Pine nuts

"nobody does that anymore!" our neighbor said with a smile as we cracked open our freshly foraged pine nuts. makes you appreciate the price, it should be ten times higher because they are a hard nut to crack without busting it all into a million pieces and when there is a whole one amaya is right there to steal it out of your grasping fingertips and pop it into her mouth. she loves nuts, we are nuts, i am sure.

"cant we just buy a bag for 5 euros?" my husband asked once after a an excruciating extraction time for some heavenly pesto. one taste of the forest and we both should our heads "no" adamantly. plus, it had been a fun outing for the family crouching beneath the old pine trees, listening to the wind blow, the blue skies above us. a magical walk in the woods.

there are about 20 species of pine trees that produce seeds large enough to be worth harvesting; in other pines the seeds are also edible, but are too small to be worth your while.

In Europe, pine nuts come from the Stone Pine (Pinus pinea), which has been cultivated for its nuts for over 6,000 years, and harvested from wild trees for far longer. choose large cones, if they are not opened yet, you can put them on the woodstove and they will open up. once you have the nuts, you have to crack them to get the pine nut. we use a rubber mallet to do that gently. a fresh pine nut has the best flavor ever, so strong and pine-y, much more than any store bought one. i store our pine nuts (uncracked) for the entire year in a jar and go to it often to top pastas, tuck into flakey pies, and of course pesto which i use nettles, or roquette or basil depending on the time of the year. often i gently grill them in an iron pan before using in my recipes.

To make your own Nettle (or Roquette or Basil) Pesto

Place a large handful de-stemmed nettles (wear gloves when picking), two cloves of garlic, a handful of cracked open pine nuts, some grated parmesan, and a little salt and pepper, in a food processor. Blend the mixture until the mixture is smooth, scraping down the side occasionally. While the motor is running gradually pour in as much olive oil as you need to blend. Mix over cooked pasta or even better, in a cast iron pan lightly cook the pesto and add heavy cream to make a creamy sauce for fish. To store: Place the basic Nettle pesto in a sterilized jar and pour a little extra olive oil over the top and seal well with a lid. Refrigerate until ready to use. The Pesto will keep for up to a month in well sealed jar in the refrigerator.

chocolate pear tarte with almond crust

chocolate pear tarte with almond crust
Originally uploaded by These Days in French Life

A new dessert for me. That is the pleasure of getting free food from the store (food that they deemed waste) it makes me think of new recipes to use everything in the best way possible. We had just foraged almonds so the crust is layered with almonds. The pears were, peeled, cored and poached in tawny port for ten minutes.

The chickens who have been giving us 6-10 eggs a day, loved the peels and cores which is what the load of fruit was supposed to be for. A neighbor saw our bounty from the trash and exclaimed that food is good enough to eat, I hope that you dont feed it all to the chickens. I could see that hungry look in her eye, the kind that you get when you find a dumpster full of perfectly good food. I handed her some carrots, an eggplant, a leek and some oranges. When my sister came to visit she saw the trays of fruits and vegetables that I picked up in the morning from the tiny market trash near our house. She said, oh those chickens are going to love that cantaloupe and I said, yes, they will right after we do. It was fresh and sweet, grown near here, local and free. Nothing was wasted, the peels go into the compost after the chickens have pecked down to the green ends.

With our extra eggs, I trade with friends, one of the lastest was a few bars of chocolate- it was her idea because she is trying to diet and wanted it out of her site. I wanted it in my belly! Melt a bar of baking chocolate over a double broiler with a pat of butter. Then whisk, while it is still warm, in 20cl of heavy cream (about half a cup, but you can add more or less) until it's uniform in consistency. Then add two eggs and whisk. Pour into a prebaked pie shell. (I used my homemade brown sugar butter crust with almonds pushed into the dough). Tuck the poached pears into the chocolate and bake for 40 minutes at 375°f.

