Old World Escarole and Beans
A very simple way to utilize escarole to make a quick hearty meal. We made it recently to ease our abundance of escarole
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How my girlfriend got worms
Breanna and I have talked all winter about ordering worms and starting a worm farm in the basement. It isn’t a massive undertaking and surely didn’t need the level of discussion that we gave it, but for some reason, we didn’t pull the trigger.
Worms really aren’t that complicated to keep (at least we are hoping they aren’t). You basically just need a dark container that will easily drain so their environment doesn’t get too soggy. You don’t generally keep them in soil, you need a bedding material, and bedding is simple, it can be shredded newspaper or cardboard. We decided to construct a simple starter “farm” for our first attempt. It is two spackle buckets, one which has holes drilled into it for drainage and is nested inside the second bucket. This will be our mini compost bin.
But why does anyone need to keep worms? This is the question you will hear most often if you ever decide to keep them yourself. There are actually a lot of reasons:
1. They reproduce easily and can be added to the garden or a cold compost pile.
2. They produce nutrient rich worm castings (manure) which can easily be sifted from the bedding and used in seed starting or as a fertilizer for plants.
3. They can survive off of food scraps, coffee grounds, etc, so they are good at composting waste.
4. The water that drains out of the farm is also nutrient rich can be used to boost the growth of transplants or houseplants.
5. They are delicious. I don’t know if that is true, nor am I planning to find out.
So Breanna finally decided to order our worms. She found a reputable worm dealer and for the low price of $19.99 ordered 1000 worms (she found a 5% off coupon, so it was a bit cheaper). The worms would be mailed out on Monday. The problem is, we were having road construction done and it wasnt finished yet. So by Wednesday, we had gotten no mail for two days and weren’t sure if it was because we were unpopular or because the mailman couldn’t get to the box. So Breanna called the post office. I was shocked when they didn’t hang up after hearing “We are expecting a delivery of live worms and wanted to check to see if the post office is holding our mail.” They were not holding our worms, so we checked the tracking number online and found out our worms had left Pennsylvania and were currently in Texas. This is the opposite direction they needed to be travelling in. But on Friday, our worms showed up. They were bunched up in a ball and Breanna spread them out a bit to let them get their land legs, then she lovingly dumped them in their new spackle bucket home. They are still there a week later and seem to be doing fine. We will keep you updated on their progress.
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The Gathering of the Fiddleheads and Ramps
I guess since it is our first official post, its makes sense to talk about our Fiddlehead
gathering. For those who don’t know, fiddleheads are baby ostrich ferns that are collected soon after they pop up out of the ground. It is sort of a rite of spring to keep checking the woods to see if they are up. When they are, the ramps are usually ready as well. Ramps are another wild edible that are very popular around here. They are called a wild leek, but they have a bit more of a garlicky taste if you ask me.
We are lucky to have a very large area we can hunt. This year however, we were a little late in getting out into the woods. The main reason was that I had injured my back unloading a truckload of manure (I really need to make up a better story). But for the most part, I’ve been laid up and Breanna knows that I don’t have enough self control to take it easy if we had gone into the woods before I was more on the mend. We went out today, but I wasn’t much help at all, and we didn’t get as large a haul as we had hoped, but that wasn’t all my fault.
The area we collect in is an island, or at least its a seasonal island and it is right next to one of our growing areas. It is owned by Breanna’s mother and step father and they let us gather all we wish as they only gather a small amount of the wild edibles for themselves. It is on the edge of a river and when the water is high enough, it makes a seasonal river on the other side of the island as well. Most of the time, this seasonal stream is a trickle, but last spring it was running pretty well and we had to wade across a frigid, fast moving river to get to our happy hunting grounds.
