Japanese Knotweed Recipe - Knotweed Fruit Leather

Japanese Knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum) is one of our most prolific invasive plants, it spreads by producing copious winged seeds in the fall and through underground rhizomes. Colonies of knotweed advance and can puncture up through the pavement in the spring, making them especially hated by public works employees who will try to cut down the stalks and poison the heck out of the plant. When gathering some knotweed shoots in the spring for consumption, try to get them from untreated areas and away from roadsides. They should also be picked before they are 12" tall; when they are still thick and have not unfurled too many leaves is the best time. To eat them raw, we prefer to peel the stalks, which can be difficult since the stalk is hollow like bamboo. When they are younger, the stalks are thicker and the peel comes off rather easily with a knife or potato peeler. For this fruit leather recipe, you can use smaller unpeeled stalks, or peel the larger ones with a stringier skin. Since we purchased a better blender, we can make this fruit leather without the peeling step.

Peeled knotweed stalks

The color is not particularly appetizing, olive green, but the flavor is similar to sour apples, without any of the knotweed's typical vegetal qualities. Our daughter, Gillian, really enjoys this snack and we had trouble keeping her away from the fruit leather long enough to take a picture. I tried two different methods of drying the fruit leather: the oven and the dehydrator. We have a cheap 1990's Ronco dehydrator that works just fine, using the fruit leather plastic tray. I then tried spreading the puree on parchment in the Ronco and it worked, but was a little more brittle. Then I spread some puree very thickly on some silicone baking mats on a sheetpan in the oven and it worked, but took the longest to dry. Once I removed it form the drying surface, I just rolled them up to store them in some glass jars.

Update: We finally saved enough money to purchase a good Excalibur dehydrator. This recipe makes enough puree to fill 2-12" square trays lined with the silicone liners. I use the fruit leather setting, about 130º F until the leather has darkened and dried. The old Ronco still works too!

This recipe is available in our book, available Spring 2016.

http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/book/?GCOI=60239108626260&

Pile of knotweed peels

Photo Collage - Tylopilus alboater

Robert is attending Mushroom University through COMA (Connecticut Westchester Mycological Association), and the subject this year is the study of boletes. He knows the best way to learn his mushroom identifications is by photographing each species multiple times, at different stages of growth, and from many angles. Tylopilus aboater is also known as the black velvet bolete. It is very firm and solid, and from our own experiences and from those in our mushroom club, great eating. We also learned from our more experienced  club members to not handle this mushroom too much, as it will stain your hands black! From MushroomExpert.com:

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with hardwoods (especially oaks); growing alone or scattered; summer and fall; widely distributed east of the Rocky Mountains.

Cap: 3-15 cm; convex, becoming broadly convex or flat; dry; velvety; sometimes with a white dusting when young; black or dark grayish brown; in my experience, often darkening on handling.

Pore Surface: Whitish becoming pinkish; bruising red, then brown to black; pores angular, 2 per mm; tubes to 1 cm deep.

Stem: 4-10 cm long; 2-4 cm thick; more or less equal, or enlarging towards base; colored like the cap or paler; sometimes with a white dusting; fairly smooth; not reticulate or merely finely so near the apex; in my experience, often darkening on handling.

Flesh: Thick and white; discoloring pinkish on exposure to air, then turning slowly grayish; black in the stem base.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Trout Lily Identified

Leaves, stems, corms in their papery sheath

There are several spring ephemeral plants we look forward to harvesting after a long, dreary winter and our bodies are craving something green and fresh. Hairy bittercress leaves are one, trout lilies are another. Commonly called trout lilies, fawn lilies, or dog's-tooth violets, (Erythronium americanum) are only visible for a brief period in the early spring, poking up leaves in late March or April, and disappearing again by late June. The mottled leaves are said to look like spots on a trout, and the underground corm is shaped like a dog's canine tooth, hence the common names. The plants take advantage of the abundant moisture of the winter snow melt and spring rains, and the abundant sunshine before many deciduous trees leaf out and shade the forest floor before becoming dormant for the remainder of the year.