Today there are 25 bananas! Guess what I'll be writing about next?

p.s. my pie crust:
2 teas white vinegar into
1/4 cup water chilled, put in the freezer for a bit

a stick of butter, cold and cut into pieces
2 Tbsp of leaf lard, cold (use butter or duck fat or something else if you dont have leaf lard-- but try to find some because it makes pie crusts flakey and delicate like no other)

(about) 2 cups of flour, pinch of salt, a teaspoon of baking powder, 3 Tbsp sugar, mix and put in freezer for 20 minutes

cut lard and butter into flour mix with a pastry cutter, then add water mix and form into a ball, add more water or flour if necessary. roll into a ball, press down into hockey puck form and put in fridge for an hour.

roll out onto floured surface when ready to use.

Mushroom Season

Poplar Mushroom

We always welcome the rain, and start mushroom hunting on Benji's birthday. Usually high up in the mountains, where we also gather chestnuts, for Cèpes and Parasols. I love fall for this part of season, crisp days, bright blue skies, rain showers, brisk winds, donning those wool socks and finding the fleece jacket in the back of the closet.

I only know four mushrooms by heart, I am no expert. Four that grow around here, that locals have showed me. I would never try to ID a mushroom myself and eat it. I am nervous like that, Buddha should have been. (he died from a poisonous one). Learning a new mushroom is thrill for our foraging adventures.

When we picked up the rabbits from the French version of Carla Emery I asked about the mushroom season since it's a topic that people with similar lifestyles would appreciate. While her son hung up his rifle from boar hunting, she handed me a basket on the table and said these are the Poplar tree mushrooms. I knew them because Papie and Mamie always ate these meaty specimens, but I didnt know how to ID them myself. She laughed and said it's easy, they ONLY grow on Poplars, you have to know your trees. (Don't pick look alikes from other trees). They actually grow in between the branches and on the base of the tree trunk with their white woody stems. I remember that Papie got them from an old stump, but I didnt know what tree it had been.

Many good mushrooms are mycorrhizal. They have a symbiotic relationship (friendly exchange) with trees or other plants. She told me that I can sprinkle the mushrooms on a Poplar near me and soon have my own thriving source. She took me to her tree and I took a leaf and touched it's bark trunk seizing it into my memory. Lo and behold there is a mighty old Poplar right near our house down by the river and it was full of these mushrooms. Poplars as it's Latin name suggest (Tricholoma populinum) is the host tree but also you can find them on Cottonwood primarily the Narrowleaf Cottonwood and with Quaking Aspen. It was a food resource of the interior Salish Indian peoples of British Columbia and many Native Americans who would dry them and eat them all winter long.

There are Tricholomas which cause gastric problems. For example, similar in appearance Tricholoma pessundatum and Tricholoma albobrunneum which grow in the conifers under pine and spruce that cause intestinal problems. Get field experience with someone (like we did) who has safely eaten the mushrooms you are finding. Then too, eat only a small portion of the mushrooms on your first try and, above all, keep a few uncooked specimens in the refrigerator just in case some emergency room doctor at the hospital will need to know what you ate!

Porcini of the Pine Trees

Not the King Boletus, (The King does taste the best and are found in the woods of Oak and other hard woods) which is the true Cèpes are expensive and pickers heavily guard their secret mushroom locations. But the Pine variety they leave alone.

Cèpes as they are known in France or Porcini in Italy, are easy to pick, because there is only one poisonous one and it has a RED underbelly. Red in nature means danger and we have adopted as a sign in our society. The dangerous Boletus aptly named satanas, the Devil's mushroom, are very rare. There is one Cèpes that is the albino of the family, pure white skin and pure white sponge and tastes terrible bitter. Not poisonous, but quite awful tasting.

If you find a brown boletus, it's edible. There has only been one death ever from a boletus and it was a red one and they think it might have been from something else, his wife only got diarrhea.

Pine Boletus, Boletus pinophilus or Boletus pinicola, are easy to identify because of their yellow sponge and brown leathery tops. The sponge turns green when bruised. They are very woody in taste, it ranks third in taste of all the family. The stems are bulbous when small and much better when the sponge is tightly compacted and a very light yellow like chamomile flowers.

Clams

Treasure hunting, wading up to your knees in chilly fall water, tossing your shoes aside, feeling around in the sand with your toes, then scooping up handfuls of clams for your dinner. It's the underwater kind of foraging that we are doing lately. Usually it's me climbing trees for fruits or nuts. This time is was my sister and my husband in the brisk water gathering dinner while I lingered on the long sandy beach with the kids and made sand castles with big moats.

