Wild Autumn Pudding

The wild autumn pudding turned out to be delicious.  I was so pleased with it.  My wild family gobbled it all up!

Recipe:
8 - 10 slices of wholemeal bread
Milk
600g wild autumn fruits - blackberries, stoned sloes, elderberries, a few rosehips, crab apples
Honey or sugar or whatever other sweetener you prefer to sweeten to taste


Cut around 10 slices of bread and cut off crusts.  Moisten with milk and line the sides and bottom of a deep dish with the slices, making sure the slices overlap so that they will hold together when the pudding is turned out.
Cook the fruit, sweetened with honey / other sweetener for around 10 minutes.
Fill the pudding dish with the fruit and cover the top with more slices of moistened bread.
Cover the top with greaseproof paper.
Place a plate or something similar on top to gently weigh down the pudding.
Stick in the fridge overnight.
Next day, turn out, warm and brown in the oven and serve with cream, custard, ice cream.

Foraging - hazelnuts

Now is the perfect time to collect hazelnuts!





We crack open the shells and eat them all up.

Wild gooseberries

Walking along the hedgerow, we noticed a wild gooseberry bush covered in sweet, golden gooseberries just waiting to be eaten up!


Organic and wild - what gets better.

We walk that way almost every day so we're amazed we never discovered this before. Still, this is the joy of nature - we can walk the same path each day yet still Nature reveals to us new sights, new beauty, new joy.

Dandelion learning

We've done lots of dandelion focussed activities recently.

Our Gnome Multiply was busily rushing about collecting and multiplying the number of dandelions we collected.



We used those dandelions to make dandelion biscuits (look here for a recipe) and dandelion tea. (Steep flower heads in boiling water and then drink and enjoy).



We collected up lots and lots and lots of dandelion flowers and dyed wool. It turned out a gentle yellow. The picture doesn't do it justice - it's more yellow than it looks here, a lovely colour.



I stumbled upon this great experiment here to make dandelion spirals with dandelion stems by splitting the stems and adding them to a bowl of water. We loved this and walked about the fields with a bucket of water making dandelion stem spirals as we went along. The boys do this frequently now, it's such fun to watch the stems spiral! Do try it if you have dandelions about.

Cheese and Wild Garlic Scones

This is Brer Rabbit's (a.k.a Leo) ramsom patch in the woods.



Each time we pass the patch, we collect up a bunch of leaves for eating all up! Gnome Plus (a.k.a Sol) counts up the green leaves.



Puss in Boots somedays and Christopher Robin other days (a.k.a Noah) carries them home knapsack style.

We have been making batches of these delicious scones.



200g spelt flour
1 level teaspoon baking powder
50g butter
7 tablespoons fresh milk
100g grated mature Cheddar cheese
100g chopped ramsoms (wild garlic) (you could use spinach or a clove of garlic chopped if you don't have ramsoms)
pinch of salt

Heat oven to 220 degrees celsius
Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl
Rub in butter until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs
Add grated cheese and chopped ramsoms and mix together
Add milk to the flour mixture to form a soft dough
Turn dough onto a board and roll out to about 2cm thick
Cut into rounds and place on a baking tray.
Brush the tops with milk, sprinkle over a little grated cheese and bake for around 12 - 15 minutes until golden brown.
Eat them hot and maybe with a bit of butter spread in the middle.

Welcome Spring's Wild Food

The things that get us excited around here! We were so happy to reacquaint ourselves with some of our favourite spring tasty wild foods as we walked about the farm today.

First, has to be nettles. They grow everywhere and they are a nice size now. Nettle tea from fresh, new shoots - so good for us! And so good to drink during pregnancy too! What a lot of uses nettles have.



Ear fungi. Lots of it growing on a dead elder branch. Nice to stew up for about 45 minutes in stock. Make sure you have identified it properly! Wash well and cook it well or it will taste rubbery. Sol really loves these.



And a special favourite here - Ramsons (wild garlic). We all eat lots of these. Forget taking a picnic to the woods, we all had a little nibble there in the ramson patch. Then back home for houmous and ramson sandwiches. Fresh young shoots can be added to just about any meal for that onion/garlicky flavour. Flowers and roots can also be eaten.





And lots more wild foods are starting to grow so beautifully!

Rosehips

Since Autumn, on our walk abouts, we have been gathering rosehips which grow abundantly around the farm - wild and organically. Rosehips are a precious wild food, best known for their very high content of vitamin C, and also contains vitamins A, D and E and flavinoids.

My most favourite use of rose hips is to brew them into tea. For tea, dried or fresh rosehips can be used. Up until now I've picked some whilst out walking and then brewed them up after returning home but have also dried a good amount to see us through the winter months.

To make tea, I simply add around 15 rosehips to a small teapot and leave it to brew up.

We also love rosehip syrup which we add to natural yoghurt, add a drop or two to a cup of chamomile tea, or drizzle a bit on pancakes. To make rosehip syrup, rinse and dry rosehips. Place in a pan and cover with a little water. Bring to the boil and then simmer until soft. Sieve off the liquid then add one part honey to two parts heated, strained rosehip juice. I pour it into a clean jar and it keeps for about two weeks. This dodgy looking concoction is my rosehip syrup! The boys love it!

There are so many uses for these amazing rosehips. They can be added to soups and stews and even made into delicious fruit leather. They are coming to an end now and I shall miss gathering them but at least I have some stored up.