Leaves, underside and top

Trout lilies are small plants with one or two 3"-7" lance-shaped leaves growing from the underground corm, or small bulb. Each leaf tapers at the ends, and is a dull green mottled with greyish-purple spots that often fade as spring advances. A single flower is produced on a 4"-8" stem growing directly from the base of the plant. The flower has six backward curving petals and protruding stamens, and the whole flower often appears to be pointing downwards. There are 23 species of Erythronium lilies native to North America, and our local trout lily has a yellow flower, but other species can have pink or white flowers. Erythronium lilies are abundant in eastern woodlands, the Rocky Mountains, wetter parts of the Great Plains and Pacific states.

Trout lily flower

Some guidebooks claim the entire trout lily plants is edible, but we usually only eat the underground corm. The raw leaves have a mildly bitter taste that none of us like, and we have not tried to eat the yellow flowers. We sparingly dig the tiny corms once or twice a year if we come across a healthy patch of trout lilies while out in the woods already. We don't remove many corms, because that kills the plant, and they are slow to reproduce and are losing habitat in Connecticut quickly to houses and lawns. The corm is very small, between 1/8"-1/2" long, elongated, and covered in a light brown papery skin that we remove before eating. The taste of the corm in the earliest parts of the spring are very sweet, since they are full of natural sugars that the plant needs to produce leaves and its flower. As the season progresses, the corm will become more firm and starchy, but still tasty. It has a firm crunch and is flavored like sweet corn or sweet peas. Because of the small size of the corm, it is difficult to dig in quantity. You might want to add some peeled corms to a veggie stir fry like water chestnuts, or add them raw to a spring greens salad, but we like them best fresh from the ground while hiking along a trail.

End of season lilies, flower has died back, leaves are dying

Photo Collage - Boletus morrisii

This bolete is a very photogenic mushroom. Its pores start out bright red and fade to orange. The color of the cap varies greatly with the age of the mushroom, starting out dark purplish-red and almost velvety, aging to drab olive green and brown. While Roger's Mushrooms lists its edibility as "unknown", Bolete Bill has been heard to proclaim it delicious. It is a dense mushroom, heavy and solid. We found it in association with oaks in southeastern Connecticut, and hope to taste it the next time we come across a good specimen.

From Roger's Mushrooms:

fungus colour: Red or redish or pink, Brown

normal size: 5-15cm

cap type: Convex to shield shaped

stem type: Simple stem

flesh: Flesh discolours when cut, bruised or damaged

spore colour: Olivaceous

habitat: Grows in woods, Grows on the ground

Boletus morrisii Pk.Red-speckled Bolete Cap 3-10cm across, broadly convex; deep smoky brown to olivaceous, becoming reddish brown at center, with orange-yellow margin; dry, finely pulverulent, then smooth. Tubes usually deeply depressed around stem; yellow to ochre, reddish where bruised. Pores small; orange to brick red. Stem 40-80 x 8-15mm, equal to slightly swollen; bright yellow with very distinct and quite widely separate bright red squamules or dots nearly to apex. Flesh yellow with discolored areas of vinaceous or dark purple, especially in stem. Odor not distinctive. Taste not distinctive. Spores ellipsoid-subfusiform, 10-15(16) x 3.5-5.5(6.5)µ. Deposit olivaceous. Habitat gregarious or even subcaespitose in deciduous woods. Rather rare. Found from Massachusetts to northern Georgia, not known from western North America. Season July-September. Edibility not known.

Photo Collage - Suillus salmonicolor

It's no secret Robert loves to use his camera and he loves mushroom hunting. Put them together and you get some lovely pictures of his favorite genus, Boletus. These Suillus salmonicolor are mycorrhizal with 2-needle jack pine (Pinus banksiana) and are found most often in the late summer and fall. We were out looking for Leccinums last autumn when we came across several scattered groups of these in an area with lots of wild blueberries, hemlocks and jack pines. We did not try to eat these until we could identify them better, but may give them a taste the next time we come across a few, taking general Suillus eating precautions of peeling the cap and removing the pores.

From MushroomExpert.com:

Cap: 3-10 cm; convex becoming broadly convex or flat; slimy; smooth; orangish, dirty yellowish, brownish, olive brown, or cinnamon.

Pore Surface: At first covered with a thick, orangish to grayishpartial veil that is baggy and rubbery, with a white roll of tissue on the lower edge; yellow to orangish, becoming brownish with age; not bruising; 1-2 round or angular pores per mm; not boletinoid; tubes to about 1 cm deep.