The island covers about ten acres, it is loaded with fiddleheads, and has a few acres of ramps growing on it. It is sort of a dream spot for gathering. So I hobbled along, and Breanna carried the bucket with the scissors and trowel. I cant really bend down so she started cutting some fiddleheads and I wandered around taking pictures for this blog and making silly comments. It was a beautiful day and we were very close to the ramp field. Against doctors orders I took a trowel and started to pull out a few ramps. Im paying for it at the moment as my back is aching, but I think I’ve already mentioned my lack of self control. The thing about ramps and fiddleheads is that you don’t want to over harvest. You want to only take a few fiddleheads from each crown, and we try to thin out the clumps of ramps so that they grow bigger and have some room to spread out. Its relaxing and on a warm spring day, next to the river, its easy to fall into a trance like state. I had gathered a small handful of ramps and I didn’t see Breanna nearby, so I walked over to the edge of the island to check out the knotweed.
Knotweed is an invasive species but it is also edible. It isn’t the most versatile plant in the world and you could probably never really eat enough to wipe out a stand of it. It grows very thickly and it sort of resembles bamboo. Last year we gathered some and pickled them, it basically tasted like a soft cardboard straw, pickled into tastelessness. I think we only opened one jar and still have the rest on a shelf somewhere. Im sure we will pickle more this year.
After inspecting the knotweed, I saw Breanna standing in the middle of the ramps, so I walked over and dropped the ramps in the bucket, as I dropped them in, I noticed there weren’t many fiddleheads in it. I was about to say something about it when Breanna said “Don’t forget to keep an eye out for morels”. At that a flash went off in my head, I had forgotten about the morels. They are a very popular wild mushroom in the area and I had recently read that they were spotted in the county south of us, so it was reasonable to think they might be up around here. Morels grow around dead ash trees, and there is one over there, and another over there, off I went. I have never found one but we are both hoping to find some this year. I was scouring the ground, oblivious to the fact that I had been distracted, and it was all too easy.
What you need to know about my better half is that she has some mild obsessions. One of them is collecting seeds. Last year she collected quite a few seeds from many varieties of the plants we had grown and some of them are growing happily under lights as I write, waiting for their chance to be transplanted into the garden. When I said she “collected quite a few”, what I meant was that she collected all she could find. So if for some reason, all the Bronze fennel, Dill, and Cilantro were to disappear from the face of the earth, we could easily get the Northeast back up to its current level of those plants by the end of the year.
So what had just happened was, Breanna had distracted her slow witted boyfriend so she would be free to collect every ramp seed on the island. She must have noticed some seeds and forgotten about the fiddleheads which would explain the deficient level of fiddleheads in the bucket. But after a scant 45 minutes of walking around, trying to identify dead trees, searching in the dead leaves around those trees, and trying to find mushrooms that look and awful lot like dead leaves themselves, my back was getting pretty sore. I was close by Breanna again by this time.
“What are you doing?” I asked, suddenly realizing what had just happened
“Collecting a few seeds, you don’t have a small bag on you, do you?”
“No” I replied
“Too bad, this would be much easier if I had a bag or envelope or something” she said as she dumped some seeds into her breast pocket.
“Sorry” was all I could think to reply
“Ready to go?” she asked as if she were waiting for me to finish my mushroom hunt.
“Sure”
So we crossed back over the little stream with a handful of ramps, half a handful of fiddleheads and a pocket full of seeds.
Beet, orange, and arugula salad
A light, fairly easy salad. We made some changes to the original that I will post at the end of the recipe
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp orange juice freshly squeezed
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 Tbsp olive oil extra virgin
- 2 large or 4 small beets roasted, peeled and cut in rounds or half-moons (depending on the size)
- 1 lb oranges peel and pith removed, cut into slices or half-moons (depending on the size)
- 4 cups wild or baby arugula
- 2 Tbsp cilantro chopped
- 1/4 cup walnuts chopped
Servings:
Instructions
- In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the orange juice, balsamic vinegar, sherry or red wine vinegar, salt and pepper, and oils. Taste and adjust the acidity, adding a little more vinegar or orange juice if desired.
- Toss the beets with 1 tablespoon of the dressing. Toss the arugula with 3 tablespoons of the remaining dressing and arrange on a platter or in a wide bowl. Arrange the beets and oranges on top of the arugula in an alternating pattern and drizzle on the remaining dressing. Top with the cilantro and walnuts, and serve.
Recipe Notes
We used canned beets as ours arent ready, we also used only balsamic vinegar and substituted the cilantro with arugula microgreens. The original recipe is from the New York Times and can be found here.
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