The Weed Eater

Edible and Medicinal Wild Plants, Wild Game and Fish. Better than Organic, Sustainable by Nature

Month: November 2016

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Posted on November 26, 2016 by theweedeater

I know, I know. I never shut up about Mulberries.

Mulberries are one of my all time favorite fruits. They are amazingly nutritious, tasty and in no short supply. I recently had an article published on collecting mulberries in the print version of GRIT magazine. If you prefer, you can read the… Read More

Category: Foraging

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My 9 year old spotted some nice young dryads as soon as we got on the trail today! #foraging #wildfood #nature #organic #organicfood #selfreliance #nofilter #eatwild #eathealthy #indiana #freefood #kids #mushrooms #wildfoodlove #mycology #hongos #comidagratis #silvestre #wild #millracemarathon
This is Creeping Charlie, sometimes called Gill over the Ground, Ground Ivy, and other names. Botanically it is Glechoma hederacea. It is related to henbit and purple deadnettle and is often found in the same places, often growing right next to its cousins. Creeping Charlie has a pungent flavor and I typically use it sparingly in tea blends with other mint family herbs. I haven't seen that Creeping Charlie's safety to humans has been confirmed and recommend using caution, as it it is toxic to horses and other animals in large quantities. How do you use Creeping Charlie? I'd love to hear your stories! #foraging #food #eatwild #eathealthy #indiana #nofilter #silvestre #mint #wildfood #selfreliance #silvestre #autumn #greens #greenery #verduras #creepingcharlie #groundivy #wildfoodlove
Wild Week Day 7, Meal 2: Oven Roasted Cottontail Rabbit with Wild Parsnips and Mashed Acorns! The rabbit is seasoned with Catnip, Sea Salt, and Onion Grass. I laid it on a bed of the Parsnips and Wild Garlic and let the drippings cook them. The Mashed Acorn was my favorite part of this meal and maybe the highlight of all 21 meals in this experiment. I cooked the cold leached Acorn meal over low heat with some butter, Wild Garlic, Onion Grass, and sea salt. I. Was hoping for something akin to mashed potatoes and I couldn't have been more pleased. It was sort of like mashed potatoes AND gravy, but also something unique and all its own at the same time. I devoured every bit of this meal! Oh, and I made a nice tea with white pine, mint and catnip, which was really nice and paired excellently with the food. I'm going to start making that by the gallon :) This is the second to last meal in my experiment of eating only wild foods for an entire week and very likely the last one you'll see me post to social media, as it's so delicious I'm certainly going to be having the same thing again for dinner tonight and that will be the last meal of this 7 day effort. Though I am ready for a cheeseburger or Indian buffet, and even though I've been eating a lot of wild food for several years, my view on food, cuisine, and sustenance has forever changed. Aside from being a husband and father, I feel this has been the most meaningful thing I have ever done. Thank you for going on this quest with me! #foraging #food #eatwild #eathealthy #indiana #freefood #selfreliance #medicinal #freedom #wildweek #hunting #rabbit #yum #yummy #foodie #acorn #getoutside #outdoors
Wild Week Day 7 Meal 1: I'm on my last day of 7 days of eating only wild foods. Today's breakfast is a bit of an impromptu one. Roasted Lotus Nuts and dried Blackberries, and a rather small portion, as I had a bit of an emergency. I had some black walnuts and some fruit leather from Saskatoons (Service berries) that I'd preserved, but I seem to have lost them. They were my back up plan in case I didn't have time to make a more elaborate breakfast, considering I need to get my kids ready for school and get myself to work on time. I don't know if I dropped my wild trail mix in the woods while hunting or what, but they're nowhere to be found. So I had to quickly roast some lotus must just to be able to get the darn things out of their impenetrable shells, and I had just a few dried Blackberries left, so there's breakfast. I'm very hungry and looking forward to lunch! #foraging #food #eatwild #eathealthy #indiana #nofilter #silvestre #lotus #organic #organicfood #nature #selfreliance #berries #yum #foodie #cuisine
Wild Week Day 6 Meal 2. Lunch today is a Slow Cooked Squirrel with a Rabbit stock and Acorn gravy and Lambsquarter greens and Sauteed Lotus with Mock Strawberries on the side! I didn't love the color of the acorn gravy, but the flavor was excellent. Obviously it has a nutty flavor, but mixed with the meat drippings it reminded me a lot of the brown gravy that my paternal grandmother would make for mashed potatoes. For the most part, I have tried to detach myself from the aesthetics demanded by modern cuisine. I love for things to be bright and colorful, and those dishes certainly photograph well and make my Instagram feed a more attractive place, but when I really get down to nourishing my body and living off of the wild, aesthetics have to come last behind nutrition and flavor. Eating Squirrels puts a lot of people off, even some who hunt. This is a shame, because it is not only extremely lean and nutrient dense, but also tender and delicious, when properly prepared. There are a million things you can do with them too. It's a cliche thing to say but they really do taste like chicken only with more flavor. Sort of like the dark meat of the chicken with a hint of chicken liver. The young, tender grey squirrels are fine just to fry up in a skillet, but older grays and fox squirrels tend to be too tough to enjoy that way and have to be slow cooked or pressure cooked to become tender. The good old crock pot works just fine to soften them into a tender meat that falls of the bone and makes excellent pot pie, stew meat, or even BBQ. #foraging #food #hunting #meat #greens #wildfood #wildfoodlove #foodie #delish #yum #instafood #nature #outdoors #wild #rewild #indiana #getoutside #wildgame #organic #organicfood #selfreliance #squirrel #treerat #eatwild
Two more days left in my week long experiment of eating only wild foods that I am calling Wild Week! This is Day 6, Meal 1: Breakfast today is a Venison Steak with leftover Wild Parsnips, topped with Wild Garlic greens and Violets. This is the 16th meal in a row in which I have eaten only wild foods. There is some gastronomical redundancy, being forced to make use of a limited range of ingredients, but I keep finding that the more simple the dish, the better it turns out. Also, I've lost some weight, and my energy levels are higher than ever. The fist day or two, I was feeling kinda down and was craving a Wendy's double cheeseburger like whoa, but now I feel wonderful and am looking forward to each and every wild meal that's coming up next. I have a squirrel in the crock pot bubbling away in rabbit stock with Wild Garlic and Violets, and I can't wait to get home and devour it. I have no more cheeseburger or pizza cravings. I'm still looking forward to treating myself to some junk food once this is over, but I'm no longer craving it. Stay Tuned! #foraging #food #eatwild #eathealthy #indiana #nofilter #silvestre #autumn #otoño #fall #selfreliance #venison #venado #deer #organic #organicfood #sustainable #hunting #meat #getoutside #wildfoodlove #foodie #delish #yum #instafood #nature #outdoors
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