unusual foods that you have come up with

wayne stephen wrote:Atypical American uses for Peanut Butter...

Well, those pictures never showed and now aren't even linked for download, so let me try again:

My late father regularly ate peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches, a combination of his own devising. I have yet to go there, but I've gravitated to other unconventional foods, like...

Jellied Moose Nose!

Here's a recipe:

http://bertc.com/subfive/recipes/jelliednose.htm

And here's the result. The aspic was so stiff it would bounce, and I was able to slice it wafer thin:

Wow, Victor I know some gourmet shops around here that would charge a pretty penny for that - looks good!

Jeanine Gurley wrote:Wow, Victor I know some gourmet shops around here that would charge a pretty penny for that - looks good!

Thanks. It tasted good too, although I had a hard time persuading anyone else to try it.

thanks guys, i finally got that stick blender, but haven't used it yet.

I'm so sad that we continue to lose crops this year so I won't be making a lot of the jams and jellies (all the hard freezes and now we have a rust on the wild blackberries)..but I still see several recipes I hope to try.

I tried a new vegetable this year, it is called podding radish...it doesn't produce a bulb but only an edible pod..it is a little strange but tastey. I do recommend trying it as it does grow well even in our stupied weather, and it obviously produces a lot of seed to resow.

Brenda Groth wrote:
I tried a new vegetable this year, it is called podding radish...it doesn't produce a bulb but only an edible pod..it is a little strange but tastey. I do recommend trying it as it does grow well even in our stupied weather, and it obviously produces a lot of seed to resow.

I discovered those for the first time in Tamera earlier this year!



I had no idea what they were, but the pods would be served as part of their salads, and after a few days I began to notice them growing around the place so I photographed them to see if I could figure out what they were.

Re: KALE CHIPS. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast and the nutty cheese flavour is a great complimentary taste.

Veggie roll ups. Create a slurry of veg in the same fashion as with fruit roll ups, smooth over parchment paper in the dehydrator.

Yes ! Jellied moose nose . I wonder how I can get moose nose in Kentucky , hmmm ? I have had steamed lambs head , I packed all the openings with fresh herbs -thyme , oregano , rosemary - and steamed until tender. My daughter came home from school and ran to the pot " whats for dinner AAAHHHH !" . Sorry.
She had weiners and mac-cheese. The cheeks were delicious as well as the tongue. I could not bring myself to eat the eyes or brain , but every other part was delicious. Question - do you take off the skin when picking the meat off the moose nose - I did not see that instruction in the recipe?

Wayne, I would imagine that you just pick the whole nose. (hee - hee) Sorry, couldn't pass that up.

Meat cookies. I know this sounds like yuk. But I made meat cookies for the dogs and I. Like a basic cookie dough, no sugar and cooked meat. They were tasty. Like a biscuit roll with meat in it. Not bad.

Leila Rich wrote:Lacto-fermented garlic. Only if you're a garlic fan!
I had waaay too much garlic last year, including many quite small cloves.
Pour boiling water over unpeeled cloves, leave for a minute, drain and cover with cold water. Skin should come off easily.
Pack into small jars, sprinkle with uniodised salt and top up with whey or good water. Cover loosely with non-reactive lids, Lactobacillus is alive and heat kills it...
Stash for a couple of months. The fermentation process creates lactic acid which kills pathogens.
Mine was really tasty. Not raw garlic hot, but crunchy. I added whole star anise and chilli to some. Great on rice with soy and veges.

I am confused about lacto-fermentation...my only source of information has been "Nourishing Traditions" where the author says "Lacto-fernentation is an anaerobic process and the presence of oxygen, once fermentation has begun, will ruin the final product." So, I am carefully tightening my jar lids, fermenting 2-3 days then loosening the lid and refrigerating and am having great success but apparently the process is broader than this.. I tried to start a thread just for lacto-fermentation questions, etc. but no response so I am asking an off topic question here. I am also enjoying the recipes.. thanks for any input.

I still have my lacto fermentation question...
but also want to share our maybe not so unusual but really good summer salad that we keep a big bowl full of in the refrigerator. It's basically brown basmati rice, garbonzo beans , sprouted lentils, onions, good olive oil, good apple cider vinegar (and/or juice from a jar of lacto fermentated pickles), arugula, green onion, garlic cloves, garlic chives, kale, any thing else edible from the garden.......
cucumbers, green peppers, rosemary, etc.... then chunks of cheese, tempeh, tuna or egg

Judith, I think the best information on lacto-fermentation comes from Sandor Katz. I have his book, Wild Fermentation, but not his newest one. I make many lacto-ferments every year, usually in the fall so I can store them in my cool/cold root cellar rather than take up refrigerator space.

