults from ant colonies, grasshoppers from fields, certain water insects and a few grub-type critters. At that time I wasn't much of a cook and so my culinary experiments mostly consisted of simply sauteing things in a little oil or butter with onion. That's still a great and simple way to approach entomophagy, the eating of insects as food (although I didn't know there even was a word for it back then, and just looked at it as something that was in line with the technology-scarce lifestyle I was attracted to at the time).

Anyway, I'd kind of let that part of my foraging/self-sufficiency interests dwindle over the years, as I guess I came to look at it as something borne more of occasional curiosity than of any truly practical application. I've recently come to change my mind on the subject, and realize that there is indeed much genuine practical, ethical and culinarily satisfying reward to be got from entomophagy. I thank Daniella Martin's new book Edible: An Adventure into the World of Eating Insects and the Last Great Hope to Save the Planet for recharging my batteries on the subject of insects as food.

I decided to get my feet wet again with a simple breakfast wrap using a common and easily acquired little beast known as a waxworm.

Waxworms are the caterpillar larvae of wax moths. You may acquire waxworms from just about any place that sells live bait for fishing, which is where I got mine and is how I've always used them up to now. They are a great panfish bait and are a staple during the ice fishing season especially.

Wax moths also happen to be one of the unwelcome insects that give beekeepers fits, as they feed on the comb in hives and generally make a mess of things once they get into a hive. As a small time beekeeper this aspect of their behavior made their attendance on the menu even more satisfying.

By themselves waxworms have an almost bland and uninteresting flavor. They remind me of potatoes in that regard, in that they are good vehicles for the flavors of whatever they may be prepared with. Some describe their flavor as slightly nutty, and I suppose that's fair, but it's a very mild nuttiness if at all. The biggest hurdle you might have to overcome, if you're at all squeamish about eating insects like this, is their texture, which is soft and juicy prior to cooking. But cooking does indeed address that issue; as the larvae saute they stiffen up, gain some nice firmness and even get a little crispy if you saute them long enough.

Here's all you do:
Rinse the waxworms and gently dry them. Toss them into the freezer for a while to kill them if you're averse to putting them into the pan while they're still alive. Saute a bit of onion and/or garlic (I used ramp bulbs and onion) in a tablespoon of olive oil. Add a couple tablespoons of chopped greens such as kale. Once those things soften and mellow add the waxworms. Periodically flip the worms and saute until they become firm, gain some color and get well acquainted with the other ingredients. They'll stretch out and stiffen up as they cook, whether you put them in dead or alive, but their tiny screams will be minimal (I'm kidding!). Pull one or two of the waxworms as you cook and give them a try; that'll not only help you discern whether they're done or not but will also give you a good idea of their flavor and texture.

I then scrambled up a duck egg with a little cheese, set the egg and cheese onto a tortilla, added some radish sprouts and topped it all with the waxworm/ramp/onion medley. Mighty tasty in every respect.

So, you can expect more posts and maybe even a video or two on the subject as I dust off the old butterfly net and make space in the freezer for new, albeit smaller packages of "meat."

David Smith 6/15/14 David Smith 6/15/14

Getting the garden in bit by bit

Got a few more things planted yesterday, but still have two full beds and the long side fence bed yet to plant. I've got grand plans this spring and summer for the garden and yard but fear the time I actually have to accomplish them may argue otherwise. So, sleep less and work longer, that'll do. Still, I wonder if I've bitten off a little more than I can chew for the summer.

The compost bins are full to the brim, so I think I'll put together a vermiculture bin or two to take some of the succeeding organic matter we produce. A vermiculture bin is just a $5 word for worm bin, where a whole lot of red worms eat the organic matter you give them, in a hopefully faster and more efficient manner than a compost pile sitting in the corner of the yard just doing its thing naturally.

It feels good to get dirt under the fingernails again. It even feels good to pull a few weeds (the ones I don't purposefully let grow for the table) and pick a few stones from the garden beds (I keep hoping to find an old coin or ring or other small treasure, although I suppose stones and weeds are treasures in their own right). My day job offers me the chance to occasionally get some good fish slime on my hands too, as I weigh and measure salmon, trout and other fish anglers bring in from the big lake. Dirty fingernails mixed with a little fish blood and slime, that's how a man's hands ought to look and smell if you ask me.

Sidenote: Gave some small assistance to a fellow yesterday as he landed the biggest fish he'd ever caught, a 27 lb. carp. Sure, it wasn't a big salmon or some other glamour sport fish, but it was big and beautiful and a helluva lot of fun to watch as he battled it. He was very happy, and after we weighted and measured it he released it back into the water. I congratulated him as we shook slimy hands. It was a fun moment.

