Edible

These are elaeagnus berries, also called autumn olive.  You won't see them in the grocery store, but you will find loads and loads of these growing wild out here.  They're delicious and nutritious.

But don't just take my word for it.

Once in a while I get an email from someone asking me How I Know something is edible. 

It's a good question.  

I know things are edible or not because I Do My Research.  I see cool stuff on blogs all the time, but I never, ever try a new food before I do my own search and have several sources that say a food is OK to eat and that it has no known side effects [psychotropic berries, anyone?].  Only then do I offer it to my kids to eat, too.  

Just because native Americans used to eat something is not a good enough reason.  Look what happened to them.

I always double check through poisonous plant lists.   Just do a search with the name of the plant and 'poisonous'.   Then do a search for the plant and 'edible'.  



I look for recipes used by normal people today.   Once I find several people who have used that plant and had good results, then I feel free to experiment all I want. 

We've found some terrific, delicious wild things around here that our family loves.   It's sumac season right now.   Soon there will be jars of drupes soaking for our favorite early fall treat. 

Nasturtiums

I love nasturtiums [pronounced nas-TER-shums].

I love the yellow ones and the orange ones and the dark dark red ones.   I like the regular leaves and the dark leaves and the spotty leaves.

I like them viney and I like them short.  I like them planted with sweet potato vines.


And they're good on salads.   They have a peppery zing, so be prepared.

Wash the leaves and flowers carefully and toss them on a sandwich.

Or mix up some cream cheese with enough sour cream or yogurt to make it easily spreadable and pipe it inside the flowers for a summer appetizer.

Mmmm.