Here's a post you might enjoy, from his website:
Vegetable Fermentation Further Simplified
http://www.wildfermentation.com/vegetable-fermentation-further-simplified-2/

Aerobic vs Anaerobic Fermentation Controversy
http://www.wildfermentation.com/aerobic-vs-anaerobic-fermentation-controversy/

My French Cousine's Salad.

Cooked white or brown rice.
Cooked peas from your garden.
Red Onion , diced.
Green onion, sliced diagonally.
Cherry tomatoes, cut in half.
Cubes of strong cheese like gouda or Jarlsberg (1 cm cube)
Artichoke hearts, cooked and cubed.
Pepper, red or orange or yellow, cut in 1 cm cubes size.
New potatoes, boiled/cooled down and cubed into small 1 cm. cubes.
Parsley, chopped.
Egg, hard boiled and but in 1/4 (for garnish on top and placed there at serving time only)

Vinaigrette- 3 parts olive oil
1 part good quality red wine vinegar
Lots of garlic, crushed.
1 Tbsp. dijon mustard.
S&P to taste.

Let the salad rest all mixed up in your fridge overnight. (Everything except the hard boiled egg garnish)
Sprinkle with paprika and a little extra parsley at serving time and voila!! It's dinner on a hot summer eve. with a wine and some olives and bread.

Mushroom Quiche

1 3/4 C white flour
1/4 C w/w flour
2/3 C Cold butter.
Approx. 4 Tbsp. Ice Cold water!

Mix with pastry cutter and cold hands. Keep them cold in ice water! I kid you not.

12 eggs
1/2 C Sour Cream- highest fat available.
1c whipping cream
Mix all together.

Fry up Onions and Wild Harvested Mushrooms 'til dry (high heat, please.) With Butter, of course.

Top with 2 C cheese -a Swiss/Mozza mixture.

Fill quiche with all your quiche egg mixture.

Bake @ 350 for 1:20 to 1:40. Covered with foil for all but the last 20 minutes.

Internal temp should be 180degrees and it shouldn't be jiggly.

Real men eat anything with eggs and cheese. Why no BACON?

oh I love bacon..I eat it nearly every day . Did find a new store bought bacon by oscar mayer that is uncured and nitrate/nitrite free and it has a good flavor..I'd buy it over the other ones just for the fact that it has less chemicals..

On the food network they make a lot of bacan candy..which I have never tried. You basically spread something sweet over the bacon before cooking it..to carmalize it. I have even seen such oddities as chocolate covered bacon and bacon ice cream.

Brenda, have you read The “No Nitrites Added” Hoax?
http://ruhlman.com/2011/05/the-no-nitrites-added-hoax/

darius Van d'Rhys wrote:Judith, I think the best information on lacto-fermentation comes from Sandor Katz. I have his book, Wild Fermentation, but not his newest one. I make many lacto-ferments every year, usually in the fall so I can store them in my cool/cold root cellar rather than take up refrigerator space.

Here's a post you might enjoy, from his website:
Vegetable Fermentation Further Simplified
http://www.wildfermentation.com/vegetable-fermentation-further-simplified-2/

Thanks, Darius...Wild Fermentation is at our library and I think I am the only one who checks it out! I'll have to get it the next time I am in town and see if they can order his newest one....I know what you mean about refrigerator space but I am never sure what my garden will produce in the fall.

A few unusual combinations - but not as strange as moose nose:

Grilled cheese sandwiches with pickle slices (learned from a neighbor)
Grilled cheese sandwiches with guacamole (learned from my ex)
Sprouted lentil hash: Sprout some lentils. When they are showing roots & little leaves, brown diced potatoes & onions in a cast iron skillet and stir in the lentills towards the end. Season to taste.
Avocado and grapefruit salad (I got that from Joy of Cooking, which is pretty mainstream, but no-one I serve it to has ever had it.) You can serve it as alternating wedges of peeled graprefruit slices and avocodo slices for a pretty presentation.
Jicama root with lime juice (warning: large quantities cause painful gas. I found that out first time I served it. My whole anthro study group found out.)
Marherita pizza using lemon basil instead of plain basil: top a pizza crust with olive oil, mozarerella cheese and basil leaves. Lemon basil gives a fresh lemony burst of flavor.

amaranth flour sweet potato samosas.


amaranth flour, oil, salt, water. make a dough, roll it out.

add cooked sweet potatoes and whatever spices you like.

fold up the filling inside the dough.

cook samosas in the oven for a while (30 min?) at the temp. of hot

proposed result, crispy samosas that are good travel food

oh yeah, here's another one

tea temperature, drinkably hot water mixed with molasses and sourkraut juice. mmm.

No mention of nettles yet - if you like bacon, cook the nettles much like southern kale and bacon. Nettles have huge amounts of nutrients, just do not eat them raw.