It was raining pretty good just a little while ago and I was thinking it'd be nice to take a brief nap after posting this entry. Long day already as my work shift started at 5:00am...could use a cat nap. But now the rain has suddenly stopped and I feel like I should take advantage of it. So, back out to work on those garden beds and set some onions.

David Smith 5/14/14 David Smith 5/14/14

Just a few images from this morning

Took a quick walk through the woods this morning (still waiting for morels to appear). No mushrooms yet, but did grab a few other edibles for today.

(left to right) Ostrich fern fiddleheads, ramps, trout lilies, virginia waterleaf and one garlic mustard plant (with root for photo purposes, otherwise I'd have got more).

Trout lilies and virginia waterleaf. Trout lily bulbs go into a salad; I've always used the waterleaf as a sandwich green...that'll be today's lunch.

Ostrich fern fiddleheads. Image a little grainy, as I enlarged the top pic.

Garlic mustard with its peculiar angled root (at the base of the leaf cluster), an identifying characteristic (they don't always angle like this, but often enough).

Garlic mustard. Note the difference in leaf shapes: roundish or kidney-shaped near the bottom of the plant, pointed or arrowhead-shaped near the top.

Lunch. Steelhead sandwich with waterleaf and ramp greens (and Carr Valley cranberry chipotle cheese), salad with added trout lilies, garlic mustard, ramp greens, and chaga tea.

David Smith 5/12/14 David Smith 5/12/14

Thunder and lightning are a beautiful thing

I'm lying in bed at 5:00am on Monday morning, catching the flashes of light from lightning and counting the seconds until the thunder that follows. 4-mississippi equals 4 miles away, that's how it works, yes? How many sounds are cooler than than the sounds of thunder and rain in the dawning light of morning? Well, maybe the sounds of thunder and rain on the roof of a tent, while your snuggled deep into a heavy, warm sleeping bag are cooler, but I'm in the house this morning and it'll do.

It's been three months since my last post on the blogsite here. Three months that went by in a blink it seems. It's been a busy spring, if you could reasonably call it spring. It's only been in the last week that it's felt like spring, with the trees budding and ramps popping up in the woods in the last five or six days. Everything is late. Don't even have the garden in yet, because it's been too cold. And now suddenly that it's warmed up in the last week I'm behind already.

We've been editing videos from last year, which has taken longer than I thought it would. But we've got some great footage. I'm even more impressed with Josh's film skills than I was before, if that's possible. I'm excited to get this stuff out there and to get rolling on more new stuff this year. Soon.

Big news, and the biggest reason I haven't stayed on top of the blog lately...started a new job. Working with the Wisconsin DNR right now as a Fisheries Technician for the county. That means I do creel surveys of fishermen (is it ok to call women anglers fishermen? "Fisherwomen" seems cumbersome. I think fishermen should be a gender-neutral term, so that's what I'm going with).

GIANT, cracking thunder! That one was closer than 4 miles.

Nice catch of steelhead and browns recorded while on the job.

I do angler counts at specific times along specific routes, interview anglers to see what they're fishing for, what they're catching, how long they've been out, what they're using, and so on; weigh and measure catches, look for tags and fin clips; write reports on each week's conditions and angler success. It's a great gig for me. I get to be outside and on the water. I work alone all day, and get to meet a lot of people, some of whom are pretty hardcore fishermen and have good tips and techniques that have proven successful for them, so I'm also able to increase my own knowledge base and mental tackle box, so to speak.

Daughter Cheyenne with one of the steelhead we caught last week.

I'm well into the groove of the job now, and now that spring seems to be really here at last, I'll get back to regular blog updates. In addition to ramps, several other wild edibles are starting to pop. I picked a small bunch of stinging nettles while fishing a few days ago, just enough for breakfast, and noticed that the ostrich ferns were beginning to make their appearance as well, so we should have fiddleheads soon. Trout lilies and Virginia waterleaf are up in force. Burdock and evening primrose rosettes are everywhere, and dandelions are almost thick in some spots...all in just the last few days. For as many years as I've been doing this, the wild edible thing, since I was a kid, I am still amazed, each and every year, at how quickly new green life bursts forth each spring. One day everything is brown and gray, the next day, boom! there's green poking through the earth! It always seems surprising.

Simple breakfast: stinging nettles & egg on toast.

My wife and I went for a long walk through a wood several days ago, ostensibly to look for morels, although I knew that it was still a little early for them in our area, given the late spring we've had. Maybe this week, if we can get a couple warm days to light a fire under their little mushroom behinds. Until then, there are more fish to be caught, plenty of other greens to make room in the fridge for, and a garden to plant.

Going to shut my eyes and listen to the rain and thunder now.

