Foraging Challenge

Aldahbra

There has been a lot of chatter on other forums recently about harvesting natures bounty and so I decided to start this thread so that all this wisdom could be held in on place.

There was a thread Foraging - Harvesting Natures Food which has a wealth of information. This thread is now very long and little used so I believe that it is time for a new thread.

The challenge is to supplement your families food with one foraged item a week. This is anything which has not been planted as food, wild berries, flowers or weeds. These can be from your own garden but must not be a "crop"

A useful links:

The Preservers Calendar
Edible Wild Food Website - Advice to foragers
Foragers calendar
Hedge Chef Volume 1, You Tube video
Christmas hampers
Christmas Hampers 2
Foraging recipes from Weezl74
Fayes Frugal Food
Jam Jar Shop
Eat Weeds
Austerity Housekeeping

Directory

June

Elderflower Cordial
Rose Petal Jelly

July

Blackcurrant Leaf Sorbet
Dandelion Jelly
Dandelion Jelly 2
Elderflower Cordial
Lavender biscuits
Lavender Fairy Cakes
lavender Jelly
Nasturtium and Lettuce Soup
Nettle and Blackcurrant leaf cordial
Rose Petal Jelly


August
Crab Apple Jellyhttp://www.frugalfoods.co.uk/http://www.jamjarshop.com/makingjam/

DebtFree2012

Fantastic! Hope to see JumbleJack here too! Thanks op.

I'm in!

Aldahbra

Me too because JumbleJack is the inspiration behind this. I'm just making her rose petal jelly at the moment.

Soworried

I have never foraged before but I would like to join in.

I have tried clicking your link but it is not working for me

purplesheila

I like to do a little bit of Foraging - so count me in :-)


My favourite foraging is Rose Hips to make cordial and Bilberries- do you plan to do a Recipe daterbase ??

Aldahbra

I have changed the link so hopeful it will work correctly now

I thought that it would be really useful to have a database of recipes and of items which are available in each month. If there is enough interest I will find out how to do this. I have never set up a thread before so I'm completely new at this.

jumblejack

Aldahbra wrote: »

I have changed the link so hopeful it will work correctly now

I thought that it would be really useful to have a database of recipes and of items which are available in each month. If there is enough interest I will find out how to do this. I have never set up a thread before so I'm completely new at this.

Wow! That would be a cool idea:j

Sounds tricky but the old style recipe index is pretty useful!!

Thanks for starting up the thread. I was a bit chicken to go for it

I've just had a sea beet omelette. Made the usual way, but my foraged sea beets were finely chopped and added to the seasoned eggs then topped with cheese and whammed under a hot grill for the last minute or so.:)

A nice idea would be for folks to upload pics as much as poss. I love to see them and I get loads of inspiration from other's successes.

Hope you enjoy the rose petal jam recipe!
I can always repost it on here if others request it.

Shame the weather is so bad today. Too wet for serious foraging. I wanted to look for alexanders but it is torrential!

Maybe tomorrow!

I passed a little bookshop today and looked for Mayer's book and the hedgerow book but to no avail. Guess I will be browsing on eBay later. The Hedgerow book has rave reviews.

Jj

optimistic

I love foraging but mine usually starts later in the year with blackberries, apples and a small pear tree (sounds like a cue for a song!) Anyway, i will follow this thread and learn/pick up tips along the way.

ps dont forget to start collecting the plastic tubs for all the blackberries!;)

ragz_2

Does my hubby bringing home rabbits count? They grow wild

Gintotmelinda

hi all

I would like to join in but not an experienced forager. Can anyone recommend some good books please?

The rose petal jam sounds good too. Jumblejack can you repost it please?

Where to start...................? We do have nasturtions growing in a hanging basket.

Gintot

JodyBPM

I love the idea of a foraging thread! I love foraging, but wouldn't say I do it as often as once a week.

My big tip for this time of the year for those who live near the sea is marsh samphire - absolutely delicious boiled or steamed served with a knob of unsalted butter! I'm hoping to do more seaside foraging, including being brave enough to make shore crab soup with all the shore crabs that the children catch and I've recently bought (but not yet tried out) a prawn trap, so I'm hoping to be eating foraged prawns soon too! I'm also interested in other seafood, but I need to wait until later in the year for that, and I need to learn a bit more about it too. The best book I've found so far for seaside foraging is "Edible Seashore", but I'd love recommendations on other books, as I'm still a beginner at the seaside stuff!

I do a bit of non-seaside foraging, for which "Food for Free" is my bible, but tbh I find a lot of stuff needs to be made into jams/jellies or wine etc, so I need to make sure I have enough time to deal with whatever we forage - I like to be 100% sure that I know what I'm feeding the family, so I tend to stick to the obvious - elderflowers/berries, blackberries, chestnuts,rosehips etc

We're just coming to the end of the wild strawberries in our garden at the mo (tiny and take ages to pick enough to do anything useful with, but a lovely strong scented flavour) so I guess that would be my foraged item for this week...