Milkweed Recipe - Milkweed Pods and Chickpea Salad

Mid summer is the time to gather the small, soft seed pods of the common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) in open fields. Milkweed tends to grow in large colonies, and is an important food source for many butterflies and their caterpillars, like the Monarch. Between July and the end of August, the flowers have all passed, and the seed pods are in various stages of growth, often many different sizes on each plant.

Very small pods, about a half inch long are good for pickling or boiling as a green vegetable. Larger pods between 1 1/2 inches and 2 inches long are good for stuffing and baking, or stir frying. Before cooking the pods with a final recipe, they are scrubbed and boiled for 5 minutes. Many will pop open while boiling, that is not a problem. There is a natural seam on each pod that makes it easy to open the pod and remove the immature seeds and silk. The pods are good for eating as long as the seeds and silk are pure white and very soft. Any signs of browning indicates the seed pod is too old and will be tough to eat. Robert likes to eat the boiled insides of the seed pods mixed into other grains, as it seems to melt into a cheese-like texture. I like the boiled pods stuffed with cream cheese and baked, or just plain with a bit of butter and salt.

Here's a recipe for a chilled salad, good for these hot days of summer using milkweed pods about an inch long. I boiled the pods for 5 minutes, then sliced off the stem end before removing the silk and seeds. I cut the pods in half and tossed them with the dressing and other ingredients.

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

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

Sumac Recipe - Sumac Meringue

We start this recipe by gathering the red, ripe berry clusters from staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) shrubs. The berries are actually very hard and inedible, and it is the acidic and tart malic, citric, ascorbic, gallic, fumaric, and tataric acids that we will be harvesting from the outside of the berries to use. In about a half gallon of room temperature water, we add 12 clusters. I'll crush the clusters up under the water and swish them about, then allow the concoction to sit for a few hours. The now pink liquid is strained through a coffee filter to remove fine hairs and other debris, and tasted for tartness. To make a stronger concentrate, add some new sumac berry clusters to this same liquid and allow them to sit for another few hours, then strain again. This concentrate is ready to use, or can be frozen in ice cube trays to add to water or save for the winter. We also use this concentrate in the place of lemon juice in some jelly recipes.

Staghorn sumac berries

This dessert is more of a curd topped with baked meringue, rather than a pie, since Robert doesn't really like pie crust. The curd recipe is really easy, no tempering the eggs with the hot sugar, just keep a vigilant eye on the pot and keep scraping the bottom with a spatula. It works really well in individual portion dishes, or can be cooked in one 9" pie pan. You could serve it as a pie, if you use a pie crust. The color will depend on the strength of the sumac concentrate that you use. I ended up with a nice peachy color, but you could add a drop of red food color if you wanted to.

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

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

Smooth sumac berry clusters