David Smith 2/14/14 David Smith 2/14/14

quince apple blueberry pie with chocolate acorn crust

Here's another recipe I've been sitting on for the last couple months. I made this for a dinner we held for some of the supporters of my wife's place, Drift Coffee Club. We collected the acorns, quince and apples during our autumn foraging, but as we had gone through our blueberry stores we ended up purchasing those, which you can probably tell by their larger size in the photo. I'd not used quince much before (made some chutney once) , so was eager to see how it played here. I think what really made this pie extra special though, was the acorn flour crust. Acorns are a terribly underused and underappreciated resource; they have much to offer the forager cook, and I plan to spotlight their use in the kitchen with greater emphasis this year. You can see how we process acorn flour by clicking here.

Let's make the crust first (one 9" pie).

Acorn & Chocolate Pie Crust

Acorn flour, approx. 2 cups
All-purpose flour, approx. 1 cup
Sea salt, ½ tsp
Brown sugar, 1 heaping tbl
Butter, unsalted, approx. 1½ sticks, cut into ½" chilled pats
Water, cold
Semi-sweet chocolate chips, approx. ¾ cup

1. Mix dry ingredients together well. I used the acorn flour here in the same way you would use all-purpose flour when making a simple pie crust. But you'll find that it does not behave like a regular floured pie crust. Acorn flour does not, by itself, make for a pliable dough as does regular flour. It's more crumbly in nature.

2. Add chilled butter squares and work into the flour mixture until well incorporated. Add cold water, about a tablespoon at a time, until you get a workable ball of dough. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

3. Lightly flour your work surface with either acorn flour or regular flour. Cut the dough into 2 pieces, approximately 2/3 and 1/3 the size of the whole. Place the larger ball of dough onto the work surface and gently roll it out into a circle larger than the pie pan. The dough will be less pliable and will have the urge to break apart, so be gentle when you lift it up and place it into the pie pan. If pieces do break off, no worries, just fill in the spots with more dough where needed. Take a fork and pepper the bottom and sides of the pie pan with holes.

4. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes. Keep your eye on it while it's in the oven, as it will want to bubble up, and I didn't use the foil and beans method to weight it down. When you see it start to bubble open the oven door and give it a poke with a fork to deflate the bubbles. Be careful to watch the browning too much as well, because it seems to brown more quickly than a regular flour crust...remove it from the oven when it looks good. Set aside to cool.

5. Melt the chocolate chips (microwave or stove-top) and pour into the bottom of the cooled pie crust. Set aside to cool and harden.

note: After you add the filling you'll roll out the smaller dough ball and use as the top crust. I didn't take a photo of the completed pie because we were having such a good time eating and talking that I just forgot about it.

apple quince blueberry pie w acorn crust 11-24-13.JPG

Filling

Quince, 1 or 2 medium sized, peeled, cored, sliced thickly
Apples, 1 or 2, GrannySmith or similar, peeled, cored, sliced thickly
Honey, ½ cup
Water, 1 cup
Ground cinnamon, ½ tsp
Ground nutmeg, ¼ tsp
All-purpose flour, 2-3 tbl
Sugar, ½ cup
Salt, just a pinch!
Blueberries, handful

1. Combine quince, water, honey, salt in large lidded saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 -10 minutes, until fruit softens a bit (but not too soft). If you need to add more water along the way, do so.

2. Spoon out the quince into a separate bowl. Add the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg to the still-hot cooking liquid and mix well into a thick syrup. Add the apple chunks and stir well. Add the quince back into the pan and stir everything gently but thoroughly. Leave the mixture sit in the pan while you roll out the other dough for the top crust.

3. Once you've got the top crust ready to go, empty the contents of the pan into a colander and allow to drain for a few minutes. Pour into a large bowl. Then, add 2-3 tbl white flour and gently incorporate the flour into the quince and apples. You don't want things too wet as they goes into the pie crust, and the flour will help absorb some moisture. Preheat the oven to 375°.

4. Pour the apple quince mixture into the chocolate-lined pie crust. Add a handful of blueberries evenly to the top of the filling. Attach the top crust dough (be gentle when pressing the edge, as the lower crust will be a bit harder than the top crust and you don't want to break it...it's not imperative that there be a perfectly complete seal). Score the top crust several times to allow steam to escape. Bake for around 45 minutes, until crust is brown and done, but keep an eye on it - depending on how well you pre-baked the bottom crust and how much the quince and apples softened in the prep stage, the cooking time may vary a bit.

5. Allow to cool. Enjoy!

David Smith 2/6/14 David Smith 2/6/14

Domain name change

FYI: Was able to secure the creativesustenance.com domain today, so we're deleting the old .net URL and activating the .com address. You should now be able to type creativesustenance.com to access the blogsite.