Do you like preserved lemons? I do. If you do too, you’ll want to read on, especially if you’re the type of person who likes an easy fermentation project. I always seem to crave preserved/salted lemons when I don’t have any around, and, it can be hard to find them if you don’t live in…
Pickles, Preserves, Etc
Fermented Knotweed Relish
A few years ago I shared my now favorite recipe for fermented Japanese Knotweed I got from my friend Jacqui, who lives in France. You take the knotweed, peel it, and ferment it in brine. The fermentation seems to denature the mucilage (slimy quality) a bit, with the natural acid produced from lacto-fermentation bringing a…
Rowanberry Liquor
There’s not a lot of examples of delicious things to make with rowanberries on this site. I’ve tried to make a lot of different things from rowanberries (Sorbus americana) and most of those things were failures. The berries are incredibly tannic and bitter, with a strong flavor most people will find offensive. Schnapps (along with…
Muscaria Pickles
When I first wrote about my experience detoxifying and eating Amanita, some eight years ago now, I remember getting plenty of chippy comments from people in the mushroom community portraying me as a reckless, attention-seeking newb, which I expected, and understood. Muscaria is a polarizing mushroom, to say the least. It’s widely known that if…
Wild Plum Ketchup
Wild plums are in season right now in the Midwest, and this is one of the best things I’ve made with them to date. Seven years ago, I put up a recipe for ketchup made from wild plums (Prunus americana or nigra will both work, as well as any common plum or stone fruit you…
Ultimate Berry Vinegar
Growing up in the restaurant industry in the Early 2000’s, I was witness to some of the great culinary cliches of our time, many of them born in the 1990’s from what I can gather. Honestly, there’s too many to count, and I’m guilty of a few myself, like stacking food a la Alfred Portale….
Green Walnut Honey
It’s green black walnut season. I don’t know how people figured out you could use unripe walnuts in cooking, but I’m sure glad they did, and after you try making fermented green walnut honey, I think you will be too, even if you don’t like the taste of black walnuts cracked from the shell. Unripe…
Fermented Ramp Leaf Soy Sauce
Soy sauce makes just about everything taste better. One thing many people don’t know is that there are a myriad of options for soy. There’s aged soy sauce, shoyu, tamari, for starters, and then, pertaining to this post, there’s flavored soys. There’s mushroom-infused soy sauce, and that can be good if you get a decent…
Pine Cone-Cider Jam / Varenye
“Ever eat a pine tree?”. That infamous quote from Euell Gibbons during a Grape Nuts commercial (there’s a lot of them on You Tube now and some are hilarious) has some truth to it. Sure, you can make tea (mostly I see it done with the soft needles of Easter White Pine) from needles, bark bread…
Wild Blueberry-Maple Leather
Everyone should know how to make a good wild fruit leather, and wild blueberries make some of the best since they can be harvested in large quantity, and they don’t require any straining to remove seeds or skins. The method is super easy if you aren’t familiar, and a recipe hardly seems necessary, but I’m…
Lewis and Clark Wild Cherry Whiskey
Whiskey infused with wild black cherries (Prunus serotina) is one of the best alcohol infusions I’ve made. To sweeten the deal, not only does it taste stronger than any cherry flavored booze Ive had, but it’s inspired by an actual, documented experience that happened, oh, 200 years ago. I’m a sucker for a good for…
Hosta Shoot Kimchi
It’s hosta shoot season, and besides just throwing them in a hot pan (which is great) the shoots are a bit like rolled-up lettuce, and they take really well to the kimchi treatment. It’s a great recipe to add to your repertoire for this common, delicious garden ornamental. It’s easy. To prepare them for fermentation,…
Dried Fiddleheads
I love fiddleheads. But, the season for them seems to go lightning fast: one minute they’re everywhere, the next minute they’re unraveled. I’ve preserved them (crunchy pickled fiddleheads) and that works well, but, vinegar-based preserves limit the possibilities for cooking down the road and it’s nice to have some variation. What you might not have…