east-west: trees

left: spruce tips, may 18, 2012, colorado

right: beech leaves, may 19, 2012, denmark

Asparagus and Hop Asparagus

I found both asparagus and hop asparagus last month. The asparagus were wild, growing in Palmer Park, an urban treasure of trails and open space in the middle of Colorado Springs.

There's food here, but you really need to know where to look.

My friend Suzanne has been foraging wild asparagus here since she was a little girl. We left everything we found this day to others, but it was a great lesson in knowing where to look.

Asparagus!

You really don't need recipes for asparagus, wild or domestic. A hot grill and a little olive oil, or a pan with a little butter will do nicely. When harvesting, dig down a little way down into the ground and cut with a knife.

Look closely ...

Hop asparagus are just the new shoots of hops. There are loads of wild hops around here, but most that I've found have been along roads or the railroad tracks on the south end of the Air Force Academy. My husband has harvested some of the hops near the academy, farther away from the tracks, but I wouldn't want to harvest new shoots that may have been sprayed.

New growth hops.

We got these at the hop yard for our favorite brewery, Bristol, at Venetucci Farms. My family is part of a team of volunteer caretakers who are making sure Bristol has plenty of organically-grown, local hops for experimentation and brewing. You have to cut back the first growth of hops so that the plants don't freeze. Second growth hop vines are sturdier and more resistant. Since we cut all of the hops back, I took the shoots (and some leaves) home.

Didn't get to these fast enough!

Unfortunately, this is what my own hop yard looked like the next day, so we didn't harvest our own first growth. But we have so many shoots on our plants that we'll need to cut the smaller ones back a number of times before summer. Like asparagus, you really don't need a recipe for hop shoots. Saute them in a little butter, quickly. They are very tender, and taste like a slightly grassy asparagus. The leaves can be treated as any greens, and cooked fast in a hot pan with a little olive oil and garlic.

Fall harvest.

Eating is the Best Revenge

A few years after we moved into our home in Colorado, my husband and I laid an enormous flagstone patio and pathway. It took us most of a summer to get the slope right and fit the stones in place. Rather than putting gravel between the stones, I opted to leave it natural, imagining the Woolly Thyme, wild strawberries, and Johnny Jump-ups growing between the flagstones. Those flowers have a foothold, but the gaps between really are the perfect habitat for dandelions.

Free Food

I kept after the dandelions for a few years. But I have a neighbor who loves them. When the wind blows, it drops the seeds from her dandelions right onto my patio. Fighting the dandelions is futile. Eating them is much more practical.

According to the USDA, dandelions are one of the best vegetable sources of beta-carotene, rich in fiber, potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, thiamine and riboflavin, and protein. All of the dandelion is edible, from flower to pesky root.

Earlier this month, when the flowers were just beginning to take over the yard, my son Berg brought me a big bowlful, and asked me to fry them for him.

Trimmed for Frying

Trim the stems and the greens off the base of the flowers (those little leaves can be tough and bitter). 

Dandelion Fritters

1 cup flour 

1 tsp baking powder

Generous sprinkling of seasonings (I used thyme, red and black pepper, salt and garlic powder)

1 cup buttermilk

Whisk together the dry ingredients, then add the buttermilk. Fry petals in a hot skillet with fat of choice (I used a combination of olive oil and butter). If you press the flowers face down, they will fan out. Remove to paper towels, salt as needed, and eat while hot. 

When you tire of frying individual flowers, dump the rest in the batter and make fritters. 

Children eagerly take their vitamins if you fry them.

I wanted to try to mirror Julie's nettle pesto, but that would have meant a drive down the pass, and we were staying home this weekend. We had rain and snow on Friday, with lots of fresh new dandelion shoots when the sun came out on Saturday. 

Wash dandelions as you would any greens, in a sinkful of cold water.

Dandelion Pesto

Large bunch of dandelion greens, washed and spun dry

3 cloves garlic

1/4 cup toasted pecans

1/4 cup grated Parmesan

Olive Oil

Salt to taste

Whirl up the ingredients in your food processor, adding a thin stream of olive oil until you make a paste. I like to use pecans when making pesto from bitter greens such as dandelion, which can stand a little more fat. I also use pecans when making pesto from radish leaves and cilantro. We have a friend whose mother owns a pecan farm in Alabama, so we buy them in bulk from her every fall. 

Pesto Mis en Place

I put the result on a grilled pizza Saturday night. 

Pizza Dough (adapted from Alton Brown)

16 ounces flour (My favorite for baked goods is Blue Bird, milled in Cortez, Colorado. Thanks to Suzanne Burkle for introducing it to me!)

2.5 teaspoons dry yeast

1 Tablespoon salt 

12 ounces warm water

2 Tablespoons olive oil

.5 Tablespoon molasses

Whisk together the dry ingredients, and combine the wet. Add the wet to the dry, mixing and then kneading until it pulls together. Put dough into a clean bowl with a little olive oil, and turn the dough to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least six hours. Remove dough and let warm an hour or so before making pizza. If you're only making one pizza, just take out a third of the dough. I've kept this recipe in the refrigerator for five days, and the flavor only improves.

Preheat grill to 400, and make sure that grates are very clean. 

Cut dough into thirds. Work into a 12-inch round with your hands or a roller, on a floured board. Move pizza to a floured peel. Brush top of pizza with olive oil. Flip onto hot grill. Let cook 3-4 minutes. Brush uncooked top of pizza with olive oil, and flip over. Spread pizza with pesto, and top with red onions, roasted yellow peppers, and fresh mozzarella. Cover grill and let cook another 3-4 minutes, until cheese has melted.

Grilled Pizza with Dandelion Pesto

As any gardener knows, picking the yellow flowers and trimming back the leaves of the dandelion only leads to more flowers and leaves. If you're trying to rid your yard of them, this is maddening. If you're going to eat them all summer, it's comforting to know that they will never really go away.

Raising Foragers

Children are natural foragers. Left to their own devices, they will happily pluck anything out of the ground and pop it in their mouths. Learning what is good, and what will leave you ill, takes some education.

Unlike Julie, I wasn't raised a forager.

Dock

My epiphany with found foods came at the Cook Street School of Culinary Arts, in Denver, in 1999. After a rainy weekend, the pastry chef instructor at Cook Street brought in a few of the biggest puffballs I'd ever seen. We cooked them in butter with a little salt, garlic and parsley, and they made one of the best lunches I ate at a school known for some of the best lunches in town.

Knowing that those puffballs magically appeared after two days of rain is what made that meal so good. Finding such surprises is really just a matter of paying attention, and taking time. These are the things I hope to inspire with this blog, and the things that I hope to instill in my children.

They started learning early. My husband, now retired from the Air Force, spent his last assignment at Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Florida. We lived on the base, a peninsula jutting into St. Andrew Bay. My boys (now five and seven), spent their toddler years walking on the beach, putting things in their mouths.

Along the way, we collected raspberries, wild onions, prickly pear and scallops.

When we moved home to Colorado three years ago, my older son was thrilled to find wild strawberries in our yard. Since then, it has become our quest to forage something whenever we head outside. "Can I eat this?" is a question I hear often while hiking, or even in our own yard. 

For me, foraging means not only finding the ingredients, but testing new recipes in which to use them. Wild plums are turned into tarts, and greens are added to dinner. My husband is happy to test out whatever I come up with, trusting me not to poison him.

Whether the boys love the end product is moot.

The magic, for them, is in the find.

Wild Plum Tart