Stem: 3-10 cm long; up to 1.5 cm thick; equal or with a slightly enlarged base; covered with glandular dots that are pale reddish brown at first and become darker with age; whitish to yellowish or orangish; with a gelatinous ring.

Flesh: Orangish to yellowish, often salmon orange in the stem base; not staining on exposure.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Can I Eat Those Onions in My Yard?

Green life among the brown debris

Now that spring has finally arrived, things are starting to green up. Looking at most lawns, you just see brown grass, but many lawns, roadsides, and open fields will be filled with clusters of tall, thin leaves of field garlic. The leaves are thin and hollow, looking just like chives. If you pick some and give them a smell, it has a strong onion odor. Some of the larger, tougher leaves have ridges that run along the length of the leaf that you can see and feel like corduroy  If you dig under the clump, you'll find some small, white bulbs, often with smaller cloves on the sides. Eventually, at the top of the strongest leaf stalks, a small cluster of bubils will form, along with small, purplish-pink flowers.

The field garlic we find most often is Allium vineale, originally from Europe. All parts of the field garlic are edible when young, the leaves will be most tender when smaller, and the bulbs taste best before the plant makes flowers later in spring. Even the small, pretty flowers can be added as an edible flower to salads. We snip the clusters of leaves with scissors and use them raw like chives in cottage cheese or breads, and add them to soups for onion flavor. The bulbs are too small to cook with like an onion, and some people find their stronger flavor undesirable  I suppose you could clean them and crush them like garlic bulbs, but we like to just sprinkle them with salt and olive oil, and toss them on the grill until they are tender and lightly charred.

Grilled onions, great on sandwiches

Many who care for their lawns find the field garlic to be a nuisance and will apply weed killers and try to dig up the clumps of bulbs. Field garlic spreads by itself easily by the underground bulbs and by the falling bubils after the plant flowers. 

If you are eating your yard onions, make sure no pesticides or herbicides have been applied to the lawn. Avoid gathering your yard onions from the edge of the road due to car fumes and salt contamination. If you have a dog, it is best to get your field garlic from somewhere else. Otherwise, enjoy one of spring's first green vegetables while you wait for the season to progress and the ramps come out!

Cleaned and ready to be used

Eating Invasive Species

Garlic mustard leaves, flowers, roots and seeds made into a few tasty foods

I have been reading and participating in a discussion regarding trading edible wild plants across state lines on a Yahoo Group. The most troubling aspect of this chat involves another Connecticut resident who wishes to trade for edibles, and that person wants to trade 3 of Connecticut's worst invasives: garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius), and autumn olives (Elaeagnus umbellata). While all of the plants are edible, they are all listed  as "illegal to move, sell, purchase, transplant, cultivate or distribute" on the October 2012 Connecticut Invasive Plant List, produced by the Connecticut Invasive Plants Council. Our take on many of these invasives (eat them!) is less serious than other groups, who wish to cut, pull, poison or eradicate many of the plants on the invasive list, but we are no less frustrated by the ignorance of some who wish to spread these plants to new areas. Our contribution may be as simple as volunteering at public educational events, or putting together a small brochure on eating the most common and tasty weeds, along with a few recipes.

Wineberries, invasive

Wineberry Bavarian dessert, delicious!

We recently became volunteers with the Connecticut Invasive Plant Working Group, and attended a meeting with other concerned citizens, DEEP employees, CT DOT employees, master gardeners, and land conservation managers.  One of the most encouraging actions taken by the group will be a publication of a list of native species of plants to grow in Connecticut, some of which are edible. At the meeting we picked up a small publication put out by the Connecticut River Coastal Conservation District, a non-profit group. It only includes 10 invasive plants, not all edible, with plant information and identification, plus suggestions to manage the invasive plant, and the native plant alternatives. I also have a 75 page guide to Invasive Plants in Massachusetts published by he Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife that I refer to for resources. One of the most extensive publications we own on invasive plants is Invasive Plants: Guide to the Identification and the Impacts and Control of Common North American Species by Sylvan Ramsey Kaufman and Wallace Kaufman. Along with the list of Connecticut invasive plants, I hope we are using these resources to forage and educate responsibly., and can be part of a solution, as opposed to contributing to a great ecological problem.

Autumn olives, a prolific invader

Goat cheese and autumn olive dip and dressing, eat those weeds!