Soak clams in fresh water for an hour to help remove sand, grit and excess salt. Mussels are excellent made this way as well. Be sure to scrub them well beforehand.

Melt a put of butter in a large pan, add chopped garlic and chopped shallots. Add clams (no water) and cover for three minutes. They will start to open up. Give them a stir with a big spoon. Add a cup or two of white wine and cover again for a minute or two. When you see that they have all opened up, remove from heat and add a splash of heavy cream, stir. Add any fresh herbs that you have and some pepper -but not salt.

Eat with a crusty bread to soak up all the juices. I save any leftover liquid to add to gratins or other baked vegetables.

Whole lot of Eggs

Last year, we didn't have many eggs, but now that we have chickens, we are inundated. At one point, I had four dozen eggs and started to think, what about winter when the gals stop laying so often? I gave a lot of eggs away to neighbors because they give us their kitchen scraps. Each week we get about 50 eggs, more than half I give away or trade, but with the rest I am finding ways to keep them around for the winter months.

Pickled Eggs. Kind of weird chewy texture on the outside, but completely addictive once you start eating them. Great on potato salads, one sandwiches and served with fish and chips.

The pickling brine is strong malt, cider or white vinegar and what ever spices you want.

For different flavors, you can add: cloves, onions, garlic, peppercorns, ginger, chilli peppers, tabasco, cinnamon, bay leaves, pickling spices, all-spice, garlic salt, dill seed or fresh, onion seeds, coriander seeds, boiled beet roots (or just their juice) and celery seed.

For 12 eggs, boil four cups of vinegar with one cup of water, 1/2 cup of brown or white sugar, and tablespoon of salt. This is your brine, you can add your spices to the brine while it boils or you can put them directly into your bottle.

I hard boiled the eggs for 10 minutes and then peeled them saving the shells for other uses (see below), packed the peeled eggs into jars with spices (turmeric for a yellow color, beets for day glo fushia) and poured the cooled brine up to the top.

Pack into each jar, to just below the fill line.

Bring the water, vinegar, sugar and salt to a boil.

Once the pickling solution has cooled, pour it over the eggs in the jar and seal the jar tightly with the lid. Give them a water bath for ten minutes, water should cover jars with at least 1-inch of water above tops of jars (hard boiling water) to seal the lids.

Store the jar in a cool and dark cupboard for at least a month. The eggs will be ready to eat after this time. They will be good for about six months. You can keep them in the fridge onced opened for a couple of months, but i bet you'll eat them all before then.

Freezing. Remember when I made that angel food cake? 12 egg whites in one recipe. I saved the yolks by freezing them with a little sugar ( one teaspoon for 4 yolks) and a tad of water which will help them be less gelatinous when I want to use them. They are good for at least four months in the freezer, just remember to mark sweet or salty, because you can also add salt (1/8 teaspoon for 4 yolks) for savoury dishes. Alternatively, you can freeze the egg whites as well. Egg whites don't need the addition of salt or sugar.

Using egg shells. I wash the shells since I don't use them all at once. When I have a pan full, I put it in the oven after I turn it off. The next day, Amaya crushes them into a fine powder and we feed them back to the chickens for extra calcium. A complete circle. If you have a garden, they are great to keep away slugs and you spread crushed egg shells around tomatoes and other plants. The calcium helps prevent blossom end rot and the sharp edges help keep cutworms away.

Fruit Leather

I am a fruit leather addict lately. My mom would make us bring (stashed in our backpacks) our own snacks and natural Pop to the movies when we were kids. We were mortified as other the cool kids munched twizzlers and guzzled 32 oz cokes. But now that I am older, I see her point. One of the snacks she gave us often was fruit leather. Now, I give it to my daughter while the other kids suck on chupas and scarf processed fake chocolate cake thingys. Amaya loves it and so do the adults who I have been able to pass it around to. A bewildered look on their eyes as I pull the pan off the top of the car where it's been baking all day. And then a happy smile when they taste it. Even bigger grin when I tell them it has very little sugar.

