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Wild Food Recipes

Posted by Lisa Carey

Looking for some delicious and nutritious recipes to use after you have finished foraging for food? Try this original fried dandelion recipe and suggestions for other great places to look for cooking. Share your favorites with us!

As the New Year begins, many of us have made resolutions, lists, and commitments for trying some new things. Many of us are interested in going green, eating healthier and organic, saving money, getting more exercise, and living a simpler, healthier lifestyle in general. Foraging for wild foods is a hobby that offers a little something for all of these goals. Wild foods and medicinal herbs can be healthier, organic, and certainly much cheaper. Foraging for wild foods is also a green activity that helps us get some exercise while we "shop" locally.

Finding and positively identifying wild foods can be challenging and fun. Once we've found and collected wild foods, we quickly find ourselves in need of some new recipes for wild foods. Adding dandelion leaves to salads and sautéing mushrooms is a good start, but there's more that can be done with wild foods to make them a staple of your healthy diet.

Fortunately, some great wild food foragers and wild food cooks have gone before us and have some really simple and yet innovative wild food recipes to share. Here are two wild food recipes to get you inspired, as well a list of some of our favorite wild foods cookbooks.

Fried Dandelions

Dandelions are abundant and offer more calcium and iron than spinach. They are also packed with beta-carotene and vitamins B, D, and C.

Dandelions have a better flavor when picked smaller and are also best in spring. Fried dandelions are easy and tasty. As always, be sure that the garden you pick from is healthy and chemical free.

Ingredients:
2 cups of dandelions without any stem
1 egg
¾ cup of milk
1 cup of seasoned flour

Directions:
Wash and dry dandelions.

Heat olive oil in a frying pan.

Beat together egg, milk and seasoned flour.

Dip each head into batter using tongs and drop into oil only after it is hot.

Fry to a golden brown and place on paper towels.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Wild Blackberry Ice Cream

This recipe is from The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook by Steve Brill, which is one of our favorite wild food cookbooks.

From The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook:

"Wild berries, vegan ingredients, and an herbal sweetener more than replace the conventional animal products and refined sugar to create the best ice cream you've ever tasted."

Ingredients:

2-1⁄2 cups soymilk, nut milk, or oat milk
1/2-cup well-drained silken tofu
1/2-cup raw cashews
1/4-cup grape seed oil or canola oil
1/4-cup vegetable glycerin
1/4-cup lecithin granules
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-teaspoon blackberry extract (optional)
2-teaspoon liquid stevia
1/2-teaspoon salt
2 cups wild blackberries

1. Place all the ingredients, except for 1 cup of the blackberries, in a blender and process until smooth.

2. Strain through a fine mesh strainer to remove the seeds.

3. Chill the mixture (or begin with chilled ingredients) if required by your ice cream machine, pour the mixture into the ice cream machine, and freeze it according to the manufacturer's instructions.

4. Serve topped with the remaining berries.