I noticed the post a few days back and was searching my brain for really rare north american foods. The wildest one I came up with is skunkberry (skunkbrush), a furry red berry that was used in pemmican. It grows where currants grow and the leaves look very much like ribes leaves, but they have three separate lobes instead of one single leaf. Truthfully the only consumption I have done so far was making a wine-flavor test tea. Should work for jelly, wine, or sauces. The name comes from the smell under removed bark, not from the berries.

Another interesting food is breadroot, wild turnip. Do not know if they occur as far east as michigan, I have both standard and silver types on the property. It is often used in traditional stew, baape (sp). Dried corn, venison, and breadroot are the three main constituents. All were stored in portable dried form.

Beyond morels, there are a very large number of edible mushrooms in michigan. many have unique beneficial compounds.

The strangest thing that I have wild harvested but never ate is green fungus. I am sure there is another name but it is sold in oriental markets as green fungus. after a substantial rainfall, the barren clay hills on the ranch sprouted this crazy green kelp looking stuff overnight. It is edible but I have not tried it.

Last week I was shopping for meat at my local farmers market. The place that I get my humanely raised pork had little bales of hay for sale with a recipe on the label that said to place a ham in a large pot, pack the hay around it, cover with cold water and slowly simmer for 20 minutes per pound.

The hay was mostly timothy grass (I saw one plantain and 1 dandelion flower) cut just as the timothy was starting to put up its bloom. It was still quite green and very sweet smelling. At first it was delightful at the end of a long winter to smell freshly mowed grass as it started to cook, but as time went on it became quite cloying. Next time I do this I'll wait until it's warm enough to open some windows.

The meat was delicious, at once fresh, earthy and pungent, the flavours were subtle not overpowering at all. Anyway it lead me to think, why not herbs of different types selected to go with the type of meat being boiled. Boiled meat is always so bland.

Wohoo, gluten-free travel food!

Kelson Water wrote: amaranth flour sweet potato samosas.


amaranth flour, oil, salt, water. make a dough, roll it out.

add cooked sweet potatoes and whatever spices you like.

fold up the filling inside the dough.

cook samosas in the oven for a while (30 min?) at the temp. of hot

proposed result, crispy samosas that are good travel food

My last banana soup....
I boil onions and leeks, what comes out of the garden. Well, there was also some plantago leaves and celery.
Then I finish cooking with some very ripe bananas (the reason I cooked them...)
Best if you add some bone broth!
I mixed all but the fibrous celery. Comes out creamy from the banana.

I make omelets with nasturtium leaves, and a few flowers for the colour. I put the flowers in salads because they are not so strong.

I have had a bumper crop of Vates Curly mustard greens this year; I included it in some Fukuoka-style seed tossing during the winter and it's one of the few things that grew up out in my woods without care or attention.

It's gorgeous stuff but fiery as the pits of hell under my growing conditions. And the catch is, I really don't like cooked mustard greens very well.

So I have been making mustard pesto (oil-free because that's how I roll, though it would be better with oil).

No real recipe, I basically just chop the mustard loosely to facilitate cramming it in my food processor. As much as I think will fit with vigorous cramming. Typically I start with pecans (instead of the traditional walnuts) because I have my own (hence free) pecans; a cup of shelled pecans per batch makes it wonderfully rich, but half a cup will do if I'm feeling lazy about shelling. Pecans first, process them lightly, add a few tablespoons of liquid (I typically use almond milk for nut flavor and richness), and a couple of cups of whatever allium greens you have in surplus -- chives, leek leaves, garlic leaves, green onions, scallion tops, wild onions, you get the idea. Usually I use a mix; first I give my chives a haircut and then if I'm short I go looking for larger alliums that seem to have more leaves than they need just now. You could use bulb onions or garlic if that's what you have in surplus, but I would guess you'd want to use less.

So: nuts, liquid, alliums, process until fairly smooth. Then start cramming in mustard. If it simply refuses to process despite several pokes with your spatula, add another splash of liquid (as little as possible, be patient, the blades will usually catch eventually if you give them some time). Once the mass is processing smoothly and sucking loose leaves on top well into its whirling maelstrom of death, you can poke more mustard leaf chunks in there, until your processing bowl is as full as you're comfortable with. Then salt to your taste, and keep blending. You cannot blend too much. You CAN blend too little. Taste, sample, be sure you're done.

Result: rich green paste with a strong flavor. Not very similar to the basil/walnut/oil stuff, but very tasty and healthy. I like to make a large flat loaf (like focacccia, baked on a pizza pan) of whole wheat herb bread (usually flour, water, salt, and fresh oregano leaves). I usually get two or three meals out of my batch of pesto and my loaf of bread.

Rubaboo! AKA pemmican soup.