This last week, the grocery store's bin has been full of perfect apricots. I mean pounds and pounds of apricots. Gallons and gallons. I made some jams even though I have a "no more jam" sign on my pantry shelf. Then I made apricot ketchup (kind of like a chutney pureed), dried apricots, apricot tartes and some apricots were frozen. Then I remembered: making fruit leather incredibly simple and it can process large quantities of fruit. Today I am making green gage plum fruit leather and I have made manderine orange before as well.

Once done the fruit leather can be stored at room temperature for 30 days, months in the refrigerator, or years in the freezer, according to the Department of Agriculture. In fact, this excellent recipe is provided by the Department of Agriculture.

Use any type of ripe fruit. Remove all pits stones, and seeds, and peel if desired. (I did not peel the apricots or plums) Add 1 tablespoon of lime or lemon juice per quart of fruit for fruit that might darken. Taste for sugar, add honey or sugar if you think it needs it. Cook until tender and saucey.

Puree fruit in a blender until smooth.

Oil a cookie sheet, or cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil or non stick paper or a silplat mat is the best. (I’ve found that the puree sticks to wax paper and is hard to salvage.) Pour puree 1/4-inch deep onto a cookie sheet with sides and spread evenly.

Over night on a cold winter night, you can put next to the woodstove and it will be ready in the morning. Or turn oven onto the lowest setting, place cookie sheet on a rack, and crack the oven door. Cook for 4-6 hours until dry and the fruit leather is not sticky. Or if you still have hot days put outside in the direct sun with the cheese cloth protecting it from bugs, pollution and cat hairs. Dry for 2-3 days bringing it in each night.

*if the sauce is too runny, strain it and with the left over liquid you can make sorbet, or drink it straight up hot or cold. A nice cup of plum juice on a brisk morning feels great.

Born Again Freegan

All of these morsels can be saved! Born again into fabulous meals!

I do my thrice weekly free “shopping” at the minuscule shop near our house. I walk there and carry back what I can, usually its 15 kilos (30 pounds) of fresh produce before it even sees the inside of a smelly trash can. The three employees all know me and save it aside. There is fierce competition, in fact, and some days are ‘reserved’ for the guy with donkeys or the lady with a pet goat. I love to share with them and bring heads of lettuce to the old man with the turtle and trust me 45 kilos a week is plenty.

With my three weekly boxes, I feed 12 chickens and 6 people. 50 percent off the top goes right to the chickens, (not pictured is the vegetables that have gone off, the wilted salads that the chickens love so much and some fruits that have seen better days), the rest I give almost half of to a poor family next door. Also part of my free food karma is that I feel that I must bake and share with the other neighbors my bounty. Apricot tarts, apple pies, jars of plum jelly.

My sister, Novella does the same in California for her animals on her little squat lot farm. A lot of stores padlock their trash containers since a few punks aren’t so clean about Dumpster diving and make a real mess. But you might be able to find one that is not locked, my sister has found quite a few in Oakland and San Francisco like the gourmet bakery, the cheese store and more. Or find a corner market like I did and just ask. Novella was also able to make friends with high end restaurants who would save their scraps for her animals.

An amazing about of food is wasted in the whole chain from field to plate. Something like 100 million tons (In the USA alone) of edible food, we are not talking potato peelings and rotten apples which are excluded from the numbers. There are crops that are turned back over into the field because of finicky giant grocery stores’ inventories—think of all the spinach spanokopitas you could make with 50 bushels of spinach. Could feed a huge number of families, farm animals, pets, neighbors, old people.

I get a loads of comments: I can’t, I can’t, they wont let me, the Dumpster is locked, it’s illegal (it is in france too), I will feel ashamed. I just can’t do it. I can’t be a freegan. I don’t want to hear those excuses today. If I, a former food snob only buying high priced exotic foods from the most upscale grocery stores, can be a born again freegan, you can too.

I am challenging you to look at food waste as your duty to feed each other. Find a way, find a solution, make friends with the store manager (I give mine eggs once a month). Make delicious food and then nourish each other- those fruits and vegetables used up a lot of resources and energy to be there, don’t let them die for nothing they can be saved and resurrected.